subject: Infrared Security Cameras: The Pinnacle Of Home Security Surveillance Technology [print this page] Infrared cameras were first used in the forests of Korea, and were instrumental tools for US soldiers seeking out enemy infantry skilled in the art of stealth and concealment amidst the trees. Since then, the devices have found application in fields as diverse as archaeology, building inspection and astronomy. Incidentally, the infrared security camera has become the absolute cream of home security surveillance technology.
People these days often don't fully understand the difference between 'night vision' security cameras and infrared technology. Night vision cameras predate infrared - in fact, night vision goggles, which use an array of lenses to intensify light up to half a dozen times what the human eye could perceive, were already in use during World War II. More modern variants use CCD lenses sensitized to light at Wavelengths invisible to the human eye. Such cameras incorporate a torch that shines light at that wavelength, effectively illuminating the scene for the camera while it appears unchanged, even pitch black, to human eyes.
Elegant as they may be, these designs are both flawed. Both produce footage that looks monochromatic, two-dimensional, and, frequently, is insufficient to actually identify intruders - hardly an enviable addition to a home security surveillance system. You might just as well install dummy cameras.
True infrared security cameras do not provide any illumination of their own. Instead, they read and record the black body radiation of objects. This radiation is brought about by the heat emitted by objects, and as such can be detected totally independently of lighting conditions by use of the camera's microbolometer. Of course, the imagery they produce doesn't look much like ordinary video footage - it's not going to tell you the color of a person's hair, skin or clothes. What it will do is assist you in determining their height, build and gender, what they did and where they might have left any traceable evidence such as fingerprints. What's more, adding this state of the art technology to your home security surveillance system needn't force you into completely rewiring your pad. The existence of wireless surveillance cameras of the infrared type means that you can have any footage captured transmitted to a remote location, and thereby uploaded to a storage cluster online, where you can view it through a private website.
Infrared security cameras can be an invaluable addition to homes where poor outdoor lighting conditions render ordinary wireless surveillance cameras insufficient. While their images might be hard for a layperson to interpret, they provide what, for a skilled thermographic analyst, amounts to full-spectrum coverage.
The thing to guide you in your decision as to whether to purchase what can be a rather expensive piece of audio-visual equipment (thermal cameras from FLIR, the major producer of the technology, start at around $2000) should really be need. External infrared security cameras will be totally unnecessary in neighborhoods with well-lit streets, as they will be on porches or driveways with motion-activated lighting.
There is, of course, also a cost-saving element to infrared security cameras. All you need to do is have your infrared security cameras set up in such a way that they alert the fire department when the ambient temperature in your home rises above a certain level, and they can double as fire detectors, eliminating the need for a smoke detection system.
