The supermarket I used to go to as a kid had an old employee who would trail all of the kids around to make sure that they didn’t stuff anything into their pockets. It never seemed all that great a system to me to be honest, as he simply couldn’t cope when loads of boisterous kids went in and started running about. He would have needed about 10 pairs of eyes to look after that lot.
Then the next change which came in was surveillance mirrors. The supermarket had a big, fixed mirror up at the end of each aisle and the old guy would simply sit down in his chair and keep track of everything going on. This was a great improvement but it was a few years ago now, so I decided to check out the latest CCTV Systems, to see how things have come along since then.
Two Way Mirrors
I have never seen one of these in real life. Actually, maybe I have, since the point is that they look just normal mirrors from one side. However, the person on the other side of it can see you instead of themselves. These have to be set up with the right level of lighting, as the person doing the surveillance needs to be in a darker room than the people they are watching. We all know these exist because we have seen them in the movies but have you ever thought about it when you are in a shop and see a big mirror on the wall? These aren’t particularly expensive and are a fine choice for monitoring a fixed zone.
Mirrors with Built in Cameras
These are great for keeping an eye on things but obviously also record events at the same time, please note these are not ideal in bathroom mirrors. They would probably be most useful in a busy place where you can’t be expected to keep an eye on everything at the same time. Someone running a big operation might want to have an employee monitoring the footage on a regular basis but for smaller companies it would simply be a back up to be checked in the event of serious incidents.
Motion Activated
There are also motion activated surveillance mirrors, and these often come with the built in cameras we just covered as well. There are a variety of situations in which these might be handy, and the fact that they are motion activated means that you can be confident that they will follow anyone whom you need to keep an eye on. In truth, any of these types of mirrors are good value for keeping a close eye on your business. The main difference is in how you use them and how big the area is.