If you manage a building in Ajman, you know the call. A tenant has found a fresh scratch on their car in the basement, or a parcel has vanished from the lobby, and they want to see the footage. You open the recorder and find four days of video instead of thirty. Or the car park camera has been a black square since Ramadan. Or the picture is so dark at night that you cannot tell a Nissan from a Lexus.
That is rarely bad luck. It is what happens when a building's CCTV is installed once and then left alone. This guide is for owners, landlords and building managers who want a system that works on the day someone needs the footage. It comes from a CCTV company in Ajman that installs and maintains building systems, so yes, we have opinions.
Ajman already takes building cameras seriously
Ajman Police launched its «لحمايتكم» (For Your Protection) programme in 2017. By August 2020, about 120,000 cameras had gone into more than 3,000 residential buildings, shops, hotels and other premises across the emirate, installed by specialised security companies under police supervision, according to Emarat Al Youm. The police set specifications for the work, including for the engineers and technicians who install and maintain the systems, and signs tell residents which areas are monitored.
So for a building in Al Nuaimiya, Al Rashidiya or on the Corniche, cameras are part of running the building, not an extra. The rules for your type of building decide where cameras go, how clear the picture must be and how long footage is kept. Our guide to Ajman Police CCTV regulations goes through them. If you are unsure what applies to you, check with Ajman Police, or ask your installer to show you the requirement in writing.
Where the cameras go
A building system is not a villa system with more cameras. More people pass through, the light changes from a glass lobby to a dark basement, and far more people have a reason to argue about what happened. These are the places we cover in nearly every residential building:
- Main entrance and lobby. At least one camera that sees faces at the door, not the backs of heads. Glass entrances facing the afternoon sun turn people into silhouettes, so the camera needs proper WDR (wide dynamic range). A bigger megapixel number will not fix that.
- Lift lobbies and inside the lifts. Many complaints, and much of the damage, start here. A camera inside the lift car needs a travelling cable or a wireless link, which means working with your lift maintenance company, not around it.
- Car park entrance and ramps. If you want number plates, put a camera set up for plates at the barrier. A wide camera that sees the whole car park will not read a plate at night.
- Basement parking. Low light, pillars that bounce infrared back into the lens, and damp corners. This is where good low-light cameras earn their price.
- Stairs and emergency exits. Doors get propped open, and that is how people get in without passing the lobby.
- Roof access, water tanks, electrical and generator rooms. Nobody goes there often, which is exactly why they need watching.
- The bin area, delivery gate and outer walls.
Where cameras should not point: into flats, at neighbours' windows, or straight at individual front doors. Common areas are fair; people's homes are not. Our article on CCTV and privacy rules in the UAE explains where the line is.
The thirty days that turn out to be four
Running out of storage is one of the most common faults in building systems, and nobody notices until they need the footage. The number of days you keep depends on four things: how many cameras you have, their resolution, whether they record all the time or only on motion, and the size of the hard disks.
The sums are simple. A 4MP camera recording all day at about 4 Mbps writes roughly 43 GB a day. Thirty of those for thirty days need close to 39 TB. Put two 8 TB disks in the recorder and you get about twelve days, not thirty.
Ask every company quoting your building to show this calculation for the number of days your building must keep. If they cannot, they guessed.
Who gets to see the footage
In a building, requests come from tenants, the owner and sometimes the police. Set the rules before the first request arrives:
- Give the watchman live view only. Keep playback and export with the building manager.
- Give each person their own login. A shared password means you never know who deleted what.
- Keep a simple log of every clip you export: the date, who asked and why.
- When the police ask for footage, provide it. When a tenant asks, show them the clip or point them to the police. Do not pass video of other residents around WhatsApp groups.
And make sure every password ends up with you, the owner, at handover. It is more common than it should be for the only person who can log in to a building's recorder to be an installer who no longer answers the phone.
Maintenance: the part most buildings skip
Cameras in Ajman have a hard life: summer heat on the roof, salty humidity near the Corniche, dust on every lens, and car park cables that get wet whenever the ramp is washed. A camera can stop recording, or the recorder can lose its clock after a power cut, while the monitor in the watchman's room still looks fine.
An annual maintenance contract (AMC) is how you catch that early. Our building AMCs include four preventive visits a year, and on each visit we check:
- that every camera is recording, and that the oldest footage on the disk covers the days you need
- hard disk health, before a failing disk takes a month of video with it
- the recorder's date and time, because footage with the wrong time is hard to use as evidence
- lenses, housings, infrared and focus, especially outdoors and in the car park
- cables, connectors, junction boxes, power supplies and the UPS
- remote viewing, user accounts and passwords
You get a written job report after each visit. Keep them: they show the system was looked after if anyone ever asks. For what a fair contract should include, see CCTV AMC in the UAE: what it includes and what it costs.
Upgrading an older building system
Plenty of Ajman buildings still run the analogue cameras they opened with. You do not always have to rip everything out. If the coaxial cable is in good condition, HD analogue cameras and a new hybrid recorder give a big jump in picture quality for a fraction of the cost of a full rewire. If the cable is tired, or the building needs more cameras, moving to IP with a network switch on each floor is the better long-term buy. A good installer decides which after looking at your risers, not before.
You can also upgrade in stages: lobby, lifts and car park first, then stairs and roof.
What a building system costs
Nobody can give you a fair price without walking the building, and you should be wary of anyone who does. The cost depends on the number of cameras, how far cables have to run through risers and ceilings, whether the lifts get cameras, and how many days of footage the storage must hold. Our CCTV installation cost guide gives typical ranges for smaller sites.
Choosing a CCTV company in Ajman for your building
Before you sign, ask for these in writing:
- the approval or registration that covers your type of building, and a design that meets it
- a site survey before the final price
- an itemised quote: camera models, recorder, number and size of disks, cable type and labour
- the storage calculation for your required days
- a handover pack: camera list and locations, network map, user accounts, and every password, handed to you
- warranty on equipment and on workmanship, and an AMC with a response time
- a team based in Ajman, close enough to come back when something fails
Comparing quotes? Our 10-point checklist for choosing a CCTV company in Ajman or Sharjah covers each point in more depth.
Frequently asked questions
Do residential buildings in Ajman need CCTV?
Many already have it: Ajman Police's «لحمايتكم» programme put cameras in thousands of residential buildings, shops and hotels. What your building needs depends on its type and use, so check the current requirement with Ajman Police, or ask us to check your building against it.
Can a tenant ask to see the footage?
The building manager decides who can view footage. After a crime or an accident, the usual route is a police report, and the police then request the footage. Keep a log of every clip you export.
Can you install cameras inside lifts?
Yes. It needs a travelling cable or a wireless link, and we plan the work with your lift maintenance company.
How often should a building's CCTV be serviced?
We recommend four preventive visits a year, plus a quick check of recording days after any long power cut.
Which areas of Ajman do you cover?
All of Ajman, including Al Nuaimiya, Al Rashidiya, Al Rawda, Al Mowaihat and Ajman Corniche, as well as Sharjah and Dubai.
Get your building surveyed
Secure Eye Technologies is a Sharjah Police approved CCTV and maintenance company based in Ajman. Tell us how many floors and parking levels your building has and what is installed today, and we will book a free site survey. You will get an itemised quote and the storage calculation for your building, whoever you end up choosing.
Call 0585898309 or WhatsApp +971 58 589 8309, or see our CCTV installation in Ajman page.
