I have been in a couple of friends' and acquaintances' small businesses recently, and was impressed that quite a few of them now have a small video surveillance camera system set up. At a small, independent hardware store that one of them owns, I was impressed by the fact that the store owner not only had register and aisle cameras, but also had done outdoors/parking lot security cameras.
As impressed as I was by the number of small businesses using video surveillance, I was shocked that not one of them had a lockbox for their digital video recorder (DVR). The unit was squished under a monitor (and on top of those monitors, more often than not, was a stack of thick phone books). Asked how they secured the equipment, both that hardware store and another business said, "We have it locked in the back office." That's fine, but the doors were apparently the most inexpensive residential grade interior doors these business owners could purchase. The door to these back offices seemed like they were made of balsa wood, and I think they could have been kicked in by someone wearing flip-flops.
In summary, these businesses need to create a lockbox for their DVR. If a burglar is in the back office looking for money, I think they will also trash the DVR if it's available, just as it was common for criminals to steal the VHS surveillance video tapes as they completed their capers. And for our dealers of security systems, make sure the lockbox is being offered by all of your sales representatives. It's an easy way to increase the sale and cheaply add "insurance" for your customer's system.
If any small business owners are reading this and wondering exactly what a lockbox is, here's one lock box example and here's another. These aren't recommendations of quality from me (I haven't tried these yet), but are on here to give you examples of price and available features. As a side benefit, the lockbox can help ensure that your employees don't accidentally change settings on your DVR.
-Geoff
