The big problem with most door peephole cameras is that they record and record and record while nothing happens. While you are probably thinking that it is much better that it records nothing rather than skips the time when a crime or accident took place. I agree with you 100%, but you have to understand too that if the unit is recording and recording, it is essentially just wasting a lot of battery life and data.
If you look at the typical CCTV footage, the vast majority of that footage is basically a whole lot of nothing. It just shows people going in and out of the premises and nothing is happening. It may seem like a total waste, but that is actually how security footage is supposed to work because unless your business is located in a particularly high-crime or high-accident area, you should expect that a vast majority of the footage is going to record a whole lot of nothing. This is all well and good, but the problem is power consumption.
You end up paying a steep price for the peace of mind that you have a recording device recording footage in front of your door on a 24/7 365 day basis. Sadly, this is very expensive peace of mind because the system eats up battery life to record that footage. Worst of all, you are put in a much more insecure and unsafe situation when the batteries go out right when something you’d like to record takes place in front of your door. In other words, the things you were guarding against took place but your system did not have the juice to record it so you can have the proper legal or insurance recourse. Now do you see why this can be such a headache? This can have all sorts of negative consequences.
Battery Life Issues
What makes the recording problem above particularly troublesome for door peephole cameras is because these units are very small and a lot of the current models are not using direct power wiring. In other words, they are not connected directly to your premisesf electrical system. They have to be powered by batteries. If they are going to be spending a vast majority of their time recording nothing, those batteries are going to get depleted fairly quickly. They might not get depleted overnight, but you have to replace the batteries constantly, and it really boils down to a race between you changing the batteries in a timely and prompt manner and an unforeseen and unwanted event happening.
Do you see how this works? You are basically just gambling that you would replace the batteries at precisely the right time so that your door peephole cameras can capture the accident or the crime. This is not always a good bet to make because if you are like most Americans, you are busy. Time is a luxury, and you would rather be doing other things than replacing batteries on your premises. I cannot say I blame you. Still, you have to understand that if you are going to be dependent on batteries for your security footage, you are going to trap yourself in that race against the unforeseeable.
The Answer?
The answer is quite simple. There are door peephole cameras that are designed with motion detection features. This saves on time. In other words, the unit would only shoot footage if it detects motion. So if somebody actually goes up to your door, it would then start recording. If nothing is happening, it would stop and this would necessarily cut down on power requirements. The power requirements will not entirely go away, but you can extend the life of the battery powering the door peephole cameras quite a bit.
Motion detection focuses on the action. If there is no action, there is no recording. This can be a lifesaver as far as your budget and most importantly, your peace of mind is concerned. Again, you would not want your door peephole cameras to run out of battery life precisely at the time that you need them to be recording a very important footage.
Furthermore, there are other savings involved. You could save on archiving. You could save on storage and, as a result, the vast majority of the footage your door peephole camerasf capture would be the action. This cuts straight to the chase and leaves out a lot of the fluff and also saves you time, effort, money and worries.