The problems on a building site
Everything valuable on a site is portable. Power tools, batteries, copper, formwork, cable reels, a bobcat with the key in it. Most of it leaves between knock-off and start, through a gate that was chained but not watched.
The cost is rarely just the gear: a lost morning, a hire replacement, the excess, a program that slips. The site also changes every few weeks, so a plan drawn in week one is wrong by the slab pour.
Deliveries are the other half: when a load is short or dropped in the wrong spot, nobody can say which truck or which hour.
What we install
Site equipment has to be movable and re-aimed as the job changes.
- Gate and access. A vehicle-gate camera angled so a plate is readable, and one at head height on the pedestrian gate.
- Compound and laydown. The container, tool store, fuel and plant parking — the positions that matter most overnight.
- Mount points that move. Cameras on the shed, containers, scaffold or a pole, not fixed to structure that will be built past.
- Recorder, power and network. The NVR lives in a locked shed or container. We size storage to camera count and retention, run cabling that can survive a site, and set up remote access over the site connection or a 4G link, then commission and train your team. See installation.
What the AI layer watches for
Footage stays on the recorder on site. Analysis runs on our own server, from frames pulled off that recorder.
- After-hours intrusion alerts. A sweep checks the cameras on your schedule — nights, weekends, the Christmas shutdown. If a person appears, the people you nominate get an email with the frame attached. A cooldown stops repeat emails for one event.
- Line crossing and gate monitoring. Lines across the gate, compound entry or tool store door, recorded as searchable events.
- Vehicle and people counting. Counts per camera over time, so you can check how many trucks came through the gate.
The system detects and alerts. It does not prevent theft, guarantee it has seen every person, or replace a fence or a chain through the plant. It means someone finds out at 1am, not 6:30am. AI analytics covers each capability.
What you see day to day
An overnight alert lands as an email with the frame attached, so from your phone you can tell a person at the tool store from a possum on the scaffold. If it is real, you have a time to work from, and the timeline holds short clips — roughly ten seconds either side of each event.
For a delivery dispute, search the gate camera for that window and read the plate off the clip. How it works follows an event end to end.
Practical constraints
- Power and network are temporary. Lose power and the recorder stops; a UPS covers short outages. Alerts depend on the link staying up, so plan the 4G service rather than assuming it.
- The site moves, and it is dusty. Budget for re-aiming and relocating cameras as the layout changes, and for housings and mounts that suit the site.
- Analysis budgets. Per-camera and hourly budgets keep processing predictable, so the compound gets the attention and the empty corner does not.
- Licensing and insurance. In several states installing security equipment is a licensed activity. Ask any installer for their licence and insurance details, including ours.