How Many Security Cameras Does a House Need?

People usually ask this question backwards. They start with a number, four or eight, and then work out where to put them. The better way around is to count the ways onto your property, then work out how many cameras that takes.

Start with entry points, not camera count

Walk around your house and count every way a person could get from the footpath to a door or window without climbing anything. On a typical block that is four: the driveway, the front door, one side gate and the back yard. On a corner block it is five or six, because there are two street frontages. On a big block with a rear lane or a shed it can be seven.

Every one of those is a camera position. Not every one needs a camera on day one, but you should know it is there before somebody tells you four is enough.

The standard four

On most suburban houses around Brendale, Strathpine and Bray Park, these four positions do the work:

• Driveway and street. Vehicles, deliveries, anyone approaching. Mounted low enough and tight enough to identify a person standing next to your car, not just record that a car was there.
• Front door and porch. Faces and parcels. This is the camera that produces usable footage more often than any other.
• Side gate. The way almost everyone gets into a back yard. It is the most commonly skipped position and the one we recommend hardest.
• Back patio or rear door. Covers the rear approach and the door people force when they think nobody can see them.

That layout works because it covers the sequence of an actual incident. Somebody arrives, comes up the drive, tries the front, then goes around the side. Four cameras in those spots give you the whole story rather than one frame of it.

When four is not enough

Add cameras when any of these apply, because each one creates a genuine blind spot rather than an optional extra:

• Two side accesses. Common on wider blocks. Each side needs its own camera, they cannot share one.
• A detached shed or garage. A camera on the house looking at a shed forty metres away shows you a shape near a shed. Put the camera on the shed.
• A deep back yard. Anything past about twenty metres from the house needs its own coverage, particularly if the rear fence backs onto a park, a reserve or a laneway.
• A corner block. Two frontages, two approaches, two cameras.
• A granny flat or dual living. Separate entry, separate camera.
• A pool or outdoor area you want supervised rather than secured. Different purpose, and worth a conversation with everyone in the house first.

On the bigger blocks around Eatons Hill and Bald Hills, six is usually the honest number, and on acreage with a gate and sheds it goes higher.

Coverage versus identification

This is the part that decides whether the system is worth anything. Every camera has a fixed number of pixels, and the wider you set the view the further apart those pixels land on the real world. A camera showing your whole front yard spreads its detail across twelve metres. The same camera covering the porch spreads it across three, so a face fills four times as much of the frame.

Practically: pick one camera to be your identification camera at each entry, set it tight, and let the others be the wide ones that show what happened and when. A system of four cameras all set to maximum width records every event on your property and identifies nobody, which is the most common fault we find when we are called out to look at somebody else's install.

Height matters as much as count

The instinct is to mount cameras high so nobody can reach them. Go too high and everyone in the picture is a cap and a pair of shoulders. Around two and a half to three metres is the sweet spot for identification work, high enough to be out of easy reach and low enough to see a face.

Overview cameras can go higher, four metres or more, because their job is context rather than identity. On sloping blocks like Albany Creek the standard heights do not apply at all and each camera has to be checked on the live picture before it is mounted.

A simple way to decide

Work through it in this order and the number falls out on its own:

• Count the ways onto the property. That is your maximum.
• Mark which two are most likely to be used. Those get identification cameras, set tight.
• Mark anything valuable that sits outside: cars, a boat, a caravan, tools in a shed. Each gets its own.
• Add one overview camera if the block is big enough that the others do not see each other.
• Buy a recorder with at least two spare channels beyond that total.

For most houses that lands on four or five. For larger blocks it lands on six to eight. If a quote comes in well under your count, ask which entry points are not being covered, because something has been left out. Costs for each of those sizes are set out in our Brisbane CCTV installation cost guide.

Common questions

Is one camera better than nothing?

Yes, if it is on the right spot. One camera covering your main entry beats four wide angle cameras that cannot identify anyone. Start with the front door or the driveway, on a recorder with spare channels, and add to it.

Do I need cameras inside the house?

Most households do not. Outside cameras catch people before they get in, which is the point. Indoor cameras suit holiday homes, rentals between tenants and businesses more than family homes.

What about a video doorbell instead?

A doorbell covers the front door and nothing else, and most of them record to a subscription rather than to a drive you own. They work well alongside a wired system. They are a poor substitute for one.

How many channels should the recorder have?

More than your camera count. An eight channel recorder on a four camera system costs very little extra and means adding cameras later is a cable run rather than a replacement.