Feel Safe in Your Own Home

Posted on: 28 May 2019

CCTV systems provide surveillance and alarm notifications in the event of a threat. But as useful as surveillance is to your business, you also need to develop an effective communication channel that will inform people of an active threat.

Think of communication as the next step you need to follow after detecting something in your surveillance cameras. For example, if your CCTV cameras detect armed robbers walking through your business front doors, you need a way of alerting both employees and customers in the quickest way possible.

This need for timely communication has made mass notification systems an important component of your security infrastructure. But what is mass notification and can you add it to your current surveillance system?

The working principle

Mass notification systems are a type of communication that you can use to send out messages. The working principle is that once you need to communicate something urgently, the system can send out instant SMS messages, emails, paging, faxes or even social media posts. Mass notification is effective for getting the word out quickly and maximising public safety. But how does this apply to your CCTV system?

If your CCTV infrastructure is natively integrated with a mass notification system, you'll be able to maintain real-time surveillance and also notify your employees/guests of any active threats. For example, you can set the integrated system to send out SMS messages if your security cameras detect robbers on-site.

Because many security cameras also have smart features, they can be programmed to send and receive signals to your mass notification system as necessary. The result is proper surveillance and effective communication when a threat is detected.

Benefits of mass notification features

So is mass notification a worthwhile addition to your CCTV system? Indeed, you can reap many benefits by making this addition. First off, your premises will be much safer because you'll be able to detect threats faster, get the word out quicker and prepare an appropriate response.

You will also be able to communicate with many people at once using a variety of media. For example, if there's an active shooter on site, you can notify people to stay away via email, text, automated voice calls and much more. And because the system is integrated, you can set many different parameters when notifying the masses.

For example, you may choose to have your CCTV system first trigger a silent alarm, after which you can review the threat and initiate mass communication as appropriate. See what else you can do with a CCTV system by talking with a provider.