Home CCTV: what you actually need
Most Teesside homes are well covered by three cameras at £300 to £900 fitted: the front approach, the back door or yard gate, and the side path. Position, night performance and storage matter far more than the resolution printed on the box.
Start with the routes, not the cameras
Before choosing equipment, walk the property the way somebody uninvited would. Which gate, path or fence is the easy way in? Where would they stand out of sight of the street? Which door is furthest from a neighbour's window? On a terraced street with a rear lane, the back gate is nearly always the answer. On a semi with a side path to the garden, that path is the pinch point. On a detached house with a long drive, the approach is where a face can be captured before anyone is close enough to hide it. Cameras that watch those pinch points do the work. Cameras that survey a lawn are decoration.
How many cameras, honestly
- Two: front door approach and back door. Fine for a mid-terrace or a small semi.
- Three: add the side path or driveway. This covers most Teesside houses properly.
- Four to six: larger detached properties with outbuildings, a second gate, or a driveway long enough to need both an approach and a parking view.
- More than six: usually commercial, or a domestic system that has been sold rather than designed.
Resolution, storage and night vision
Resolution is oversold. Beyond a sensible baseline, extra megapixels mostly consume disk space, and a 4K camera at the wrong angle still gives you the top of a hat. Judge night performance instead, because most incidents happen in the dark and cameras vary far more at night than in daylight. Ask to see real night footage from the model being quoted rather than the manufacturer's promotional clip. Then size the recorder so footage survives long enough to be useful, aiming for two to four weeks, since people commonly notice a missing item days later. Resolution and storage should be quoted as a pair, because raising one without the other quietly shortens your retention.
Wired, wireless and battery cameras
Cabled cameras using power over ethernet are the most reliable domestic choice, since one cable carries power and video and there is nothing to charge. Wi-Fi cameras avoid cabling but depend on router coverage at the far corners of the house, which is exactly where cameras go. Battery cameras are genuinely useful in places no cable will reach, such as a detached shed or an outbuilding at the end of a garden, with the trade-off that they record on motion rather than continuously and need charging. Mixing types is normal and sensible.
The privacy rules in plain English
If your cameras capture only your own property, domestic use is straightforward. Once they take in a pavement, a shared drive or a neighbour's garden, you take on data protection duties as a controller. In practice that means angling cameras to minimise what you capture beyond your boundary, using privacy masking for what you cannot avoid, putting up a visible sign, keeping footage no longer than you need, and handing it over when police or a neighbour makes a legitimate request. Doing those things also prevents the neighbour dispute, which is the more common problem. For pricing and specification, see the CCTV installation page and the cost guide.