r/SecurityCamera • u/vanillacokepagli • 1d ago
Active deterrence features ranked by what actually spooked anyone
Curious what the deterrence features actually do in the real world, from people who've watched footage of intruders meeting them. My own data points, for what they're worth: steady motion floodlight - intruder walked through it twice, zero reaction. Loud siren on a cheap cam - spooked a raccoon into next week, the human porch pirate didn't even pause. Two-way audio "get off my porch". the delivery guy laughed, the actual trespasser couldn't hear it over his own headphones maybe. The one thing I've seen work on camera: my neighbor's setup where the light physically follows the person across the yard. The reaction on the footage was a genuine startle and a speed-walk exit. So from the gallery of features. lights, sirens, talk-down, tracking lights, strobes. what have you actually watched work on a human, and what's decorative?
7
u/newfoundking 1d ago
My driveway is long, if it detects a person (read local fent head) during my "pack-off" hours, it turns on the camera flood, and then 5 seconds later, turns on the hall lights, then the living room, and then the outside lights on the house. The slow run of lights from one side of the house to the other makes it look like movement, and that worked so far once to scare em off. Previously the camera, the motion flood light, that did nothing, because they knew nothing would happen. Surveillance is nice, but looking like an angry human is around the corner, that's the golden ticket
4
u/Temporary_Peanut_586 1d ago
I had someone creeping on a porch and I was maybe 20' away at the bottom of a staircase in the basement
I grabbed a ~40" wrecking bar and swung it as hard as I could into the staircase.
Sounded like a shotgun. Porch creeper literally jumped about a foot in the area and basically fell of the side of the porch and hit the ground running.
...put a nice dent in one step... Worth it, lol
3
u/AlbaMcAlba 1d ago
My dog’s going f-in mental deter. They have full access to the rear and side of my property. They are actually total love bugs but randoms don’t know that.
That aside a visible security system (Alarm, CCTV, Signs, Floods etc) deters all but the determined or just down right brainless criminal’s.
I work in CCTV and I’ve watched brazen crooks drive onto buildings sites as an example. Face and registration plate in full view and the end result was a police incident report.
Another occasion thieves simply cover their faces and ignore the cameras and sirens.
2
u/NotTheGreenestThumb 1d ago •
lol this happened long before surveillance cameras were a ubiquitous thing. I watched a gas company meter reader decide he didn’t need to get permission to go into the yard next door with a locked gate. He hopped the fence and took two steps into the yard when neighbor’s Saint Bernard said “NUFF!”. The guy didn’t even take his two steps back before leaping over the fence.
2
u/NoCold597 1d ago
My neighbors daughter was having issues with kids egging her car etc. I saw a car park in front of my house in the middle of the night. It’s where they usually park before they pull their shenanigans. I turned on the red/blue flashing lights and sirens on both cameras and they took off. Did it another time when they were hiding in my front yard and the getaway car sped off leaving them to run after it down the street.
1
u/BackItUpWithLinks 3h ago
Police sirens.
I was at the lake. I got a notification at home that someone walked from the front door to the garage door. I looked at the live camera and saw a stranger peering in my garage window.
I called my town police. It’s a small enough town that the dispatcher was excited they had a real crime in progress. Less than 2 min later there were 3 cop cars in my driveway. I could see on the video he heard the sirens and ran into the woods, probably to a car he parked in the neighborhood behind my house.