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10 Questions to Ask Your CCTV Supplier
10 Questions to Ask Your CCTV Supplier
Roman Gaufman avatar
Written by Roman Gaufman
Updated over a week ago

1. How do I find footage of the last delivery at my store?

TetherX (2-3 seconds): Tap zone, tap morning, see a visual summary of every person at the desired zone. Scroll through the page to find that delivery 3 days ago in seconds.
The system has evolving algorithms and pulls information from multiple sources (e.g. built-in intrusion detection, your camera built-in analytics, information from your alarm sensors, etc), to bring your attention to relevant events using representative “best image” technology.

Competitor (20-30 minutes): Often access to older footage is not possible over the Internet or is too slow to be practical. Where possible, it is limited to rewind/fast-forward or selecting from hundreds of individual non-visual points in a list or scrubbing through a timeline.

Finding relevant footage without knowing the exact time/date is difficult and time-consuming and often a site visit is required.

2. How do I see what happened at night this past week?

TetherX (10-15 seconds): Tap zone, tap night, scroll through a visual summary of all events at night for the week/month, you can see what happens from the “best image” technology.

You can also select multiple cameras from multiple sites when performing the search.

Competitor (many hours): Search each day individually and rewind or click on hundreds/thousands of individual events.

This is further compounded if you have more than 1 site as you need to start from scratch and connect to each system individually.

3. Will the health of my system be monitored? Will I be notified if it goes offline?​

TetherX (yes): Tap Admin, tap TetherBoxes, see detailed health stats, tick "Notify" to be notified of issues (Note: health notifications require a "Platform Fee" subscription).

Competitor (no): Not monitored and cannot notify if the system goes offline, you find out about issues when you need to access critical footage which was not recorded.

4. If someone vandalises/steals my system, will I still be able to see what happened?

TetherX (yes): Cameras can be selectively and optionally backed up to the cloud in either the original or optimal quality. This ensures you see what happened before the system went offline.
Access to both cloud and locally recorded cameras is streamlined and transparent, you use the same app, the same way.

Competitor (no): Nothing out of the box. You can add third-party cloud add-on products that require installing a separate app and/or firmware, learning a new interface and deciding which few cameras to connect to this system.

Because only a few cameras are on this system and the cloud footage is normally of significantly lower quality, you need to learn and use 2 independent systems.

5. If the Internet provider upgrades the router, will I keep my access?

TetherX (yes): TetherX does not require any custom firewalls/port forwarding rules to operate. If you can access https://google.com, your TetherBox will be able to connect to our cloud.

Competition (no): Partial or complete access is lost. Usually requires re-configuring the router (e.g. port forwarding) or using services such as TeamViewer.

6. What if someone tries to hack my CCTV? - Will I be notified/can I see what they changed?

TetherX (yes): We use bank-grade encryption and you get email reports of any suspicious access with a link to view what was viewed/changed. All-access is logged minute by minute and visually presented in a central audit log.

Competition (no): There is limited to no encryption and the owner will not be notified of any breaches. There is also no detection of suspicious access and limited audit logging that requires accessing each system separately.

7. Can I watch my home and business CCTV side by side with the same login?

TetherX (yes): See and compare cameras in different locations side by side from any device, all you need is your email and password. Are both my stores busy at lunchtime?

Competition (no): Separate access details and sometimes apps, requires setting each device up ahead of time and disconnecting/connecting to each system/site separately. Requires IP addresses / DynDNS and/or port forwarding / TeamViewer.

8. Can I watch past events both from inside & outside the premises using the same access?

TetherX (yes): One secure login to all your locations anywhere in the world from any device.

Competition (no): You often need to know the internal and external IP depending if you are on the premises or accessing over the Internet, this applies to each location and can become challenging to manage multiple sites with mixed internal/external access.

9. If I want to access my CCTV from a new phone/tablet/laptop, what do I do?

TetherX (simply log in): Open https://my.timeline.is from any browser (or open the TetherX app) and log in with your normal email and password. You may be notified of suspicious access if accessing from a new device. All your configurations and access details are backed up in the cloud.

Competition (long setup process): The process is not straightforward: you may need to install software or add the remote IP addresses of each system, etc. Usually, this means a lengthy call to your installer and a spreadsheet somewhere to track all the separate credentials and addresses.

10. Can the system monitor other devices? Can I upgrade it?

TetherX (yes): We connect to alarms and a host of other IP systems. The TetherBox can also notify you of things such as someone disconnecting your till, or trying to break into your network (requires a "Platform Fee" subscription).

We push frequent updates to make your system smarter and add functionality over time.

Competition (no): No. The system is locked to a set of a few features and manual firmware updates are generally limited to bug fixes and security patches.

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