8 Must-Have Features for Home Security Cameras

Home secu­ri­ty cam­eras give you a clear pic­ture of what’s hap­pen­ing at your home. But it would be best to be care­ful which cam­era sys­tem you buy.

There are numer­ous styles of home secu­ri­ty cam­eras on the mar­ket these days, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, many of the cheap­er DIY options lack the essen­tial fea­tures you need to keep your home safe.

If you’re look­ing for a pro­fes­sion­al sys­tem to pro­tect your home, here are eight fea­tures to look for.

What to look for in home secu­ri­ty cam­eras

1) Professional monitoring capability

While it’s essen­tial that you can access your live cam­era feed (more on that below), you need to con­sid­er what might hap­pen when you’re unable to view the footage. With pro­fes­sion­al mon­i­tor­ing from an inde­pen­dent mon­i­tor­ing cen­ter like PROTECTION PLUS, you can be sure that alarm-trig­gered video footage is ver­i­fied by trained dis­patch­ers who can send author­i­ties to your home imme­di­ate­ly.

2) Live remote viewing

What good are your home secu­ri­ty cam­eras if you can’t see the footage? If you’re away from home, you should be able to view the live video stream on your smart­phone or com­put­er. So you can check on the kids, see what’s hap­pen­ing at the front door and ensure your home is safe.

3) Smart notifications

Look for secu­ri­ty cam­eras that alert you to activ­i­ty on your prop­er­ty, such as some­one walk­ing in your front yard. The best cam­era sys­tems allow you to define what trig­gers these noti­fi­ca­tions on your phone. Addi­tion­al­ly, some sys­tems can be con­fig­ured to ignore every­day activ­i­ties you don’t want to be alert­ed about, such as dri­ving by car.

4) Night vision

Make sure your cam­eras can see in the dark. With­out night-vision capa­bil­i­ties or motion-trig­gered lights, you won’t be able to see what hap­pens after night, mak­ing them use­less.

5) Weather resistance

The cam­eras may be designed for indoor, out­door, or both. Ensur­ing that any out­door cam­eras are specif­i­cal­ly built to with­stand the ele­ments is cru­cial. With­out prop­er weath­er resis­tance, mois­ture and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors can eas­i­ly dam­age out­door cam­eras.

6) Ample storage

The method of video stor­age can vary depend­ing on the spe­cif­ic cam­era sys­tem and set­up. Some cam­era sys­tems allow for local stor­age on the sys­tem itself, while oth­ers pro­vide options for cloud stor­age or even a com­bi­na­tion of both.

Fac­tors such as the cam­er­a’s stor­age capac­i­ty and the select­ed stor­age option deter­mine the num­ber of videos that can be saved and the dura­tion of stor­age. Cheap cam­era sys­tems may have lim­it­ed local stor­age, which may require addi­tion­al expens­es for month­ly cloud stor­age if you want to save a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of videos.

To get accu­rate and detailed infor­ma­tion about the stor­age capa­bil­i­ties of a spe­cif­ic cam­era sys­tem, it is best to con­sult the man­u­fac­tur­er’s spec­i­fi­ca­tions or prod­uct doc­u­men­ta­tion.

More robust sys­tems allow you to keep vir­tu­al­ly all your footage, so you nev­er miss a moment.

7) High-definition video

Why both­er record­ing any­thing if you can’t tell what you see in the footage? Look for secu­ri­ty sys­tems that record and save your footage in high-def­i­n­i­tion video so that the images are crys­tal clear.

8) Scalability

For prop­er secu­ri­ty, you’ll need mul­ti­ple cam­eras posi­tioned around your prop­er­ty. Oth­er­wise, you’re leav­ing your home at risk. Ensure you can eas­i­ly scale your sys­tem with more cam­eras to cap­ture every angle effec­tive­ly.

Get more infor­ma­tion

Con­tact us at PROTECTION PLUS for more infor­ma­tion on safe­guard­ing your home with pro­fes­sion­al home secu­ri­ty cam­eras from a lead­ing Toron­to secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny.