Placing Security Cameras—There’s More to it Than You Think

I am actively looking to purchase a house. If you have tried to buy in Utah anytime in the past five years, you know that this is near impossible and that the market is absolutely nuts. Also, if you’re thinking about moving to Utah, please wait until I purchase a home—I’m getting really tired of being outbid. Anyways, I gave my realtor two requirements for any home we look at—the most important one being that I need to have a place for my piano. Not only is it one of four pieces of furniture I own, but it’s my favorite.

Finding a starter home with space for a baby grand piano hasn’t been easy, though not entirely hopeless. The placement of that piano is the most important thing to me. I want it in a front room, not hidden away in a bedroom. Preferably, the front room would have hardwood floors and vaulted ceilings to optimize the acoustics. Carpet and low ceilings mute the resonance of a piano, making the sound quality less rich.

The placement of things matters, and not just in musical instruments. Another example is in your garden. Did you know there are plants that grow better when they are placed next to other specific plants? It’s called companion planting. For example, carrots grow better when they are planted in close proximity to beans, lettuce, onions, and peas. But if you plant carrots next to dill, it will retard their growth. Onions do very well next to beets, the cabbage family, strawberries, and carrots but will stunt the growth of any nearby beans or peas.

Another thing that requires careful placement is security cameras. The cameras have to actually look at what you want to observe. That much is obvious. You have to have good sightlines. But the trickier part is dealing with obstructions, power, and other requirements.

Obstructions can come in many forms—building, plants, vehicles, infrastructure, snow, and more. Remember, some of these may not interfere with the camera’s main sightline but may obstruct when you move the camera or only during certain parts of the year. For example, you decide to place a camera outside your building, looking at the main gate. You take the time to find a great sightline and install the camera at the perfect height. However, between the main gate and the camera is a tree. During the fall and winter, you can see the main gate through the branches, but what happens in spring and summer when that tree grows leaves? Suddenly, your perfect view is ruined and you can’t see your main gate.

Obstructions can also block more than just your sightlines. For example, LVT Units are mostly solar powered security cameras. As with anything that runs off of solar, light actually has to reach the panels in order for the units to work. Luckily, our units have back-up batteries and smart generators so they don’t rely solely on solar power. In Washington, Montana, or upstate New York, you expect these problems. Clouds, rain, and snow will make it hard for the panels to get enough light during the winter months.

However, I recently spoke to an LVT client in Florida. With a nickname of “Sunshine State” you would expect plenty of light to power our security trailers. But that wasn’t the case. Our client needed security under freeway overpasses and near large buildings. But that meant placing our solar powered units in perpetual shade. Luckily, we were able to work with the client on where to place the units on the property so most of them received adequate power. In the areas where this wasn’t feasible, we equipped the units with smart generators to ensure they would never lose power.

Another client had a similar experience with a unit in California, but his was only during the summer. He had inadvertently parked the LVT Unit beneath a large tree. During the fall and winter, the unit functioned perfectly. However, when summer came around, the tree blocked the light and caused power issues. We worked with this client to relocate the unit to a different spot on the property where it could still observe what it needed to see.

More goes into placing a CCTV trailer than just rolling it on site and cranking up the mast. Instead, it requires planning and help from our experts. Our implementation team has dealt with it all—snow, trees, buildings, vehicles, solar power requirements. You name it and we have worked around it to ensure that our customers have a mobile surveillance unit where they need it, when they need it. To learn more about where we can place these units, contact us for a free demo.