| Location | Stamford, Lincolnshire |
| Property type | Semi-detached home |
| Work done | Two outdoor cameras, recorder and mobile app set up on two phones |
| Systems | Hikvision ColorVu Smart Hybrid cameras and mobile phone app |
| Time on site | 5 hours |
The Situation
The owners of a semi-detached house in Stamford contacted us through our website. There had been some suspicious activity on their street, which had unsettled them.
They wanted two or three outdoor cameras, some security lighting, and the ability to look in on the house from their phones when they were away.
What We Recommended, and Why
We surveyed the house first, walking through where the cameras could go, and where we could run the cables to keep them out of sight.
On the lighting, we suggested they didn’t need a separate system. The cameras we fit are Hikvision ColorVu Smart Hybrid, which have a light built into the camera itself. It can either:
- Stay on while it is dark, which gives you a full-colour picture, or
- Stay off until the camera detects movement and then come on.
We offered two cameras or three, and set out what each option would cover. They went with two, because it covered everything they wanted to see.
The challenge was the cabling.
The recorder was going in an upstairs cupboard. This was ideal for the camera cables as they could run through the loft and drop straight into it. The router, though, was downstairs, and the recorder needed to reach it. Rather than lifting floorboards and cutting into the hallway ceiling to get a cable down there, we used a wireless bridge to make that link. Same result, and nothing disturbed in the house.
Carrying Out the Work
We started mid-morning and were finished by mid-afternoon.
We fitted both cameras onto the fascia boards. The front of the house has decorative slates, and drilling into those would have left marks that couldn’t be undone. The fascia gave us a clean fixing and the view we had agreed at the survey.
While one engineer ran the cabling, the other set the app up on both of our clients’ phones. He showed them what the night-time picture looks like, and how far the cameras see in the dark. By the time we wired the recorder in, they already knew their way around it.
We tidied up, checked they were happy with everything, and left them to it.
The Result
They can see live footage and play back recordings from either phone, at home or away.
The next day they emailed to ask whether the camera lights could be switched off overnight. We had set them to stay on, which is our standard, and in their case it was lighting up more than they wanted. We changed the setting to motion-triggered remotely, so there was no need for a second visit.
How security lighting behaves is a preference rather than a fixed setting. It’s usually easier to judge after a few nights of living with it than on the day of the install.
