Is a DIY Security System Worth It? An Installer's Honest Answer

I am not going to tell you every DIY system is rubbish. Some of them are decent hardware, and I would rather someone had a cheap camera on the back door than nothing at all.

What I will tell you is where the line is, because I get called out to the other side of it often enough to know exactly where it sits.

When DIY is the right call

Three situations, and I will say so on the phone rather than quote you:

• You rent. You cannot drill into someone else’s wall, and you are not going to leave a cabled system behind when you move. A battery camera and a doorbell are the sensible answer.
• You want one specific thing watched. A shed, a side gate, a parcel on the porch. One camera, one job.
• You are testing the idea. Some people honestly do not know whether they will use it. Forty dollars finds out.

If that is you, buy the kit. You do not need me.

The part nobody mentions: in WA, DIY can cost you the rebate

This is the argument I never see made, and it is the one with a number on it.

• The state Seniors Safety and Security Rebate pays up to $400 per household to WA Seniors Card holders. CCTV, alarms and video doorbells have to be installed by a business holding both a Security Agent Licence and a Security Installer Licence. A self-install does not qualify. [A]
• Some council schemes pay you less for doing it yourself. The City of Stirling Safer Suburbs Rebate pays 30% on items installed by a licensed security agent or installer, and 20% on items you install yourself, equipment cost only. Same camera, less money back.
• The WA small business CCTV rebate refunds 50% of a new internal system up to $2,000, and it requires hard-wired cameras of at least 5MP fitted by a licensed Class 2 installer, with the licence number on the quote. A wireless DIY kit is not eligible at all. [B]

So on a $2,000 job a Seniors Card holder is choosing between a $400 rebate and nothing, and a small business is choosing between $1,000 back and nothing. That changes the sum people think they are doing. The full list of what is open and what each one needs is in the Perth CCTV and security rebates guide and the WA small business CCTV rebate.

What actually goes wrong

Not a list of twenty. These are the five I am called out for.

The camera is too high

Up under the gutter feels right because it is out of reach. It records the tops of heads. A camera needs to be near enough to face height to catch a face, angled across the way someone walks in rather than straight down at them. Too low and it gets knocked off the wall, too high and it is decoration. There is a window, and most DIY installs are above it.

It covers the front and nothing else

The front door is where the camera goes because that is where the power point is. The side gate, the rear, and the shed are where people actually come in. Coverage beats specification every time: four cheap cameras covering the real approaches beat two good ones covering the driveway twice.

Night

You do not find out what a camera was worth until the one night you need it, and by then the recording either exists or it does not. A small sensor behind a slow lens leaves a grey smear where a face should be. I have written up why in is an 8MP camera better than a 4MP one, and which brands I fit in which cameras I install and why.

Everything depends on the internet

A cloud camera with no local recording stops recording when the modem drops out, and that is the moment it was bought for. Cloud plans also keep a few days, so the break-in you discover after a week away is already gone. A recorder with a drive in the house keeps recording through an outage and costs nothing a month. What happens in a blackout is covered in do security cameras work without power or internet.

The notifications get muted

A camera that alerts on every moth and passing headlight gets muted inside a fortnight, and a muted system is not a system. How fussy a camera is about what deserves your attention is decided by the hardware you buy, not by a slider you turn down afterwards.

The line you cannot cross yourself

Installing cameras on your own house is your business and perfectly legal. Mains electrical work is not. Anything wired into a mains circuit or the switchboard, including hardwired sensor lights, is licensed electrical work, whatever the box says. That is covered in security sensor lights in Perth.

Running a cable through a ceiling to a plug pack is not the dangerous part. Deciding the lighting circuit can take one more thing is.

What a box does not come with

This is the real difference, and it is not a feature you can compare on a shelf.

When a DIY camera stops uploading, or the recorder fills up, or the app stops seeing it after a new modem, you are the support department. You will spend a Saturday on it. With an installed system you make a phone call to the person who put it in, who knows what is on your wall and what it is plugged into.

That is also why I do not install security equipment a client has bought themselves. I cannot warrant hardware I did not supply, and when it fails you would be chasing a retailer instead of calling me. General electrical fittings are different and I will happily fit those for labour. [C]

So, is it worth it?

• Renting, or watching one thing: buy the kit, and buy a good one.
• You own the place and want evidence rather than reassurance: wired, recorded locally, planned around the property.
• You hold a Seniors Card, or you run a small business: do the rebate maths before you buy anything, because self-installing is the expensive option.
• You already bought a DIY kit: do not bin it. If the cameras are IP cameras that support ONVIF, a proper recorder can often take them and add the detection they never had.

If you are weighing it up, the published prices are there so you can compare like for like, and the CCTV installation page covers how a job actually runs. Businesses are on the business alarm and CCTV page.

Common questions

Sources

1. WA Seniors Card, Safety and Security Rebate guide. www.seniorscard.wa.gov.au
2. Small Business Development Corporation WA, Small Business Resilience Program CCTV Rebate. www.smallbusiness.wa.gov.au
3. Dextel terms and conditions: clause 29.8 (package prices). Terms