Maintenance of surveillanceystem
It is important to take care of and maintain the system that works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to take care of you and your property. Many owners of security systems think that the systems just take care of themselves and therefore do not spend the necessary time to ensure that the system runs optimally and this can cause great annoyance later on. as a technician, I have often been to customers to extract files after an incident, for example to the police after a burglary or vandalism, only to find that the system has not been busy for 2 weeks. I have therefore often thought that there should be a kind of guide that you as a customer could follow to check that the system is running optimally and in that way get some routines made that helped to detect errors before the system was to be used in earnest.
I have now made that guide here and it may well be that there are points that are not relevant pros or cons in relation to your system, in the guide. This guide is not a guarantee that all errors will be detected or there are no things that should be done further, the guide is meant as a helping hand, but still use your common sense, logical thinking and always follow the manufacturers' instructions.
Well it was known ample disclaimer, on to what you have ended up on this page for, namely the guide:
1: Check the cameras operation:
Every day you should just take a look at your screen, tablet, phone etc. to just see that all the cameras are online and there are no errors in the pictures. Look for pixel defects, dirty glass, etc.
2: Check recordings:
The best way to ensure that the entire system is operating is by rewinding and watching the recordings as expected. Remember to check all cameras for recordings and the quality of the recordings. After power failure, firmware update etc. one may be unlucky that the equipment fails and therefore does not record as desired.
3: Check night picture:
Although the day image looks fine, a night image may well have gotten really bad over time due to contamination of glass or changes in the environment. Changes in the environment cover, among other things, new lamps (especially up / down light) cobwebs, reflectors etc. A cobweb can e.g. rarely seen during the day but almost always destroys a night image.
4: Inspect equipment and cables
In order for your equipment to last for many years, it is important that it works under the best conditions, so at regular intervals, it is a good idea to inspect the equipment and clean according to the manufacturer's instructions so that, for example, the recorder is not full of dust. , the cables are not exposed to sunlight or pests, etc.
5: Refresh and then check again.
It is often a good idea to update the components that communicate on the network, especially if it is not segmented, divided into VLANs or if they are connected to the Internet. Sometimes an update is just improvements in the form of new features or smarter systems (nice-to-have) other times it is operational optimization, bug fixing and security patches (need-to-have). The last points are often critical and should always be updated if something new comes up, but they can sometimes have unintended side effects or small bugs that get sneaked in. Therefore, it is always important to check the settings of the equipment after an update. The best thing you can do if you do not have an overview of the settings is to go out and wave to your camera after the update and then go in and see the footage through.
Remember that updating is a critical process which in the event of incorrect operation can be harmful to the equipment and errors associated with updates are not covered by the warranty. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MANUFACTURER'S INSTRUCTIONS!
Hikvision updates can be found here: http://www.hikvisioneurope.com/portal/?dir=portal
