With the festive season looming ahead, many people will be enjoying time off work and planning on making trips to see family and loved ones across the country. As a result of this, they will be leaving homes unattended for days at a time. In addition, many businesses also lay vacant for anywhere between 1-3 weeks at a time over the Christmas and New Year period. Whether home or business, when left empty, they’re sitting targets for thieves.
Home and workplace security are a huge part of the modern world we live in. Businesses rely on CCTV cameras and alarm systems; homes have digitally connected doorbells with remote monitoring and even pets have camera feeds so we can check in on them while out of the house. Forget the blurry, jumpy CCTV imaging of the early 00s, these days we have systems that are super high quality and available to view in real-time.
The Evolution of CCTV
While closed-circuit television might be something that is expected, and as such often blends into the background of streets, buildings, public transport, and homes, this wasn’t always the case. Video monitoring has been about for almost 80 years and was initially set up to monitor V-2 rockets. It wasn’t long before this evolved into something more closely resembling the systems we have today.
Prior to CCTV, protecting homes and businesses was down to security guards to monitor suspicious activity in person. The introduction of cameras and remote monitoring allowed for much more efficient practice.
Much like films, CCTV was primitive until technical developments lead to the introduction of VCRs in the 70s. Analogue made way for digital developments including multiplexing – viewing multiple cameras on one monitor – improved performance and use of CCTV systems.
These days, CCTV cameras are much more discreet, high quality and usually hooked up to remote monitoring of some kind – whether through a security company for business or through a smartphone for a home to allow us to feel a little safer.
Is CCTV still Important?
With so many home kits available, how important is CCTV in today’s ever-connected world? For many businesses and homeowners, the answer is very.
Whether you live in an area where crime is on the rise or policing has been cut, nobody wants to find that their property has been broken into. Beyond the cost of replacing any damaged property, it can lead to a sense of fear for homeowners and staff, which is why CCTV and remote monitoring are still so popular.
For many homeowners, the addition of security lights simply isn’t enough of a deterrent with thieves braver and bolder than ever before. As a result, there has been a big surge in popularity for products like smart doorbells. These allow high-quality imaging, with cloud storage and remote monitoring that is motion activated.
There are many pros and cons of smart doorbells; pros include: you can always be at home, at least to anyone who knocks on your door, they work in harmony with smart home technology such as Alexa or Google Home and they mean your home is never truly left unattended. On the other hand, cons include: they can be expensive, they are fairly obvious looking and require some DIY know-how to install.
For businesses, utilizing remote monitoring security systems can be far more complex. You can click this link to see the process in more detail. That being said, a heightened presence from systems like this can save a business much more than the outgoings as they act as highly efficient deterrents.
All things considered, it would be fair to say there is still a need and a place for CCTV in today’s digital world, however, improvements in technology have ultimately led to a new wave of products to use alongside the traditional cameras we are so used to.