Are camera's useful anymore for theft?

notta said:
I live in a relatively good neighborhood but because of the location (out of the way) we have a lot of issues with people's cars being broken into and even stolen. 2 cars in the past year, that I know of, have been stolen from my neighborhood.

This morning I received a message to check my camera's to see if anyone was on it around 1-3 am. Sure enough around 2:15 am a guy walks up to my car and tried to open the driver side door and then moved to the next house. His face was fully covered with a mask and had gloves on. Even if my camera's did capture anything it would have been useless. There were also 3 of them. 2 across the street. If I was awake and I went out there I would probably have 3 people jumping on me and that is if you don't get shot first.

I am more worried about it escalating and getting into the houses. For the first time in my life I am actually considering a gun. I have never even held a gun but this is what it's coming to.

I have Hikvision camera's that are good but pretty useless at night to really identify anything. They are supposed to be motion activated but things such as bugs and headlights are constantly causing motion trips. Do they make perimeter alert systems? Maybe some invisible barrier so if someone breaks the barrier in the middle of the night I can get alerted. Would seem there would be less of a chance of false alarms, except for maybe critters and such, than motion activation on the camera's.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.
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First and foremost, get an AD (active deterrence) camera. Lights and alarms in the middle of the night are bound to make anyone run. It's better to deter people from making you a victim in the first place. If nothing else, they will learn to cross to the other side of the street when they come to your property lines.
 
bigredfish said:
I’ve installed the Guardline units at my home and 3 others. Two are every bit of 250 ft from the reciever indoors. All receivers are inside concrete block/stucco homes. They just work.

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I've been considering a perimeter monitor, and from your report these sound suitable. How do they go as far as false alerts? Do they really require a heat-source to trigger?

Cheers, Steve
 
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I’ve yet to have one except a few times it got pointed at the neighbors drive and he pulled in, which actually isn’t a false alarm when ya think about it.

I have a cat or two set it off, when I had it aimed to low and the critter was practically on top of it. But it’s rare and on every day for years now. You will have to play with placement and sensitivity like on any PIR sensor but it’s pretty straightforward.
 
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:sniffle: I love these replies......This is good stuff. Cameras are not the "end all be all" solution. So many come on here and just want the solution to be just that. Unfortunately in the end, no matter how great a picture you end up with, its up to the police in your area to act on it. Some will, some won't.
 
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area651 said:
:sniffle: I love these replies......This is good stuff. Cameras are not the "end all be all" solution. So many come on here and just want the solution to be just that. Unfortunately in the end, no matter how great a picture you end up with, its up to the police in your area to act on it. Some will, some won't.
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Very true.

Came home from out of town with some family this past week. There was an SUV with no license plates parked in front of my brother's house when we turned the corner. I said he'll need to call the cops every day the rest of the week because it's stolen and abandoned. He called the cops, they came out and looked at it and did nothing else, they didn't even want to see the pictures of the gangsters that abandoned it or the other car they got into. He called them the next day, they came back out and put a tag on it and told him the cops from the night before did nothing, didn't even run the VIN. Then he called again, and again. Lastnight they finally came and towed it away at 1:30 AM, after waking everyone up in the middle of the night...stupid fucking pricks. I will be replacing his cheap $100 system I bought him a few years ago as a quick deterrent/short term solution with the NVR and cams I just bought this past winter (it's been too cold and snowy to install at my house yet).

Then, a guy at work told me and showed me pics of a couple gangsters he chased away in a high school parking lot. He went to pick up his daughter and saw two thugs pull another kid out of his car and start beating on him. They ran when he pulled up. When they called the cops later to offer the pictures, the police station said they didn't want them.

Unfortunately this city is going to shit with all of the low income housing they started, and the gangsters from Chicago they are pulling in.
 
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Angel_Eater said:
Very true.

Came home from out of town with some family this past week. There was an SUV with no license plates parked in front of my brother's house when we turned the corner. I said he'll need to call the cops every day the rest of the week because it's stolen and abandoned. He called the cops, they came out and looked at it and did nothing else, they didn't even want to see the pictures of the gangsters that abandoned it or the other car they got into. He called them the next day, they came back out and put a tag on it and told him the cops from the night before did nothing, didn't even run the VIN. Then he called again, and again. Lastnight they finally came and towed it away at 1:30 AM, after waking everyone up in the middle of the night...stupid fucking pricks. I will be replacing his cheap $100 system I bought him a few years ago as a quick deterrent/short term solution with the NVR and cams I just bought this past winter (it's been too cold and snowy to install at my house yet).

Then, a guy at work told me and showed me pics of a couple gangsters he chased away in a high school parking lot. He went to pick up his daughter and saw two thugs pull another kid out of his car and start beating on him. They ran when he pulled up. When they called the cops later to offer the pictures, the police station said they didn't want them.

Unfortunately this city is going to shit with all of the low income housing they started, and the gangsters from Chicago they are pulling in.
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Thanks for sharing @Angel_Eater

I had similar experiences, and thus why I am very much interested in getting a good ID image. ( basically was told that unless I had a suspect to give them they would do nothing to investigate.. even if I have narrowed it down to just a few suspects .. )

Also, would need to combine that with a video of what happened. Thus why I like to recommend N+1 cables ( N= the number you expect to need ), as often I have found I needed one more camera to get the coverage I wanted. ( example front door area - one camera on the package drop area, one at face level... big fan of that now )
 
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