Logitech Alert Tips and Tricks: Security for the Small Business

With many small business owners seeking out digital video security options, I wanted to share a quick tip regarding Logitech Alert that will be particularly helpful for anyone looking to set up a security system at their place of work.

Logitech Alert’s standard HomePlug networking technology is ideal for homes, but may not be the best setup for many small businesses. That’s where a simple add-on known as Power over Ethernet (PoE) comes into play. To connect your Logitech Alert cameras at work, just add a PoE switch (shown below), which will allow both data and power to pass down a single cable – making it easy to add cameras to your network.

Here’s an example of a typical PoE network from EUSSO Technologies:

With this setup, you can run our Logitech Alert Commander software on any single PC on the network to view and manage your cameras. With Web & Mobile Viewer you can watch live video from anywhere using a Web browser on a PC or Mac, or with our smartphone applications for iPhone, Blackberry, and Android. And if you upgrade to the premium Web & Mobile Commander bundle, you can enjoy additional remote functionality such as watching recorded video and managing your cameras anytime, from anywhere in the world.

Author

Chief Product Officer, WiLife

3 comments

  • Hello Evan,

    Great tip. I have set up 6 camera’s connected to my POE switch (make sure they are in the same v-lan).

    I would like to be able to set the camera’s just to record at a certain time. I could not find this option in the software (and I do not want to schedule when the software is running, because that is too sensitive for error). Could this be included in a future update?

    Regards,

    Johanan

    • Hi Jack,

      The outdoor camera was engineered to work in most environments. The safe operating temperature of the camera is from -22 f to + 122 f. The camera also caries an IP-55 rating which means that it is nearly dust proof and that water projected by a nozzle in any direction will have no harmful affects. So mounting the camera to a pole in the middle of a parking lot or yard is no problem.

      Now to answer the more technical part of your question. We designed the Logitech Alert system to be setup by almost anyone, but it sounds like you’re venturing outside of the normal home use case. So the question we have to answer is whether the HomePlug technology will work properly from where you are mounting the camera. As long as the cameras power source is fed from the same power meter as the PC and network equipment, then chances are it will work just fine. What I would do before permanently mounting the camera is to plug it in and verify that you can find it in the Commander PC software application.

      Another option for these out of the ordinary installations is to get a Cat-5 networking cable to the camera location from your network router. If you can do this, then you can use a PoE switch to power the camera and eliminate the need for the HomePlug power supply and network bridge. See my post about PoE here: https://blog.logitech.com/2010/11/22/logitech-alert-tips-and-tricks-security-for-the-small-business/

      We’re definitely getting into an installation that is out of most consumers comfort zone at this point, so I’ll stop here before the support guys send me a nasty gram.

      With such a powerful end to end solution like Logitech Alert, it’s inevitable that people are going to try and push the use applications beyond the original scope of use. My advice would be to seek a networking specialist that knows all of the different options to ensure a quality setup and successful end result.

      I should also add that anyone can set it up, since its a simple three step process. And Logitech Alert outdoor cameras with night vision are IP-55 certified and can withstand freezing temperatures.

      Best,
      Evan

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