Surveillance Camera Setup

Last week I was asked on 4 separate occasions what I use for my surveillance cameras. While this is usually a simple answer for most, it isn’t for me. My system wasn’t the cheapest, easiest to put together, or operate, but I like having control and being able to select my components. Since my cameras are clearly visible on my house, I’m not giving away any secrets about them.

So here it goes.

I have Q-See QCN7001B IP cameras (they appear to have been replaced by the Q-See QCN7005B). These cameras are PoE (Power over Ethernet) so that there is only one cable going from the camera to a PoE switch. These are 720p cameras with IR capability. The picture is pretty clear and the night vision is very good. They’ve been up for almost 2 years without any problems.

The cameras are hard wired (when we renovated our house, I was able to run all the wires in the walls back into an equipment closet) into a Cisco SG 300-10P PoE switch. While the switch is managed, I don’t use any of the management capabilities. When I was shopping around, there weren’t many rack mount PoE switches available without a fan.

Since I already run a Mac Mini as a server (media, video, build server), I wanted to record all the video onto that; this reduces the need for a separate device, gives me a choice of software to record, as well as keep noise and power consumption down. On the Mac Mini, I run SecuritySpy. It isn’t the prettiest piece of software, but it works well and has the options I need for rolling over video, recording stills, etc. It also has a web interface if I wanted to use that and port forward through my router.

For remote access to SecuritySpy, I use an app called Remote Patrol on my iPhone as well as iPad. There is a bit of configuration involved here, but it wasn’t difficult for me.

So what does this setup (which isn’t cheap) buy me over an off the shelf solution? Well, it allows me to easily backup all the video and configuration (just use a standard Mac backup program like SuperDuper!, it allows me to run a very energy efficient recording device (the Mac Mini is pretty efficient in terms of power usage compared to a standalone box), and I can swap out my cameras at any time (that’s a huge reason to use PoE over any other type of camera).

What do I lose with my setup? Ease of installation is a big one and easy of use (that may be debatable as I’ve seen the interface for one at my parents’ condo). It also requires me to handle all the backups which a cloud based solution has that under control for you.

I definitely wouldn’t recommend this to the average consumer and am, in fact, looking for something to recommend.