Security & Surveillance
Explore cameras, door access and recording in one connected building.
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Project guide
Cameras on the building cover the entrance, the corner and the yard. The recorder stays indoors and writes to surveillance drives. Meraki licences, where a camera needs one, are delivered in the Meraki Dashboard rather than as a box on the shelf.
What each part does17 parts
Dome camera
A dome under the soffit or just inside the entrance covers a doorway and the people using it, and the vandal-resistant bubble keeps the lens from being turned away. Mount it where the face is lit. A camera looking out from a dark lobby into daylight will silhouette everyone. Use the indoor dome inside and a weather-rated dome only if it is actually outside.
Bullet camera
A bullet on the corner of the building reaches a car park or a yard that a dome under the eaves cannot. The visor shades the lens. Point it along the wall rather than straight at the horizon, and keep bright lamps out of the frame or the night image washes out. An outdoor bullet needs the outdoor rating; an indoor dome in a housing is not the same product.
NVR
The NVR is the recorder. Channel count is the number of cameras it will take: an 8-channel recorder for a small shop, a 16-channel recorder when the yard and the corridors are both in the job. A PoE NVR can power the cameras directly. A network NVR expects a PoE switch in front of it, which is the better layout once the cameras are spread across a building and you want one switch per area. Put the NVR where someone can reach it, on a shelf or in the rack, with the monitor beside it.
PoE switch
Cameras are steady PoE loads. A modern dome or bullet is often under 15 W, and one with a heater or IR that runs all night can be more. Sixteen cameras at 12 W is already near 200 W before headroom, so a switch advertised as 16 PoE ports may still have a budget that only feeds half of them. Add the watts, then pick the switch. A switch per floor keeps the cable runs inside 90 m.
Storage drives
Surveillance drives are built for continuous write. A desktop drive in an NVR fails early. Size the disk from the bitrate, not from a guess: a 4 megapixel camera at a moderate bitrate for 16 cameras over 14 days is multiple terabytes, and motion-only recording uses less only if the scene is actually quiet. One drive is a single point of failure. Two, or an NVR that can mirror, is the grown-up layout.
Monitor
The monitor is for the person watching, at the NVR, not a television in the showroom. A 24-inch surveillance monitor runs all day and shows more than one camera without scaling them into mush. It does not need to be 4K to display sixteen streams. Put it where the glare from a window does not sit on the panel.
Cabling
Conduit protects the path from the junction box to the cameras. Inside it, each camera is a solid Cat6 run back to the switch, under 90 m including the patch cords at both ends. Outdoor sections need outdoor cable, and a drip loop before the camera so water does not run into the connector.
Mounts
The mount is part of the camera's field of view. A junction box under a dome gives the cable somewhere to go and lifts the dome off a hot ceiling. A corner mount lets a bullet see both walls. Use the mount the camera was designed for: a third-party plate that does not match the hole pattern will sag. Outdoors, seal the cable entry or the mount fills with water.
Bullet mount
The plate and the arm that hold the small camera off the cladding. Use the mount that matches that camera's hole pattern, and seal the cable entry outdoors.
PTZ mount
The lower bracket carries the PTZ. It is a different plate from the one under the fixed dome, and it has to hold a heavier head.
Lower conduit
The lower grey run is the path from the junction box down to the PTZ. The cable inside it is a solid Cat6 run back to the switch, with a drip loop before the camera.
PTZ camera
A PTZ camera is built to pan and tilt across a wider area. Point a fixed dome at the door and leave the PTZ for the yard it can actually sweep.
Junction box
The small box on the cladding is the junction box. It gives the conduit a place to land and keeps the camera tails out of the weather. Use the box that matches the camera's mount pattern.
Intercom
A video intercom belongs at a door. Place it where visitors can reach it at the entrance.
Door reader
An access-control reader sits beside the controlled door. The search is for that reader. Cherry keyboards and POS scanners are a different product and are excluded.
Electric strike
An electric strike releases the latch in the frame when the reader grants entry. Check that it fits the door and controller.
Maglock
A magnetic lock holds a door shut until the reader releases it. Check the door, frame and access controller before choosing one.
Worked setups2 examples
16-camera site
A building with a yard: bullets on the corners, domes on the doors, a 16-channel recorder and a PoE switch whose budget actually covers sixteen cameras.
Shop this setup
- Hikvision Pro Series with ColorVu DS-2CD2047G3-LIY(2.8MM) security camera Bullet IP security camera Indoor & outdoor 2688 x 1520 pixels Ceiling/wall. Outdoor bullets on the corners that look along the walls.
- Hikvision Pro Series With AcuSense DS-2CD2183G2-LIS2U(2.8MM)(BLACK) Security Camera Dome IP Security Camera Indoor Outdoor 3840 X 2160 Pixels Ceiling/Wall. Domes at the entrances, where faces are lit.
- Mount For Camera 4W1 HIKVISION DS-2CE17K0T-LFS 2.8. A junction box or corner mount matched to each camera.
- Hikvision 4 Port Fast Ethernet Smart POE Switch. PoE budget summed from the camera datasheets, plus headroom.
- Hikvision DS-7608NXI-K1/8P Network Video Recorder (NVR) PoE 1U Black. A 16-channel NVR indoors, not in the ceiling.
- Toshiba S300 Surveillance internal hard drive 4 TB 5400 RPM 128 MB 3.5" Serial ATA III. Surveillance-rated disks sized for the days you need to keep.
- AG Neovo SC-2402 surveillance monitor CCTV monitor 61 cm (24") 1920 x 1080 pixels. A monitor at the recorder for the person who reviews footage.
- Digitus CAT 6A U/FTP Slim patch cord. One Cat6 run per camera, under 90 m, with a drip loop outside.
Small shop, a handful of cameras
A door, the shop floor and the back yard: an 8-channel recorder, a compact PoE switch and one drive, which is the layout most single premises actually need.
Shop this setup
- Hikvision Pro Series With AcuSense DS-2CD2183G2-LIS2U(2.8MM)(BLACK) Security Camera Dome IP Security Camera Indoor Outdoor 3840 X 2160 Pixels Ceiling/Wall. One at the door, one over the counter.
- Hikvision Pro Series with ColorVu DS-2CD2047G3-LIY(2.8MM) security camera Bullet IP security camera Indoor & outdoor 2688 x 1520 pixels Ceiling/wall. One outside the back door or the yard.
- Hikvision DS-7608NXI-K1/8P Network Video Recorder (NVR) PoE 1U Black. An 8-channel NVR leaves a few ports for later.
- Hikvision 4 Port Fast Ethernet Smart POE Switch. An 8-port PoE switch if the NVR does not power the cameras itself.
- Toshiba S300 Surveillance internal hard drive 4 TB 5400 RPM 128 MB 3.5" Serial ATA III. One surveillance drive to start. Plan the bay for a second.
- Digitus CAT 6A U/FTP Slim patch cord. Three runs is still worth terminating properly.
Questions
How much PoE does a camera switch need?
Add the maximum wattage of every camera, including heaters and infrared that only run at night, then leave about a third spare. A switch with 16 PoE ports can still have a power budget that only supports eight cameras at full draw. The port count and the watt budget are different numbers, and the budget is the one that drops cameras off the network.
When do I use a dome, a bullet, or a PTZ?
A bullet covers distance along a facade. A dome covers a door or a corner where it should not be easy to twist. A PTZ is for a yard it can sweep. Choose the NVR to explore its drives and connections. The drives are included with that recorder.
How large a drive does the NVR need?
It depends on the camera bitrate, how many cameras record at once, and how many days you have to keep. Continuous recording of 16 cameras fills a disk many times faster than motion-only recording of four quiet rooms. Use a drive sold for surveillance. A desktop drive is not built for being written to all day, and it is the disk that fails first.
Does the cable run to each camera have a length limit?
A copper Ethernet run, including the patch cords at both ends, should stay within 90 metres. Longer than that, the camera may power up and still have an unreliable link, or it may not power up at all. Outdoor cable is a different jacket from indoor cable, and a drip loop at the camera stops rain running into the connector.