How Many CCTV Cameras Does a Bengaluru Home Actually Need?

The question we are asked most often on a CCTV site survey is some version of "is four enough?". The honest answer is that the number matters far less than where they point. We have seen homes with eight cameras that missed the one gate an intruder actually used, and homes with three that covered every approach properly.

Here is the method our surveyors use, which you can apply yourself before anyone quotes you.

Start with entry points, not rooms

Walk around your property and list every way a person could get in: the main gate, the front door, the back or utility door, any ground-floor window facing a compound wall, the terrace access if a neighbouring roof adjoins yours, and the parking area.

That list is your camera count floor. Everything beyond it is comfort, not security.

Distinguish detection from identification

A camera that shows you someone was there is doing detection. A camera that lets you tell police who it was is doing identification, and it needs to be much closer, or much higher resolution, than most people expect.

A practical rule: at 2MP, you get reliable facial identification up to about 3 metres and number-plate reading up to about 4 metres. At 5MP those distances roughly double. This is why we usually recommend one higher-resolution camera at the gate at chest height, and standard cameras everywhere else, rather than the same camera repeated eight times.

A typical layout that works

For an independent 2BHK or 3BHK house in Bengaluru, this configuration covers almost every realistic scenario:

• Gate — 5MP bullet at 2.5m, angled down the approach, for identification
• Main door — 2MP dome under the porch, covering anyone who reaches the door
• Rear or utility door — 2MP bullet, weatherproof
• Parking or side passage — 2MP bullet covering the vehicle and the side wall

What people get wrong

Three mistakes account for most of the disappointing installations we are called out to fix. First, cameras pointed at a light source — a street lamp or the setting sun — which silhouettes everyone into a black outline. Second, cameras mounted too high, which gives you an excellent view of the tops of heads. Third, a desktop hard disk in the recorder, which fails within a year under continuous writing and stops recording without any warning.

None of these are expensive to get right at installation, and all of them are expensive to discover after an incident.

Before you buy

Ask any installer to mark the proposed camera positions on a plan and state what each one is for — detection or identification. If they cannot, they are selling you boxes rather than coverage. Our site survey is free within Bengaluru and you keep the plan whether or not you buy from us.