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. Wrong angle, wrong resolution, or gone entirely because nobody ever checked how long it was actually being kept.
Having Cameras Isn’t the Same as Having Coverage #
This is the bit I wish more people understood before they spend money: the number of cameras on a property tells you almost nothing about whether they’ll actually help if something goes wrong. I’ve walked properties with eight cameras that couldn’t identify a face at the front door, and properties with three that would hold up in court. It comes down to placement, resolution and what happens to the footage afterwards, not the camera count on the quote.
Four cameras aimed at the wrong things is worse than two aimed at the right things, because it gives a false sense that the job’s done.
Most Break-Ins in Australia Aren’t Caught Properly on Camera #
Burglary and theft have both been climbing nationally. The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded 160,885 burglary victims in 2023-24, up 6 percent on the year before, alongside the highest theft count in 21 years. And a separate survey by Budget Direct of homes that had actually been burgled found only 22.7 percent had a monitored alarm at the time. I’d bet a similar share had CCTV that was either poorly placed, too low resolution to be useful, or set to overwrite itself within days.
None of that is a criticism of the households. It’s just what happens when security gets bought once and never revisited, while the risk it’s meant to cover keeps changing around it.
Remote Viewing Is Nice. It’s Not the Point. #
A lot of the marketing around home and gallery CCTV leans hard on being able to check your phone from anywhere, and it’s a genuinely handy feature, I use it myself. But I’d rather a client had a system with no app at all and proper resolution and retention, than a flashy app connected to cameras that couldn’t identify anyone if it mattered. The convenience features get the attention in a sales conversation. They’re rarely the thing that actually helps after an incident.
Resolution Matters More Than People Budget For #
A camera that can see a person walking past isn’t the same as a camera that can identify who that person is, or confirm what they were holding, or read a numberplate on a car in the driveway. For a collection worth protecting, that distinction matters enormously, and it’s the first thing I check on an existing system. Plenty of installs default to whatever resolution kept the quote competitive, rather than what the location actually needed.
Display walls and storage rooms need enough resolution to matter as evidence, not just as a general sense that “someone was there.” Entry points need the same. A wide, low-resolution overview shot of a whole room looks impressive on a monitor and tells you almost nothing useful afterwards.
Retention Is the Part Nobody Thinks About Until It’s Too Late #
Here’s a genuinely common failure I see: a system with decent cameras, decent placement, and footage that gets overwritten after seven days because nobody configured the storage properly. If an incident isn’t noticed and reported within that window, the footage is simply gone by the time anyone goes looking for it, and there’s no getting it back.
Working out how much storage you actually need, and checking it regularly rather than assuming it’s fine, is one of the least glamorous parts of this job and one of the most important. I’d rather spend an afternoon on retention settings than have a client ring me three weeks after an incident asking why the footage isn’t there anymore.
Sensors Do a Different Job to Cameras, and You Need Both #
CCTV tells you something happened and, done properly, who was involved. It doesn’t stop anything on its own, and it’s rarely reviewed in real time unless someone’s actually watching a monitor at 2am, which almost nobody is. That’s where object-level sensors and object monitoring come in: vibration and tilt sensors fitted directly to a piece will trigger an alert the instant it’s disturbed, tied into a properly zoned monitored alarm, so someone’s actually notified while it’s happening rather than reviewing what happened afterwards.
I get pushback on this sometimes, because cameras feel like the visible, obvious purchase and sensors feel like an add-on. In practice it’s the other way round. The sensor is what gets a response moving in real time. The camera is what tells you the full story after.
What a Proper Install Actually Looks Like #
When I design a system now, I start with where the value actually sits, not the shape of the building. Display walls, storage, loading areas and entry points get planned individually rather than as one blanket coverage exercise. Resolution gets matched to what each area actually needs to prove, not a single spec applied everywhere. And retention gets set based on how likely an incident is to be noticed quickly, which for unattended storage is usually “not quickly,” so it gets a longer window than a busy front room would.
None of this needs to look like a bank. Cameras can be discreet, properly angled, and still do the job without turning a home or gallery into something that feels like a vault. That balance is achievable. It’s just rarely the default someone gets handed if they buy a generic residential package and expect it to cover a genuine collection.
If You’re Not Sure What You’ve Actually Got #
The easiest way to find out whether an existing system would actually help is to test it properly: pull footage from a week ago, check the resolution on a static object, and see how long it’s actually retained before it disappears. Most people who do this for the first time are surprised, and not in a good way. If that sounds like your setup, a proper security assessment will tell you exactly where the gaps sit before you find out the hard way.