Video surveillance does not begin with the camera, it begins with a question: what do you actually want to see? We develop a viewing-angle concept for your property — discreet, mindful of data protection, and properly integrated into the KNX smart home.
We look at your property the way a visitor would who does not want to be seen: driveway, front door, terrace door, cellar entrance, blind spots. Out of that comes a concept with a few precisely placed cameras — each with a clear task, a matching lens and a defined field of view. The result is unbroken coverage at the points that matter, rather than a wall of cameras that films a great deal and shows little.
Your home should look welcoming, not guarded. We choose compact cameras that sit within the façade, the canopy or the exterior lighting — matched in colour, placed unobtrusively, with no visible cabling. Visible deterrence where it serves a purpose; restraint everywhere else. On a new build, cable routes and network outlets are fixed early enough that nothing has to be added later.
We align every field of view so that it covers your property — not the pavement or the neighbouring plot. Where areas overlap, we mask them directly in the camera. Recording runs locally in your house, with no cloud requirement: you decide what is stored, for how long, and who has access.
Cable routes and network outlets are fixed before the plastering starts — nothing has to be laid in afterwards.
In an existing building we use the cable routes that are already there — and use high-quality wireless equipment where cable makes no sense.
Four cameras in four corners, each at a high resolution — and at night the person on the drive is still a silhouette, because focal length, light and backlight were never planned. Video surveillance is not decided on the data sheet but on viewing angle, pixel density, recording and law. We plan it as part of the electrical and lighting design, not as something retrofitted to the façade.
We do not put cameras in the corner, we put them on the floor plan: for every position we fix the field of view, the focal length and the mounting height. A wide angle gives an overview of the courtyard, a longer lens delivers the face at the gate — both on the same façade, but with clearly different tasks.
The boundary of the property, the entry points and the interior follow different rules. The perimeter shows an approach; front door, side entrance, garage door and terrace door show who actually comes in. We define chains of coverage so that a route across the property can be followed without gaps, instead of pointing three cameras at the same driveway.
Megapixels on their own say nothing. We calculate in pixels per metre at the relevant object distance: an overview needs few, recognition needs considerably more, and a reliable identification at an entrance needs many times that. Sensor, lens and location follow from it — not the other way round. That is how you get an image that will stand up when it is needed.
Infrared stays invisible but delivers black and white — the colour of a jacket or of a car's paintwork is lost. Where colour matters, we plan a fast lens with discreet white-light support and coordinate it with the exterior lighting design, so that façade floodlights do not dazzle the camera and infrared is not reflected back off a wall, rain or cobwebs.
The front door against the bright façade, the exit against the midday sky: without contrast headroom the visitor becomes a silhouette. We check viewing direction, the course of daylight and the WDR headroom during planning, and would rather turn the camera by a few degrees than paper over the problem later in post-processing.
Cameras are visible components. We agree positions with the architect and the façade design, use the undersides of canopies, reveals and ceiling edges, choose housing colour and form to suit the material, and fix the cable outlets before render, insulation or natural stone are in place. At the 400-year-old manor house in Cologne it was exactly this restraint that counted.
Every camera gets a data cable of its own with PoE — no plug-in power supplies behind the façade. We size the switch's power budget and the uninterruptible supply, plan conduits and spare cables for later positions, and run every route into the technical room, so that maintenance happens in the house and not up a ladder.
Recording belongs in the building, not in a subscription. The recorder sits in the technical room; the retention period, the bitrate per channel and the choice between continuous and event-based recording give the storage size, which we calculate in advance. The drives are rated for a continuous write load, and overwriting runs automatically once the agreed period has passed.
Cameras live in a network segment of their own with no route to the internet — no port forwarding, no manufacturer cloud as a back door. Access from elsewhere runs over VPN to the firewall, with separate accounts per person and graded rights for family, property management or caretaking staff.
On your own property a great deal is possible; beyond it, very little. Pavement, road and neighbouring property are masked out permanently with a privacy mask, and we choose the viewing angle so that the mask does not eat half the image. We document the fields of view and think about signage, and about interior rooms where staff work.
The camera image belongs where people are looking anyway: on the indoor station, on the tablet and in the visualisation. Ringing the bell calls up the image; gate release, lighting and scenes hang off it. At the manor house in Cologne the Siedle exterior camera complements alarm, access control and video entry in the same interface.
A plain motion alarm reports every branch in the wind. We work with object classification: person or vehicle, line crossing, defined areas and time windows. So at night one alert comes in when someone steps over the boundary of the property — and not thirty just because it has been raining.
Good video surveillance does not draw attention day to day — and delivers a usable image at exactly the moment it counts.
From the concept to the briefing — a system that shows what matters and keeps to itself what is private.
Camera positions, lenses and fields of view for the driveway, front door, terrace and blind spots.
Fields of view confined to your property, privacy zones set directly in the camera.
Recorder or server in the technical room — you set the retention period and the access yourself.
Camera images on the touch panel, in the visualisation and on the phone — brought up automatically when the bell rings or movement is detected.
Cabling and installation from within our own group — one point of contact, no interface problems.
After commissioning we set up recording, masking and app access together with you.
We establish what you want to see and what you do not — the property, the entrances, your habits. Only then does the question of equipment arise.
We fix camera positions, lenses and fields of view — unbroken coverage at the points that matter, confined to your property with data protection in mind, without the pavement and the neighbouring plot.
You see the components before you decide. Installation and cabling are carried out by our sister company elektrofabrik — one trade, short routes, no interface problems.
We set up recording, privacy zones and app access together with you, and bring the images through to the touch panel and the phone.
Fitted out wirelessly in keeping with its listed status — Siedle camera, alarm system and access control, without touching the character of the house.
DoorBird video entry, alarm, garage door and visualisation working together — the security status of the house at a glance.
A complete electrical installation with DoorBird, shading and a smart office — security and building services discreetly integrated into a high-end interior.
smartfabrik is a smart home planning practice based in Düsseldorf (Reisholzer Werftstr. 31A). We plan for private clients and companies in Cologne, Düsseldorf and across North Rhine-Westphalia — and, where wanted, nationwide and internationally. A selection of the places we have already planned and delivered in:
Usually considerably fewer than catalogues suggest. On a typical detached house, three to five precisely placed cameras are often enough: driveway, front door, terrace and, depending on the plot, one or two further points. What matters is the field of view, not the number – which is exactly what we draw up the viewing-angle concept for.
On your own private property, video surveillance is generally possible. What matters is that public paths and neighbouring properties are not captured along with it. That is exactly what every viewing-angle concept is laid out for – with precisely defined fields of view and privacy zones. Where your plot has its particularities, we go through the alignment together before anything is mounted.
By default locally with you: on a recorder or server in the technical room, with no cloud requirement. You keep full control of your data and set the retention period and the access yourself. Remote access via the app is encrypted – the recordings still stay in the house. We bring in cloud services only if you expressly want them.
Yes, and that is precisely the point of an integrated concept. If the alarm system triggers, event-based recording starts, the matching camera image appears on the touch panel and the phone, and the exterior lighting comes on. You see straight away what is going on – rather than having to look for an app first. We plan both trades together from the outset.
Yes. In an existing building we first check which cable routes can be used – often the network cabling already in place, or unobtrusive routes. Where cable makes no sense, we deliberately use high-quality wireless solutions. The 400-year-old manor house among our references shows that demanding existing buildings can be fitted out discreetly too.
In a first conversation we go through your property and show where a few cameras are enough — on site or remote.
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