Security Cameras: What Actually Matters
Most of the camera systems we're asked to fix were bought on resolution. What decides whether the footage is useful is the cable, the recorder, the lens and where it's pointed, roughly in that order. Here's how we spec one, and the Florida parts the box doesn't mention.
Eight megapixels, sixteen cameras, a big number on the box. Then the doorbell drops off the Wi-Fi every evening, the recorder fills up in nine days, and the one clip that mattered shows the top of someone's hat. None of that was the camera's fault. It was the plan.
The Short Version
Wired cameras on a single Ethernet cable, recording to a box in your building, outlast every Wi-Fi camera and cost nothing monthly. Get the cable run right, size the storage for the retention you actually need, put a light where you want to see at night, and don't record audio in Florida without understanding the law.
Wired or Wireless
| Type | Power and video | Good for | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| PoE (Power over Ethernet) | One Cat6 cable carries both, from a PoE switch or the recorder | Anything permanent: a house, an office, a warehouse | The cable has to be installed properly. That's the job. |
| Wi-Fi, plugged in | Wall power, video over Wi-Fi | One or two spots a cable can't reach | Drops when the Wi-Fi does, competes with everything else on it, and the uploads eat the slow side of your connection. See speed test results, explained. |
| Battery | Battery, video over Wi-Fi | A doorbell, a shed | Recharging, motion-only recording, and a subscription to see the clips. |
Recorder or Cloud
| Local recorder (NVR) | Cloud subscription | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | One-time | Monthly, per camera, forever |
| Works without internet | Yes, keeps recording | Usually not |
| Remote viewing | Yes, through the vendor's app | Yes |
| Footage survives theft of the recorder | Only if it also copies to the cloud | Yes |
| Where the footage lives | In your building | On someone else's servers |
| Verdict | The default for a house or business | Worth adding for the doorbell, and as an off-site copy of the key cameras |
The Storage Math
A 4-megapixel camera recording continuously with modern compression writes roughly a terabyte a month. Motion-only recording cuts that by more than half in a quiet location and barely at all on a busy street. Use surveillance-rated drives, which are built to write all day; desktop drives in a recorder fail early.
| 4 MP cameras, continuous | 14 days | 30 days | 60 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 2 TB | 4 TB | 8 TB |
| 8 | 4 TB | 8 TB | 16 TB |
| 16 | 8 TB | 16 TB | 32 TB |
Higher resolution multiplies those numbers. Decide the retention you actually need before you decide the resolution: most incidents are reported within a week, while insurance and legal questions can run longer.
Resolution vs. Lens vs. Placement
A 4-megapixel camera with the right lens, mounted at the right height, produces a usable face at the door. An 8-megapixel camera on the eave twelve feet up, looking down through a wide lens, produces a very sharp image of nobody. Rules of thumb: mount at eight to ten feet, not at the roofline. Use a narrower lens for a gate or a register and a wide one for a parking lot. Don't point into the sunrise or the sunset. And a license plate needs a camera dedicated to that job, not a general one that happens to see the driveway.
Night
Infrared night vision gives you black and white. “Color night vision” needs some light, or a white LED on the camera that announces itself. A porch light or a motion floodlight does more for night footage than any camera spec, and it stops the infrared reflecting off the eave and washing out the picture.
The Florida Part
- Weather rating. IP66 or better, with the cable entry sealed and a junction box behind the camera, or the first summer storm gets in.
- Lightning. A PoE run to an outdoor camera is a wire into your building. Use surge protectors rated for PoE at the switch end, ground the switch, and put outdoor-rated cable in conduit where it's exposed.
- Heat. Check the operating temperature on the spec sheet. A dark housing in August sun runs well above the air temperature.
- Audio. Florida requires the consent of everyone in a conversation to record it. Video in areas with no expectation of privacy is fine; audio in a customer area is a question for your attorney, and most business systems ship with it off for that reason. Post a notice either way.
What It Costs
Professional-grade cameras run from around a hundred dollars to a few hundred each, a recorder a few hundred to under a thousand, and the rest is cable and labor, which is where a system is made or broken. We supply Cortex cameras, recorders and access control through our own store and install them with our own technicians; our security camera installation page explains how a job is priced, and the low-voltage cabling page covers the cable side.
Quick Self-Check
| Question | If “no” or “not sure”... |
|---|---|
| Can you name the retention you need, in days? | Decide before buying |
| Are the cameras reachable from the internet through a port-forward on the router? | Close it; see the router checklist |
| Has the recorder's default password been changed? | Two minutes |
| Is there a light where you want night footage? | Cheaper than a camera |
Have Us Spec It Before You Buy It
We'll walk the property, count the cameras you actually need, size the storage, and run the cable properly. Or tell you the doorbell and the two Wi-Fi cameras you already have are enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use my existing Wi-Fi doorbell with a recorder?
Usually not. Consumer doorbells lock to their own app and cloud. Look for ONVIF support on anything you want to record locally; that's the standard that lets a camera from one brand talk to a recorder from another.
Do I need a subscription?
Not with a recorder. Cloud service is optional on a wired system and mainly adds an off-site copy. On battery and doorbell cameras it's usually the only way to see more than a live view.
Will cameras slow down my Wi-Fi?
PoE cameras don't touch it. Wi-Fi cameras do, all day, and it shows up as buffering on the TV and dropped video calls.
Can I watch from my phone if I have a recorder?
Yes, through the manufacturer's app. Don't open a port on the router to make it work; the app's relay or a VPN is the safe way, and an open port to a camera system is the classic way strangers end up watching your feed.
How many cameras do I need?
Fewer than you think, placed better. The entrances, the driveway, the register, the back door. A twenty-minute site walk answers it more reliably than a kit count.
More Guides
Cortex cameras, recorders and access control from our own store, installed by our technicians.
Structured cabling and network installation, in-house.
The ten settings that make a home router safe, and when to replace it.
Which cable fixes are cosmetic and which ones are bend radius, EMI or fire-safety issues.
Why the mesh kit didn't fix it, what's really blocking the signal, and the fix that holds.
Before the storm, during the outage, and the surge on the way back up.
UPS topology, waveform and sizing math, explained without the marketing numbers.
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