CCTV Off-Site Health Monitoring
One of the biggest frustrations I have seen client have is to find their cameras were not working at the time they really needed them.
This is typically because a few weeks after a security camera system is installed, it is forgotten until it is needed. It can be weeks, months or even a year since someone last looked at the cameras to see if they are recording and in the meantime, objects have been placed that impact on the cameras views, the computer network cables have been unplugged or the hard drives have failed.
Whatever the cause of the failure is, we can ensure it is fixed and your system continues to provide the protection you installed it for.
We can remotely check the health of your security cameras for you.
- Camera Loss
Cameras are sometimes lost due to cables being damaged or accidentally unplugged in server rooms, as well as camera faults. We will notify you of any camera that has stopped being recorded and arrange for its repair if needed. - Hard drive failure
This is the most common cause of a camera system to stop recording. It is common that the cameras are all still working and being displayed in live mode but not being recorded when this fault occurs. As such many people you do keep an eye on their CCTV system are still unaware that it is not recording. - Image Quality
Over time the camera image can degrade, have dirt build-up on them or their views be obstructed. We compare each camera’s live image quality to a reference image, ensuring it has not significantly changed. This visual check protects you against cameras being knocked out of alignment, having objects obscure the view and obvious dirt build up on the camera, which makes vision particularly bad at sunrise, sunset and under nighttime conditions. - Recorder Online
Your recorder will be monitored via an Internet connection and it is essential for the ongoing health monitoring that we also test that there is communication with the recorder. In addition to ensuring the Internet connection is reliable, we ensure that the recorder is powered up and is able to be remotely logged into, reducing the risk of the recorder not being able to report faults due to a critical failure.
- Recording Integrity and Retention Time
Sometimes things change in a scene that are not obvious by just looking at the image. For example, a tree branch may have grown and is not blowing in the breeze, causing a camera to use more storage than it should. Or a spider that comes out of the camera housing at night to catch the moths attracted to the infrared lights, similar to shown in the video. Even a blown light globe can cause a camera to start recording its own noisy image due to insufficient light. We will periodically check the amount of time the footage is being retained for each camera has not significantly changed, indicating a possible change in the environment.