A camera that films the sidewalk while your door sits unwatched is an expensive ornament. Burglars are predictable about where they go: the front door first, then the rear, then whatever ground-floor window or side gate offers cover. Put cameras on those approaches, aim them at the thing a hand actually reaches for, and the footage you pull up later will show a face instead of the top of a hood.
Here are the seven spots worth covering first, with mounting height, angle, and lighting advice for each.
Most homes fail at placement long before they fail at resolution. A sharp camera mounted fourteen feet up under the eave of a corner gives you a lovely wide view of the yard and a row of tiny, hat-wearing silhouettes. Detail comes from proximity and angle, not megapixels.
Before you drill anything, decide what each camera is for. One camera identifies people at the door. Another watches a route. If you try to do both with one lens, you usually get neither.
Doors are where most break-ins start, and the back door is the one people forget. The two need slightly different treatment.
Mount the camera where it sees faces on approach, not the back of a head. A camera directly above the doorframe looking straight down catches shoulders and a hat brim. Better: set it on the porch ceiling or the wall opposite the door, about seven to eight feet high, angled 20 to 30 degrees down and across the doorway. You want the person to walk into the frame, not appear under it.
Lighting matters more than people expect. A porch light behind a visitor turns them into a silhouette; a light in front of them fills the face. Use a dusk-to-dawn or motion fixture positioned so the light falls on whoever is standing at the door, then check the night image before you trust it.
This is the door with the least foot traffic and the most cover. Don't mount the camera on the door itself. Mount it ten to fifteen feet back, along a wall or fence line, so the frame includes the door, the step, and the path leading in. A person walking up gets recorded from the side and front rather than the back.
Never point a camera through a glass door or window from inside. Infrared light bounces off the glass and you get a bright blur at night. Mount it outdoors, under a soffit or inside a housing.
Windows are the next most common way in, and basement windows are the easiest of all to pry. A camera aimed at the glass is only half right. Set it twenty to twenty-five feet back at seven to eight feet high, tilted down so the frame holds the window and the ground beneath it. That captures the person crouching, the tool, and the face when they straighten up to check whether anyone noticed.
For basement wells and egress windows, drop the camera to six or seven feet and keep the angle shallow. Too steep and you record nothing but the top of the well. Keep shrubs trimmed to about a foot below the sill — a bush is a hiding place and a reliable source of false alerts on windy nights.
The side door of a garage is often flimsier than the front door and screened from the street. Cover it from the yard at eight to nine feet, framing both the door and the driveway apron so you catch a vehicle and anyone walking up. If you store tools or a ladder in the garage, an indoor camera pointed at that door is cheap insurance. A ladder left in the yard is a staircase to your second floor.
A gate is a choke point, which makes it a bargain to cover: everyone entering the rear yard passes through it. Mount the camera on the property side, nine to ten feet up and out of reach of a grab, angled down at the latch. Ten to twelve feet of distance is plenty. If the gate opens onto a dark corridor, add a motion light on the house side.
Power, phone, and cable lines are the quiet target. Cameras that go dark are useless cameras, so put one on the meter and panel side of the house, high enough to be awkward to reach with a stick or a hoodie. This camera also covers trash bins and the spot where a recycling bin gets used as a step.
Every camera has a cone. Anything within a few feet directly below or behind the housing is invisible, and that dead zone is exactly where someone stands to spray the lens or pull the cable. Two habits fix it:
Then test it. Walk your perimeter at night with someone watching live on the app, and try to reach each camera without being seen. Most people find at least one gap.
Photo: padrinan / Pixabay
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