Not everyone needs to have a sophisticated home security system, but many feel better and are better able to sleep at night if they have what makes them feel safe. Your need for a security system depends on where you live, the style of your home, and even your past history with problems. Some find that a simple alarm system is all that they need to have, but others want to have something more. If you fall into the group that needs something more, a home surveillance system complete with visual aids may be what you seek.
A home surveillance system can include many things, but for the most part, those that have something like this installed want to have both eyes and ears open for trouble. If you live in a second story apartment, you may not need to have cameras around the property, but if you are in a single home and have ground floor entrances all around your home, this can be a great idea if you have had trouble, or if you fear trouble could easily come into your neighborhood. Seeing what is going from inside your home is easier than walking outside to see what the noise might be.
Cameras can make up an important part of any good home surveillance system. These can be set up to record what is going on in any part of your property. These can be expensive, but they can also be a great investment if you live in a area where break ins tend to be more common than not. Sometimes, just the presence of cameras is enough to make people think twice about bothering your home in particular. Some people even have what are called dummy cameras. They really aren't recording anything, but those looking at them do not know that for sure.
Real cameras can record great evidence if you have a problem. These send the video signal to a monitor in your home. You can use your home television for this, or you can get something separate. Most choose to get a smaller monitor for their home surveillance system rather than use their television in their living room. This signal can also be recorded on a digital or analog recorder so that it can be replayed and stored. In the event someone breaks in, it is nice to have that footage recorded to hand over as evidence.
In some cases, recording everything with home surveillance system recorders and cameras can be expensive. Most models will record about eight to twelve hours of footage and then will start to record again on the same tape or space. This means you only have the last twelve hours on tape, but that is mostly what you need. You only need to save the footage if something has happened. To save money, look for systems that record for you, but that can store all footage from all cameras on one recorder, and have it synced up with the rest of your home security system.