Home CCTV Security

Making our homes more secure

I’ve recently heard a few troubling stories of break-ins from residents in our neighbourhood.

Hence I thought I’d share some relatively affordable tips based on my own experience, that could make your home and neighbourhood more secure:

My 95-year-old mother lives on her own a couple of hours away in Devon and after a bit of research, I’ve implemented a solution that makes us both feel more secure.

I choose WiFi CCTV cameras from Nest, which is owned by Google. There are of course other good makes that do similar.

They are relatively inexpensive. The indoor cameras start at £90 and the outdoor version from £180. You can put the indoor camera in a window facing out. They also do WiFi doorbells which have a camera and can join the same CCTV network.

I’ve put an outdoor camera at the front and back of her house. Plus some inside. They all have built-in infrared lights, meaning they work even in pitch black. I’ve also put up some “caution CCTV” signs as an added deterrent.

They record whenever they see motion and can even specifically detect people. I’ve set them to send me a notification when they see a person outside. While most of the time I can safely ignore that, I do check the cameras from my phone if the notification is at a time when I’d not expect her to have visitors.

Fortunately, I’ve never needed to, but if necessary I can talk via the built-in speakers in each camera – “you are on camera and being recorded, the police are on their way”!

Because everything is recorded in the cloud a criminal couldn’t take away their recordings and I do get an alert if a camera loses connection.

Everything is easy to manage from the Google Nest App. I can view the cameras live and watch recordings of previous movement and people detections.

The setup was simple. You just plug the camera into the mains and set it up from the App, connecting it to your home WiFi. The outdoor version also has a battery so can be installed somewhere with no mains plug, it needs to be charged every few months, how often depends on how much movement it’s picking up.

The cameras work without any subscription, although I’ve opted to pay £5 a month for the optional Nest service which keeps full video recordings over a longer duration.

I definitely feel more secure as does my mother. It feels like a good investment that I’m pleased to share with others.

The cameras are available here, and the doorbells are here.

If you have any questions or want some help drop me an email: mike@mikemckeown.info

Indoor camera – night view – pitch black – lit by invisible infrared light: