Home Security Camera Systems Help Aucklanders Protect Their Families

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This page will save you a lot of time researching home security camera systems!    On this page you’ll find info about:

1. The different types of home security cameras available such as wired, wireless, outdoor, indoor, and motion-activated cameras.
2. Advice about the best places to install cameras for optimal coverage.  
3. Information on the legalities of installing and using home security camera systems.  
4. Links to Tutorials on how to use these systems effectively.  
5. A really useful discussion of the typical problems people have with their home CCTV.  
6. Resources like videos or blogs explaining how these systems work.  
7. You’ll even find a list to answer the question “Why bother?”.
8. Click this link to learn a bit more about a home security system, before you read on.
9. Finally a link you can just click to get answers to your CCTV FAQs.

Let’s go!

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF HOME CCTV AVAILABLE

You don’t need to get overwhelmed by all the technical & equipment choices out there.  Here’s a few “rules” that’ll save you hours of wasted time considering stuff that just doesn’t matter!  

Rule 1:  Wired not wireless.  It’s always better for the cameras to be wired to the recorder or the home network.  Don’t worry about how the wire gets run, that’s a problem for the professional installer to solve - and we’re good at solving it!  Wireless is simply inherently less reliable than a cable, so only consider wireless as a last resort, for example where running a wire would be extremely difficult ( nothing is impossible ) or too expensive.

Rule 2:  Outdoor not indoor.  Almost every one of the thousands of home security camera systems we’ve installed, have used 100% outdoor cameras.  Remember you’re trying to protect your home and the best way to do that is to see who’s outside it and who comes near it.  I’ve always felt uncomfortable about indoor cameras because that’s where people live their private lives, and if it’s on the internet it can be attacked by hackers.  Of course at the end of the day it’s up to you.  One case for an indoor camera is an area such as an entry lobby through which any bad guy must pass once they’ve gained entry.  Such a camera can be useful to notify you if it senses movement because unlike outdoor cameras, it won’t be prone to so many false alarms.  So, if you’re away from home and you strat getting a lot f notifications from that camera you’ll pay attention to it.

Rule 3: Motion-activated not continuous recording.  Again almost 100% of the home security camera systems we install use motion-activated recording.  In other words if the camera doesn’t sense any movement, it doesn’t record.  This has two important benefits - first it means you record more days, and second it makes searching for an incident a bit easier.

Rule 4:  Shape?  Eyeball dome not bullets.  They’re just the simplest and most rugged type of cameras for homes and they normally look the best too.  Nobody wants a huge housing on the outside of their house these days.  Bullet style cameras might rarely be worthwhile if you need a very big zoom lens for some reason, but unlikely as most home cameras are wide angle ( which means short lenses which fit beautifully into the eyeball shape ).

Rule 5:  Local not “cloud”.  Don’t waste money and bandwidth on cloud storage.  Nobody is going to steal your recorder ( not unless you’re the first one out of thousands of our clients ).  Your system records to hard drives inside your recorder which is in your house, and you access those recordings from anywhere using the internet.  

THE BEST POSITIONS TO INSTALL CAMERAS AROUND A HOUSE

Again you could tie yourself up in knots debating this forever but here’s what happens in the real world of home security camera systems. Every house is different, but not that different.

First, imagine you’ve already got your CCTV installed and ask yourself “what do I want to see?”

Over thousands of installs here’s what most people want eyeballs on, again all from the outside of the house:

DRIVEWAY - often the most obvious point of entry into your property.  Also great for resolving issues with courier drop-offs.  This one is also probably the one people will see from the street so it’s a good deterrent.

FRONT DOOR - handy to have a clear record of everyone who shows up here.  Courier drop offs again.

REAR & SIDES - almost always a good idea because bad guys may want to be out of sight as they suss out how they’ll get inside your house.

THE LEGALITY OF INSTALLING HOME SECURITY CAMERA SYSTEMS

Fortunately New Zealand Privacy laws don’t apply to your home CCTV.  You’re entitled to protect yourself.   Here’s a link to a page which talks about this and the Office of the privacy Commissioner in a bit more detail.

LINKS TO TUTORIALS ON HOW TO USE YOUR HOME SECURITY CAMERA SYSTEM

Use our Help Page and our YouTube Channel.

We’ve always been acutely aware that you probably don’t use your CCTV system every day & it’s likely you’ll forget how to do stuff.

That’s why we’ve always tried to put up videos and other guides to make life as easy possible for you.

Your best bet to start off is always our help page.  If you get stuck get in touch and we’re always happy to help.

Again to save you time, always remember you probably only need to know how to do three things:

1:  Look at live video

2:  Find recorded video

3:  Give it to the Police

WHAT PROBLEMS HAPPEN?

To read a typical story of home CCTV problems click here.

Nothing is 100% problem-free in life, and most issues aren’t caused by the system itself.  

Use our Help Page or get in touch via the Contact Us page.  I promise we don’t bite, and we do keep excellent records of your CCTV info, nice and secure in our system.  We know it’s what happens after the install that matters!

WHY BOTHER WITH A HOME SECURITY CAMERA SYSTEM?

Why we fitted security cameras at our place:

• To make burglars think twice.
• To make us sleep easier at night.
• To stop 'home invasion', walk-in burglaries in the daytime. These are unfortunately on the increase right across Auckland. (Alarms are useless because they're not on when we're at home.)
• To catch door to door scam artists. (They often pretend to be tree-fellers in our neighborhood).
• To help keep an eye on our toddler. Sometimes it's great to glance at a screen and confirm she's where we think she is!
• So we can check in when we're away. (No unauthorised parties at our house!)
• So we can check contractors actually came round when they said they did.
• To see where and when the pet escaped!  We’ve used it for bunnies escaping hutches and several dog bids for freedom. 

HOME SECURITY CAMERA SYSTEMS FAQS

Here’s a link you can just click to get answers to your FAQs about home security cameras.

Should I buy cheap security cameras?

What is the best home security camera without subscription monthly payments?

CLOSING THOUGHTS AND A WEE LAUGH

A home security video camera never sleeps and never blinks.

Home Security Camera Systems are no longer the privilege of the rich. Thousands of Aucklanders use home security camera setups to deter burglars and keep an eye on the place when they're away.

By the way if you want a good laugh check out this link and see whether you think this guy could be the world's stupidest burglar caught on home CCTV?

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