WestPoint · Cameras · Hikvision
Hikvision has almost any model. And one question to ask first.
One of the largest manufacturers in the world and the widest catalogue there is. It gives you a lot of camera for the money, and there is one thing that gets checked before proposing it which has nothing to do with the camera.
What kind of manufacturer it is.
It makes everything, in every range and every format, and it renews it fast. If a shape of camera exists it is in this catalogue, and almost always at three different price levels.
What it puts first is price and availability, and both have a practical consequence: more camera fits into the budget, and a broken unit is replaced in days instead of weeks. In maintenance that is worth more than it seems on the day of purchase.
What it sacrifices is uniformity. Inside the same catalogue there are very different ranges that look alike, and the difference between the entry one and the professional one is not visible on the box: it shows in backlight, at night and after three years. Saying «give me Hikvision» says nothing; you have to say which one and why.
A question that comes before the camera.
We ask it of ourselves and we raise it ourselves, so that it does not turn up later.
There are organisations with restrictions or policies of their own on the use of this manufacturer: public authorities, some regulated sectors, and companies whose parent or main customer requires it by contract. We do not enter the debate and we do not judge it: for a project it is one more condition, like the grade an insurer asks for.
So it gets asked before proposing anything, and it gets asked in the right place: purchasing, corporate security, legal, or the specification if there is a tender. If the policy rules it out you change brand and nothing happens, because there are thirteen others on this list that do the same job. What cannot be done is to build the installation and find out in an audit, which is when the conversation becomes a different and dearer one.
Where it behaves well.
In installations with many points and normal scenes: industrial units, car parks, shops, residential blocks, industrial estate perimeters. It covers a lot of ground with the budget there is, and the professional range holds its own reasonably well outdoors at night.
It also has a family of cameras that gives colour at night with a white light floodlight switched on all the time. In a dark yard that lets you recognise clothing and vehicles, which in black and white stay as an outline. And you have to know where not to put it: on a frontage or facing homes, a light on all night ends in a complaint and in a switch somebody turns off.
Where we would not put it.
Where the organisation's policy does not allow it. That is the first filter and it is not a question of equipment quality.
At the points where the image has to serve as fine evidence, or where the light is genuinely extreme, if the budget stretches to something else. The entry range of any large manufacturer —this one included— is made to see that something is happening, not to identify who is passing, and confusing the two is the dearest mistake in this trade.
The analytics it carries inside, and where they stop.
The range with on-board analytics tells people and vehicles from the rest, counts line crossings and alerts on intrusion into a zone. That on its own removes most of the silly alerts on a perimeter —branches, shadows, cats, insects in front of the infrared— and it is the best money spent on an installation of this kind.
The limit is the usual one, and on this brand there is one more nuance: inside the same catalogue not every range carries the same thing or is configured the same way, so what gets promised has to be tied to the particular model. And on all of them, what gets solved is what can be drawn: a line, a zone, a time.
What comes now is a recommendation with an interest of our own, so it is declared: in the same house there is IRIS Neural, the NVMS from Infinity Neural, the other company in the group. It is our own product. We would rather you knew it by reading this line.
What it brings is what will not fit into a shape, and relating several cameras as a single story. They sit together well, and the other half is worth saying: for the perimeter of an industrial unit with a night alert, the camera's analytics are enough and nothing else is needed.
What we do.
- Saying which model and from which range, in writing and point by point. A camera quotation from this brand with no particular part numbers cannot be compared with anything, and it is the most common way for low range equipment to get in at the points that mattered.
- The lens, the height and the field of view worked out with the plan: how much detail reaches the place where a face has to be seen or a number plate read, before buying.
- Locking the equipment down, which with the best selling brands is not optional: passwords of your own and in the customer's name, unused services switched off, a camera network separated from the office one, nothing open to the outside and firmware up to date. They are the most installed in the world and therefore the most looked for by whoever scans the internet.
- The setting up at the bad hour and at night, and the adjustment of the analytics over the real scene with a week of alerts in view.
- The maintenance: the field of view camera by camera, the state of the drives and a list of models and serial numbers so replacements need no investigating.
The angle and the height are not decided at fitting time.
The angle, the height and the light decide for good what will be possible with that image. It is settled in the project, with the plan in front of you, and not on the day of fitting: it is the cheapest part of the installation and the only one that cannot be corrected afterwards without paying for the labour again.
Where to go next.
The area covers what does not change with the brand: what detail is needed at each point, how long it is kept and who can look and export.
Get started
Can you use this brand in your organisation?
If you are not sure, start there and we will tell you what does the same job. And if you can, tell us how many points there are and what the light is like at each one: the work is in getting the range right, not the brand.