Multi-Unit Buildings
Apartment and Housing Society CCTV in Lahore
Entrance, lobby, lift, stairwell, parking and boundary coverage for buildings and societies — with clear rules on who holds the recorder and who may request a clip.
A Shared Building Is a Shared Decision
In a single-family property, one person decides everything. In an apartment building or a society, the system is paid for collectively, covers space that belongs to everybody, and produces footage that residents will eventually ask to see. The technical work is the easy part; the arrangements around it are what make the system last.
Before quoting we usually want to know three things: who is commissioning the work — the builder, the management committee or the owners association — where the recording equipment will physically live, and who will be accountable for it afterwards. Getting those settled first prevents the common outcome where a good system quietly stops being maintained.
All hardware is Contact for Price. Send your floor count, number of lifts and parking levels to WhatsApp on WhatsApp and we will scope the common areas properly.
Common Area Coverage
Typical building scope, confirmed on survey. Floor count and the number of entrances drive the total more than the number of flats.
| Area | What it is for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Main entrance and guard post | Identification of everyone entering the building | Face-height camera on the pedestrian route, wider camera on the vehicle entry |
| Reception and lobby | Visitors, deliveries and handovers | One overview plus a desk-facing angle where there is a reception counter |
| Lift cabin | The most requested camera in any residential building | Needs a route through the travelling cable and coordination with your lift contractor |
| Lift lobby on each floor | Who arrived on which floor and when | Compact camera per landing, aimed at the lift door approach |
| Stairwells and fire stairs | The route people use when they do not want to be seen | One camera per stair core, usually at the ground and mid levels |
| Basement and covered parking | Vehicle damage, theft from cars, after-hours presence | Wide cameras along the drive lanes, plus one at the ramp |
| Ramp and vehicle exit | Vehicle identity and timing | Plate capture at a controlled point, not a general corner camera |
| Boundary and service yard | Perimeter approach and rear access | Fixed cameras with night capability along vulnerable stretches |
| Generator, pump and water tank area | Restricted plant access and maintenance record | Door or approach camera, cabling protected from plant vibration |
| Bin and service area | Frequent minor disputes and dumping | One wide camera, low priority but consistently useful |
The Details That Catch People Out
Lift cameras need the lift contractor
A camera in the cabin needs a signal path through the travelling cable and a supply from the car circuit. Coordinate with your lift maintenance company before the day, not on it.
Basements swallow wireless
WiFi cameras are a poor choice in a concrete basement or a lift shaft. Wired cabling with a PoE switch on each level is the arrangement that keeps working.
Long risers, not long cables
In a taller building the run from the top floor to the recorder can exceed the copper limit. A small switch per floor group feeding one riser link is the correct answer.
The recorder needs a proper home
A locked, ventilated cupboard in the management or guard office. Not the electrical panel room, and not a shelf where any resident can reach it.
Building backup, not a wall socket
The recorder, the switches and the internet router belong on the building's backed-up supply so coverage survives an outage.
Plan for expansion
Leave spare ports and spare recorder channels. Committees almost always add cameras in year two after the first incident.
Governance the Committee Should Agree in Writing
We ask every building client to settle these points before installation. They take one meeting and prevent years of argument.
- Who owns the equipment — The building, the association or the developer. This decides who pays for repairs and who takes it over at handover.
- Who is the footage custodian — One named person, with a deputy. Not the guard on duty, and not a shared login that everyone knows.
- How a resident requests a clip — A written request to the custodian, a defined approval, and a decision on whether footage is viewed on site or exported.
- How long footage is kept — Agree a retention target and size the storage to it. Residents should know how long they have to raise an issue.
- Who pays running costs — Electricity, the internet link for remote access, disk replacement and periodic cleaning all continue after installation.
- What happens with a police request — A defined route so the custodian is not making that decision alone at short notice.
What an Individual Flat Owner Can and Cannot Cover
This is the most frequent question we get from residents, and the answer is fairly clear in practice. Inside your own flat, and covering your own door from your own doorframe, is your decision. The corridor, the lobby, the lift, the stairwell and the parking are common areas and belong to the building’s scope.
A camera at your door should be aimed at your threshold, not down the corridor at the neighbouring flat’s entrance. Where a doorway camera unavoidably takes in part of a neighbour’s door or a shared space, privacy masking should be applied to those regions as standard.
A video door phone is often the better answer for an individual flat: you see who is at the door and can speak to them without recording the corridor continuously. It also solves the practical problem of a doorbell nobody hears from the far bedroom.
Access Control at the Entrance
Cameras tell you what happened. Access control decides what is allowed to happen, and in a shared building the two work best together. Card or fob readers at the main pedestrian door, an electric lock with an exit button, and a release from the guard post cover the common arrangement.
Where the building has a guard, the useful combination is a camera at head height on the entry door alongside the reader, so an access event has a matching face. For societies with a boundary and a gated entry, plate capture at the vehicle gate gives management a record of vehicles rather than just a barrier that opens.
Committee members almost always want to check the entrance and parking from their phones. That is a permissions setup with a limited account per member, and the connectivity details are covered on our remote monitoring page.
How a Building Project Runs
Meeting with the committee or management
We agree scope, recorder location, custodian and budget expectations before any technical work starts.
Survey of common areas
Entrances, lobby, lift arrangement, stair cores, parking levels, plant rooms and boundary, plus the cable riser route.
Written scope for approval
An itemised document the committee can circulate to owners, with camera positions listed area by area.
Phased installation
Usually entrance, lobby and parking first, then floors, so residents see results early and disruption is spread out.
Lift coordination
Cabin cameras scheduled with your lift contractor so the shaft work is done safely and once.
Handover to the custodian
Accounts created, permissions set, retention confirmed and the request process demonstrated to the person who will run it.
Get Your Building Scoped
Message us on WhatsApp with your floor count, lift count and parking levels, or email info@strixlink.com for a written scope your committee can circulate. Everything is quoted as Contact for Price against the agreed areas.
Frequently asked questions
How many cameras does an apartment building need?
Floor count and entrances matter more than the number of flats. A typical scope covers the entrance, lobby, each lift cabin, every lift lobby, each stair core, parking levels, the ramp, the boundary and the plant areas.
Can a camera be installed inside the lift?
Yes, but it needs a signal route through the lift travelling cable and power from the car, so it must be coordinated with your lift maintenance contractor. It is best done during a scheduled lift service rather than as an afterthought.
Can I put my own camera in the corridor outside my flat?
The corridor is a common area, so that is a building decision rather than an individual one. You can cover your own doorway from your own frame, with masking applied where a neighbouring door falls in frame.
Who should be able to view the building cameras?
A named custodian with full access, and limited accounts for committee members or management covering the areas they are responsible for. Open access for all residents creates privacy problems and is rarely a good idea.
How does a resident get footage after an incident?
Through a written request to the custodian, with an agreed approval step. Settle this policy before installation, including whether clips are viewed on site or exported, and keep a simple log of what was released.
Will the system keep working during load shedding?
Only if it is on the building's backed-up supply. We place the recorder, switches and internet router on the protected circuit, otherwise recording and remote access both stop during an outage.
Who pays for the system in a society?
That is set by the committee or association, usually from maintenance funds, and should include the running costs of electricity, internet and eventual disk replacement rather than the installation alone.
Do you supply hardware only if the builder has his own team?
Yes. We supply as an authorised Pollo Security reseller and can leave the fitting to your contractor, or handle the whole installation. Either way the equipment is quoted as Contact for Price.