How electronic key logs actually get checked after an incident

Three weeks ago I was onsite at a storage facility in Alexandria, going through an access control upgrade with the site manager, when she asked me a question that stopped me for a second: “If something walked out of here tomorrow, who would actually go and look at the key log, and how?” She’d never […]

Why wireless sensors fail in old stone or brick gallery walls

I was out at a converted bank building on Mostyn Street in Castlemaine a few months back, bluestone walls close to 600mm thick in places, and the gallery owner was showing me a battery report from her existing wireless system. Three sensors had dropped comms in the previous fortnight, all in the same back room. […]

Security installer licensing across Australia, state by state

Eight regulators, eight rulebooks, and not one of them fully recognises another’s licence. If you’ve ever tried to move an alarm and CCTV install business across a state border you’ll know exactly what I mean. Security installer licensing in Australia is not a single national system, it’s a patchwork that grew up state by state […]

How to tell if a vibration sensor is actually calibrated for your frame weight

I was at a private collection off Wattletree Road in Malvern a few months back, walking a client through why her Sidney Nolan kept setting off the alarm every time a delivery truck idled outside. The sensor wasn’t faulty. It was calibrated for a frame roughly four times heavier than the one it was actually […]

CCTV That Actually Helps After a Break-In (Most Doesn’t)

So here’s a conversation I have on almost every job. A client tells me proudly that they’ve already got CCTV, four cameras, installed a few years back, and they want me to focus on other things. Then something happens, or we run a test, and the footage turns out to be useless. Not missing. Useless. […]