CCTV camera installation in Cape Town

A basic four-camera HD system starts at R5,200 supplied and installed. The final figure depends on how many cameras you need, the resolution, how much recording storage you want, and how difficult the cable runs are. The site survey and quote are free.

Usually fewer than people are sold. What matters is covering the ways onto the property: the gate, the driveway, the front door and the back yard. We walk the property with you and mark positions before quoting, so you are paying for coverage rather than for a camera count.

Yes. Every system we install is set up for remote viewing on a phone, tablet or computer, and we configure it and test it on your own handset before we leave rather than emailing you an app link afterwards.

Only if they are the right cameras, at the right height, pointed at the right place. Infrared range and lens choice matter more than megapixels. We spec for the light the camera will actually be working in, not for the box it comes in.

Only if the system is backed up. Cameras, recorder and your router all need power for remote viewing to keep working. We can put the system on a UPS so it records through a slot, and we tell you what that adds to the quote.

That depends on hard drive size, camera count and resolution. We normally set the recorder to hold two to four weeks and configure overwrite properly so it never quietly stops recording when the drive fills.

Usually. If the recorder has spare channels and the existing cabling is sound, adding cameras is straightforward. If it is an old analogue system at the end of its life we will say so rather than selling you cameras that will not help.

Yes. Shops, offices, warehouses, guesthouses, complexes and body corporates. Larger sites get a full site walk and a written quote before anything starts.

Our own published prices are R5,200 for four channels, R6,800 for six and R9,500 for eight, supplied and installed in Cape Town. Nationally you will see a wider spread, because cable runs, camera resolution and how much conduit a property needs move the figure more than the cameras themselves do. Anyone quoting you a national price without looking at the property is guessing.

A single camera added to a recorder you already have is a small job. A first system is priced by channel count rather than per camera, because the recorder, the hard drive and the cabling are most of the work: four channels start at R5,200 installed. The survey and the written quote cost you nothing either way.

For most Cape Town properties, yes, and for two reasons people tend to underrate. A camera at the gate changes how you answer the door, and footage is what turns an insurance claim or a case docket from your word into evidence. What it is not is a guard: a camera records an incident, it does not stop one. Anyone telling you cameras cut break-ins by a specific percentage is quoting a number nobody can source.

Yes. A wired system records to a hard drive in the recorder and keeps doing that whether the line is up or not. Internet only matters for watching the cameras from your phone when you are away, and for app notifications. If the fibre goes down, the recording does not.

On paper you save the labour. In practice the money goes back into a second attempt: cameras mounted too high to identify a face, cable stapled along a wall where the weather gets into it, and a recorder nobody has set to overwrite so it silently stops recording when the drive fills. There is also no workmanship warranty on your own work. If you are competent with a drill and a network, it is doable. Most of the call-outs we get are on systems somebody talked themselves into.

The recorder goes onto your router, you install the manufacturer's app, and the system is added by scanning a QR code or entering its serial. We do that setup on your own handset before we leave and watch you open it once, rather than emailing you an app link afterwards and hoping.

Further than it can identify. A standard fixed camera gives you recognisable faces at roughly ten to twenty metres and useful general coverage beyond that; a varifocal or PTZ camera pushes the identification range further. This is the single most common mistake we are called out to fix: a camera covering a wide area beautifully and unable to tell you who anybody is. Coverage is planned around what you need to identify, not how much you can fit in frame.

The entry points first: front door, back or sliding door, driveway and gate, then side access and anywhere hidden from the street. Height matters as much as position. Too high and you record the top of a head, too low and the camera is easy to reach. We walk the property and plan the positions before anything is drilled.

Cameras, a recorder with the right channel count, a hard drive sized to how long you want footage kept, a power supply, cabling in trunking or conduit, and mounting brackets. Optionally a monitor. The parts list is the easy half. What you are paying an installer for is the coverage plan and the cable runs.

They are different purchases and plenty of people have both. Companies like ADT and Fidelity ADT sell monitoring on a 24 to 36 month contract with a monthly fee, and their pricing changes often enough that you should ask them for a current quote rather than trust a figure on somebody else's website. What we do is a system you buy outright and own, with no monthly fee to us. Cameras give you evidence and a look at the gate; a monitoring contract gives you someone to dispatch.