Best Practice Guide: Solar Powered & Wireless Security Cameras

When it comes to securing construction sites, industrial areas or remote locations with potentially critical infrastructure, traditional wired security systems may fall short due to the lack of power and internet connectivity. 

Fortunately, the growth in high-speed wireless internet over 4G/5G and satellite internet has opened-up these deployments to modern video surveillance solutions. Combined with standalone power generation and storage, there are now a variety of options that can provide power and internet for these kinds of deployments.

Wireless Security Cameras

For smaller or single-camera deployments, you may want to consider the growing list of cameras with built-in 4G or 5G cellular capabilities. Add your SIM card with a data plan, and you’re off to the races. Companies like Milesight have a family of 5G cellular products, including standalone 5G cameras. 

Milesight 5G Camera

Other vendors like Reolink and Arlo have 4G or 5G camera options targeted for consumer applications. 

That takes care of the wireless internet; now, what about power?

Solar Powered Security Cameras

As with cellular cameras, there are growing options for solar powered security cameras that have small solar panels and power storage on-board.

One word of caution: many current-generation cameras can only mount a small solar panel, so the available power generation is limited. In addition, they do not have an abundance of on-board power storage, so they operate with very strict power constraints. In practice, this means the cameras often are designed to go into sleep-mode in order to conserve power. This reduces surveillance options that require the constant publishing of a video stream, for example 24×7 video recording or live video monitoring by a remote guard station. Still, for situations where you have only small periods of time during the day when the camera needs to be active and recording, these may be good options. 

Ultimately, you need both internet and power, so you need to identify cameras that have both capabilities like the Reolink Go Ultra, or find an off-camera solution for one or both requirements. One of the approaches being widely deployed are the growing variety of mobile surveillance trailers and self-contained, standalone power and internet units. 

Mobile Surveillance Trailers & Standalone Power & Internet Units

If the power limitations of on-board solar and cellular cameras aren’t sufficient for your needs, or if you are doing a multi-camera deployment you’ll probably want to centralize power generation and bandwidth for the entire site, all on one unit.  In this case, mobile surveillance trailers are becoming commonplace at construction sites. An example is the Eye Trax Mobile Surveillance Trailer but there are a wide variety of options that can be customized to suit your needs. This article from SecurityInfoWatch.com has a good deep-dive on mobile surveillance trailers. 

If a trailer is not right for your needs, companies like J&M Security Solutions have their NOMAD device that includes power, internet and on-board compute for LPR or other analytics. This unit can be hung on a pole or nearby building so great for a variety of applications.

Both these types of units can normally support multiple cameras, and they are powered by larger solar generation and power storage, making them more resilient and able to support multi-camera deployments. Most integrators and solutions providers will happily customize them for your needs and offer easy financing options. 

The other benefit is they can be easily relocated to different areas of a site, providing flexible and scalable surveillance. Mobile surveillance units are ideal for large construction sites, events, and temporary setups, offering real-time monitoring and rapid deployment.

Learn More

For businesses and industrial sites where power and internet access are limited, solar and wireless security cameras provide an effective and efficient solution. Solar Powered Cameras and cellular 4G/5G cameras are great for many applications. Larger deployments at construction sites or other off-grid industrial deployments will want to consider mobile surveillance trailers or similar standalone units. For a complete surveillance solution, you’ll need power, internet, cameras, some networking equipment and likely a video management system (VMS) to manage the cameras, recordings, and provide AI capabilities. Camcloud has a 100% cloud option with a zero-hardware approach, ideal for these types of applications where on-premise equipment needs to be minimized. Feel free to learn more at www.camcloud.com or contact us for more information and learn about our network of partners you can equip you with a complete solution.