Looking For a Cold Weather Camera?
I know it personally that it can be quite a difficult task to find a camera that works well in all weathers. I have lived in Canada and I know that when the weather gets really freezing, all kinds of problems start to happen – the electronics simply freeze up, and also there is condensation in places where you don’t want it. There is surveillance equipment that has been specially designed for these purposes, and for this reason it is a great idea to look for them and try to find the best ones that are available.
When you have a good camera that deals with cold weather like it is no problem, you won’t have to worry about have a foggy lense when you really need that camera – I had this once with a low quality cheap model and I wanted to check out whether the bear that had been seen in the area, was going through my premises during the night. The lens was foggy, so I did not really see anything there – pretty useless.
This is definitely one of the biggest problems that take place when your camera isn’t as good as it should be – condensation on the lens can really be frustrating but that isn’t the only place inside the camera where you don’t want water. Actually to be really truthful with you – you won’t want water anywhere inside the chassis. Water will cause serious short circuits and can even cause a spike inside your system causing more problems than just your camera braking, but in worst case even your whole alarm system if they are all hooked up. Think about your premium system being fried up totally just because you could not spare the extra time to look for a good camera, or you could not cough up the few bucks for a better model. Don’t start saving at the wrong end – I see this happening on a regular basis.
So what should you be looking for in your cold weather outdoor security camera?
I have to admit that it isn’t necessarily the easiest task to find a good camera that will work even in freezing temperatures. Most of the US never has below zero temperatures, and for that reason they don’t need these types of cameras. Since regular crappy models are cheaper and you don’t need better ones they aren’t even available – and the most important thing is that the merchants don’t realize that they should provide proper information on their website about these things. Many people buy outdoor security cameras online, and for this reason it is of uttermost importance to keep the websites up to date. Operating temperature is one of the first important pieces of information that should be there.
I have been able to find a few sites that even had their cold weather outdoor security cameras in a specific category, and this way they made it quite easy for the client to find what they were looking for. These are all small things that will help the business at the same time and it will make everyone happy. It does not really take a whole lot of work to actually look through the products that you are selling and then write a little sum up about it.
When you need surveillance power in cold climates you should not go with the cheapest cameras that you can find. Most of the cameras that are meant for these kids of surroundings come with a sturdy housing and can even pack a heater for the camera. When these are properly made, the heater inside the housing will keep the air around the camera dry and warm which will prevent all kinds of condensation on the lens. Since there is cold outside the box there won’t be fog on the outside of the lens either – the dew point is simply not there.
Since there will be a heater mounted inside the case, you are also going to need more electricity – power. In some cases you don’t need an extra power source – usually just two connectors, but if you want to make sure that you won’t experience problems even in the worst weather, I suggest that you get one that comes with a separate connector for the heating of the housing. This works especially great even for dome cameras, which I like for cold weather especially. This is because the whole turning mechanism will be warm and there won’t be issues with that – if you have a fixed camera, then there is no problem here.
Depending on what you need you might just be looking for added housing for your previous camera – you might have a great camera and all you need to do is mount a new box around it that will keep it secure. Make sure that you get a vandal resistant housing – this will help protect the heating device from people who want to harm your surveillance equipment. In my opinion it is quite ridiculous, but there is a great number of people who are actually just looking to do some damage to your security system, rather than try to even get inside your premises. I learnt this when I was running my own business in the center of the town – drunken people just wanted to break the cameras and maybe even a window or two. I was prepared for it, and they never really did any damage except made a fool out of themselves on camera!
You can find cold weather outdoor security cameras in quite a lot of different models and when it comes to housing you can also get it installed on anything basically – some companies even custom make them. So if you want a dome or a bullet camera, you can be sure to be able to find it.