Active CCTV (or ‘Smart’ CCTV)

Historically, CCTV has served two purposes – live monitoring of an area, or retrospective viewing of an incident. While both of these things are useful and important functions of a security system, the limitation of this is the inability to know if an incident is taking place now.

In the past, the solution to this was to either install complex external alarm motion sensors, or have 24-hour monitoring of the CCTV system. Both of these options are expensive to achieve, although effective once running. However, with recent advancements within the security industry, we are now able to offer Active CCTV. This Smart CCTV System, which is a CCTV system with in-built alarms, both audible and silent, ensures that you are alerted to activity on-site wherever you are and at any time of the day. Once you receive the alert to your device, you can log in to the device app to view your CCTV in real-time (as well as be able to playback images), and make a judgement as to what you want to do – simple and cost-effective security of your site.

What is Active CCTV?

Active CCTV, also known as Smart CCTV, is a surveillance system that can decide for itself if movement on screen is something to worry about. It can tell the difference between human activity (be it on foot, or in a vehicle) and environmental ‘false’ alarms such as animals and foliage.

In this way, Active CCTV beats even high-end alarm systems as even the most advanced motion detector can't tell if it was triggered by a person or not.

Actioning Alarms

It's all very well having a smart system, but there is still one more step in the process, alarm actions. There are two main ways to action an Active CCTV alarm:

1. A remote alert sent to your mobile phone or computer;
2. An audio-visual alarm such as a siren/strobe on site.

Both of these methods have their advantages. Remote alerts via text or email to your mobile or computer mean that you can track movement on your site from anywhere in the world. The alerts can be silenced for certain times of the day (for example, during working hours).

Audio-visual alarms, such as siren alarms or additional lighting, are extremely effective deterrents.

At ORP, we prefer a mixture of the two. When a human presence is detected, our most popular camera sounds a siren and a built-in voice message of your choice, along with turning on a powerful floodlight – all whilst sending a remote alert to your mobile. We have found that this combination is extremely effective at protecting your assets!

Main advantages of Active CCTV

• Effectiveness – intruders are getting smarter, with face coverings being used in the majority of break-ins, you need a system that can do more than just record what’s happening!
• Cost – because you're getting a CCTV and alarm system combined the overall cost is lower
• Flexibility – only want to be alerted during certain hours? Is the yard busy due to harvest or similar? Simple, open your app and turn off alerts, you can even set them to turn back on automatically!
• Simplicity – unlike large alarm systems with wires everywhere and batteries to worry about, Active CCTV systems are low maintenance and very reliable.
• Scalable – just want a single camera to start with? No problem, ORP systems can be easily added to if you find you need more in the future.

Want to know more?

We're always happy to talk over a system with you, so call us on 01743 884765 or email us on info@orpcctv.com and we can discuss in detail your requirements and work out what type of system would best suit you.