The camera is the easy part: you can buy one in ten minutes. The work is everything else — aiming it at what matters without filming what you may not, deciding where the footage ends up, checking it from your phone without leaving your home network wide open. That is what this service is: the whole job, done properly, once.
Done for you means something precise: cameras placed and configured, recording that actually records — to an NVR, an SD card or the cloud —, the app on your phone and notifications tuned to alert you when it matters, not every time a leaf moves. At handover we test everything together, and the accounts stay yours: you type the passwords — we don't ask for them and we don't keep them.
The quote is free and clear before we start: tell us about your home or shop and what you want to keep an eye on, and we'll tell you what's included, what it costs — and what you don't actually need. We're honest about where our trade ends, too: we're an IT lab — new sockets or any work on the electrical system belong to your electrician.
Aiming a camera well is half technique, half rules. The starting point is written into the GDPR itself: the Regulation "does not apply to the processing of personal data by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity" — watching your own home, for yourself, sits inside that. But the boundary is sharp, and the Court of Justice of the EU drew it: video surveillance that "covers, even partially, a public space" is no longer a purely personal or household activity. The official summary of the European guidelines on video devices puts it in one line: "If a home camera involving constant recording covers a public space (like the street) or a neighbour's property, the GDPR applies". That's why our site survey starts from the edges of the frame, not from megapixels — and from the same guidelines' principle that processing "should only take place if it is strictly needed for that purpose".
The Italian rules are just as clear, and we build them into the system. In its video surveillance FAQ, Italy's data protection authority (the Garante) writes that for private individuals the camera's field of view "must in any case be limited to the areas that are exclusively one's own property", excluding "shared areas" — courtyards, landings, stairways — and "areas belonging to third parties"; filming "public areas or areas of public passage" is forbidden outright. Translated into our job: angles measured during the survey, privacy masks switched on wherever the lens would take in more than it should, and a final test done together, frame in hand.
In a small shop the frame changes. The Garante again: people "must always be informed" that they are about to enter an area under video surveillance — the sign before the door, in plain terms — "regardless of whether the data is processed by a public or a private entity". On customers, staff, signage and retention times we don't play lawyers: we report the rules, we set the system up so they are easy to respect, and your specific case is discussed in the quote.
On the technical side, the word that protects you is "standard". ONVIF is the industry forum whose stated mission is "to provide and promote standardized interfaces for effective interoperability of IP-based physical security products and services": cameras and recorders from different brands that talk to each other. For you it means not being locked to one logo — tomorrow a camera can be replaced while the recorder stays. And since everything travels over your home network, remote viewing is only as good as the connection carrying it: if the Wi-Fi struggles, we fix the network first, then hang cameras.
The right cable simplifies everything else. With PoE — power over the network cable, standardised in the IEEE 802.3 family, whose more recent revisions use "all four pairs" of the cable — data and power arrive together: the camera goes where it's needed, not where a socket happens to be. Where a socket or any mains work really is needed, it goes in the quote and that job belongs to your electrician: we stay on devices and configuration. On recording we're just as frank: an NVR or SD card keeps going with the internet down, the cloud survives the recorder being stolen — the honest answer is often a mix, and if the footage lands on a home NAS, better still. One last honesty: we are not a security firm — the system alerts you, it doesn't call anyone. If what you're after is video verification tied to a burglar alarm, the right chapter is alarm systems.
| How many cameras, and where | indoors or out, angles, heights: every viewpoint is a small project of its own |
|---|---|
| Cable or Wi-Fi | where a network cable reaches, PoE does the job; where it doesn't, Wi-Fi is weighed honestly, limits included |
| Where footage lives | NVR, on-camera SD card or cloud: hardware, configuration and possible fees change with the choice |
| The network you already have | router, coverage and upload bandwidth decide remote viewing; sometimes that gets fixed first |
| Boundaries and rules | your own property, shared areas or a shop open to the public: what you may lawfully frame shapes the design |
| Sockets and power | where there is no power an electrician is needed: priced into the quote, not discovered mid-job |
What genuinely moves the cost of a set-up: how many devices and accounts, how much data to move, what is already in place. Agreed together before we start — the quote is clear before, not after.
ElectrONIK Lab is an independent workshop: it is not an authorised service centre and is not affiliated with the manufacturers. The trademarks named here belong to their respective owners and are used only to identify the devices we work on. Your statutory consumer rights towards whoever carries out the repair are unaffected.
Free diagnostics, a clear quote and the part chosen by you.