Why Do My Security Cameras Keep Breaking?
Many small and medium sized businesses use home and consumer cameras like Ring and Nest to monitor their facilities. They buy them because they are easy to install and are well-known brands that owners and operators are familiar with from their home environments. Most of all, the cameras are cheap.
However, once the cameras are installed in a business environment, their lifespans can be frustratingly short. The costs of ongoing replacement cameras and installation labor add up. Over time, many business owners find the “cheap” home solution actually winds up having a higher total cost of ownership (TCO) than a commercial installation would have had. In the mean time, they’ve also missed out on the benefits of a solution built for a business.
Why Security Cameras Break
First of all, why do these cameras break more frequently in a business environment? It doesn’t seem obvious at first why a doorbell camera that can last for five years on a suburban home only lasts a year or two at a strip mall, coffee shop, or warehouse.
One reason is that consumer hardware isn’t built as sturdily. Home camera housings are often made of thin plastic and lack robust weather proofing. While a doorbell installation is technically “outdoors,” many are sheltered by eaves and porches that lower exposure to weather elements. A business camera installed on the exterior of a brick building may have to deal with much more water and sun. Additionally, business cameras are also targeted for vandalism at higher rates than most homes and are much more likely to be splashed, painted, or struck. Home hardware isn’t built to take that kind of abuse.
The inside of the camera is just as important. Home cameras are built for much lighter duty cycles. Whether triggered on demand or by motion, most home installations will see much, much less activity than any business location, where people are generally coming and going for at least a third of the day. Smaller batteries, transistors, capacitors, and other electrical components will cycle on and off much more frequently in a business. A home camera designed to last for five years of porch or driveway duty will start to see components fail far before that five year threshold if used in a business setting.
When Security Cameras Break
When the camera breaks, the costs to a business can add up. Of course, there is the cost of replacement hardware. That hardware has to be swapped out, which takes labor, whether that’s internal or done by a service provider like Settler. There are also the costs of downtime. In cases where internal shrinkage or cash theft are concerns, bad actors can be surprisingly quick to identify and exploit weaknesses in the system.
Using Commercial Hardware
Our recommendation for business is to use commercial grade hardware. Commercial security cameras are made with more robust electrical components to support their heavier duty cycles. Housings are made of thicker plastics, shatter-resistant glass, and even metal to better resist inclement weather and vandalism. Many are built to industrial specifications like IP66.
All of this means that commercial hardware generally lasts much longer. Many vendors will stand by this and offer much longer warranties on hardware than home or consumer cameras carry. Some even offer lifetime warranties of specific hardware.*
Commercial products also offer business owners and managers a host of additional benefits. They are better suited to manage multiple locations, allowing access to every video feed from a single log-in. Simple access management allows site-specific managers or employees to get access just to the feeds they need. Specific clips can be shared with insurers, police, or private investigators. Hardware can be power-cycled remotely, cutting down on ongoing maintenance time. Recording is on-going and does not have the motion detection delay that some home hardware suffers from. There are more options for providing power to the units and much better tools for managing bandwidth and video storage.
Home vs. Commercial Cameras TCO Comparison
All of this means that buying business-grade cameras can cost less over the lifetime of a camera than buying “cheaper” home and consumer cameras.
Consider this simple hypothetical example from the fictional Camera Coffee Co (CCC), owned by Bob^:
Bob installed a cheap home doorbell at the entrance to his coffee shop. It seemed to work fine, but he had to replace it twice in two years. Because it was a Wi-Fi camera, he found that customers complained about his slow Wi-Fi, so he had to upgrade the bandwidth with his ISP:
After the second camera replacement, he decided it was time to get something else. He contacted Settler and bought a commercial grade product. It cost a bit more and required running some cable to install, but it came with a long warranty. He also bought cloud software to manage his bandwidth, uploading full video logs at night after customers were gone, so he was able to recoup some money from his ISP. Although he still had to replace the camera once, it was under warranty and he only had to pay for a quick replacement.
After another two years went by, he added up all the costs and was amazed to discover the “more expensive” camera had actually saved him nearly $200 - 24% of his total camera costs!
As a bonus, he was considering adding another location and was thrilled to find out he wouldn’t need to create new accounts to see both of his locations in one place, while still granting access to their own store camera for each store manager.
Conclusion
Although home security cameras can seem like a great deal for a business, they often come with significant hidden costs. Shorter lifespans and less flexible functionality can both add costs to a business camera setup.
If you’d like to compare options for your business, please contact us today for a free site assessment and quote:
*Often contingent on purchase of software subscriptions - ask us about what the options for this kind of hardware are.
^Example only, contact us for actual pricing.