CCTV & Video Surveillance
CCTV systems, engineered for the building they protect
We design, install, commission and maintain IP video surveillance systems in Dubai — from a six-camera villa to a multi-building site with analytics, ANPR and a control room. Every system starts with a site survey and a coverage design, not a camera package. Where the premises falls under SIRA’s Preventive Systems Manual, we design to those requirements and coordinate the inspection.
- SIRA-approved for Security and Surveillance Systems Installation and Maintenance · Working on CCTV in Dubai Since 2015
Cameras are the last decision, not the first
- Most CCTV quotations in this market start with a camera count and a price. Ours starts with a question: what has to be identifiable, from where, in what light, and for how long does the recording have to survive? Answering that properly decides everything else — lens choice, mounting height, resolution, frame rate, storage capacity, network design and whether the site needs analytics at all. It is also the difference between footage that identifies a face and footage that merely shows that somebody was there.
Survey & risk
What needs covering and why
Recording & storage
Retention, bitrate, capacity
Network
PoE, switching, fibre, segregation
Coverage design
Fields of view, blind spots, lens selection
Analytics
Only where it earns its place
Compliance
SIRA design and coordination
Cameras are the last decision, not the first
- A design is a document, not a conversation. This is what you receive before any equipment is ordered.
Site survey and risk assessment
What has to be protected, where the vulnerable points are, and what the client actually needs to see.
Camera positions and fields of view
Every camera plotted on the floor plan with its coverage arc, so blind spots are found on paper rather than after installation.
Lens and resolution selection
Chosen against distance and purpose — detect, recognise or identify are three different requirements and three different lenses.
Lighting and night performance
Available light, IR range, and whether the scene needs WDR, low-light sensors or supplementary lighting.
Recording and storage calculation
Camera count, resolution, frame rate and bitrate calculated against the retention the premises requires.
Network and power design
PoE budget, switch selection, uplinks, fibre where distance demands it, and UPS provision.
Equipment and camera schedules
Every device listed with model, location, reference and IP address.
Drawings and technical submittals
Layouts, single-line schematics, and material submittals in the consultant's or main contractor's format.
Which camera, and why
- This is not a catalogue. Each type exists to solve a different problem, and choosing the wrong one is the most common reason a system disappoints.
Analytics — what it does, and where it is worth paying for
- Modern cameras can detect events rather than simply record them. Used well, this turns a system that is reviewed after an incident into one that reports while the incident is happening. Used badly, it produces false alarms nobody trusts.
Line crossing & intrusion
Alerts when a person or vehicle crosses a defined line or enters a zone. The most reliable and most useful analytic on most sites.
Person and vehicle filtering
Distinguishes people and vehicles from animals, shadows and moving foliage — which is what makes alerts trustworthy enough to act on.
Loitering & unattended object
Flags a person remaining in an area beyond a set time, or a bag or package left behind. Common in lobbies, banks and transport areas.
People counting & occupancy
Provides visitor counts and occupancy levels for retail units, showrooms and public areas — useful for staffing, queue management and tenancy reporting, without manual counting.
Queue and dwell monitoring
Measures how long people wait or remain in a defined area. Applied in retail, service counters and reception areas.
Attribute search
Finds footage by description — a person in a red shirt, a white van — instead of scrubbing hours of recording after an incident.
Specialist surveillance systems
Reads vehicle plates at entrances and exits and matches them against a permitted list. Used on residential communities, staff and visitor car parks, warehouse yards and commercial buildings.
Integrates with: gate barriers for automatic opening, access control for combined vehicle and pedestrian entry, parking systems for occupancy and billing, and the VMS for a searchable vehicle event log.
Detects heat rather than light, so it works in complete darkness, smoke, dust and glare. Suited to perimeter detection, industrial plant and areas where lighting is impractical. It is a detection technology, not an identification technology — thermal is normally paired with a visual camera that captures the identifiable image.
Operator-controlled pan, tilt and zoom for large areas — compounds, yards, industrial sites and car parks. Configured with preset positions and patrol tours, and always paired with fixed cameras so that nothing goes unrecorded while the PTZ is looking elsewhere.
Telephoto and multi-sensor cameras covering boundaries, approach roads and open land, combined with analytics so the system reports an approach rather than simply recording it.
Monitoring workstations, video wall displays and operator layouts for sites where somebody is actively watching — larger buildings, communities and industrial facilities.
Recording, storage and video management
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Modern cameras can detect events rather than simply record them. Used well, this turns a system that is reviewed after an incident into one that reports while the incident is happening. Used badly, it produces false alarms nobody trusts.
NVR or VMS — which the site needs
A network video recorder suits smaller, single-building systems. A video management platform makes sense once there are multiple sites, many users, integration with other systems, or a control room. We specify the one the project needs, not the one that is easiest to sell.
Users, permissions and audit
Who can view live, who can review recordings, who can export footage, and a record of who did. On commercial sites this matters as much as the cameras.
Storage architecture and resilience
RAID configuration where the project justifies it, redundant power, and monitoring so that a failed disk is discovered before it is needed rather than after.
Continuous and event recording
Continuous recording where footage must be complete; event or motion recording where storage is the constraint. Most sites use both, applied camera by camera.
Storage calculation
Retention is a calculation, not a guess: camera count × resolution × frame rate × bitrate × recording mode × days. We size the storage against the retention the premises is required to hold, with headroom.
Remote and mobile access
Secure remote viewing on desktop and mobile, configured with proper credentials rather than default passwords — one of the most common weaknesses we find on existing systems.
Equipment we design, supply and support
- We are a systems integrator, not a dealer for one manufacturer. The equipment is selected against the requirement and the budget — and against what is supportable in the UAE, which matters more than the specification sheet.
Volume & mainstream IP
Hikvision · Dahua Technology
Uniview (UNV) · Milesight
EZVIZ · CP Plus · Tiandy
Professional & enterprise
Axis Communications · Hanwha Vision (Wisenet)
Bosch Security Systems · Avigilon
Vivotek · Honeywell · Pelco
Video management platforms
Milestone XProtect · Genetec Security Center
Avigilon Control Center · Wisenet WAVE
AXIS Camera Station · Nx Witness
HikCentral Professional · Dahua DSS
The infrastructure behind the cameras
- We are a systems integrator, not a dealer for one manufacturer. The equipment is selected against the requirement and the budget — and against what is supportable in the UAE, which matters more than the specification sheet.
Cat6 and Cat6A cabling — tested, certified and labelled, not simply pulled
Fibre optic backbones where distance exceeds copper limits or buildings are separated
PoE switching sized with real power budget headroom, not the theoretical maximum separated
Racks, patch panels and cable management that the next engineer can readseparated
UPS provision so recording survives a power interruption
Network segregation keeping the surveillance network separate from the business network
Outdoor containment and enclosures rated for UAE heat, dust and direct sun
SIRA compliance for CCTV in Dubai
- Most commercial premises in Dubai must have a surveillance system that meets SIRA's requirements, installed by a SIRA-approved company. Private villas are usually outside it.
The current requirements come from the Preventive Systems Manual, approved by Administrative Resolution No. (13) of 2025, issued by SIRA on 14 April 2025. It applies to the establishments listed in SIRA Board of Directors Resolution No. (1) of 2018, and it supersedes earlier provisions that conflict with it.
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Requirements set out in the Manual include a minimum camera specification of Full HD colour with continuous operation, a minimum recording retention measured in weeks rather than days, a minimum frame rate, a dedicated and resilient network for the security system, and — importantly — an annual maintenance contract with a SIRA-registered company, with a minimum number of preventive visits each year.
That last point is worth understanding: under the current Manual, maintenance is not optional. A compliant system that is not under a maintenance contract with a registered company is not a compliant system.
What we do on a SIRA project
Assess, design, plan coverage
Confirm which category the premises falls into, then design the camera coverage and system architecture against the requirement for that category.
Document, install, commission
Prepare the technical documentation and portal submission, install and configure the system, then test and commission it against what was submitted.
Coordinate, hand over, maintain
Coordinate the SIRA inspection and any rectification, complete the handover pack, and maintain the system under contract so it stays compliant.
Where we install
Villas, Apartments and Communities
Entrances, perimeters, garages and common areas. Integrated with intercom and smart home control where the client wants one interface. Usually outside SIRA's scope for a private villa.
Fit-outs and new construction
Working to consultant drawings and bills of quantities as an ELV subcontractor, with method statements, material submittals and testing records to the main contractor's programme.
Warehouses, factories, yards
Loading bays, racking aisles, gates and boundaries. Usually combined with ANPR at the vehicle entrance and thermal or long-range cameras on the perimeter.
Towers and mixed-use developments
Lobbies, lifts, corridors, car parks, plant rooms and perimeters, with a control room or FM viewing position and per-tenant access where required.
Car parks, gates and construction sites
ANPR at barriers, temporary surveillance during construction, and coverage of high-value or restricted areas.
Offices, Retail, Restaurants, Clinics
Entrances, tills, stockrooms, safes and back-of-house. Most of these categories fall under SIRA and are linked to trade licence renewal.
CCTV should not stand on its own
- On most projects the camera system is one part of a wider security and building package. Designed together, the parts reinforce each other. Bought separately from separate suppliers, they usually do not talk to each other at all.
Access control
A door event and the camera footage of that door, on the same timeline. The most useful integration in the entire security package.
Intrusion alarm
An alarm zone triggers, the relevant camera opens on screen and the footage is bookmarked.
ANPR and gate barriers
Vehicle plate read, barrier raised, event logged with the image — automatically.
Smart home and BMS
Camera views inside the home control interface, or surveillance status brought into the building management platform.
Intercom
Call from the gate, camera view of the caller, door release from the same interface.
Control rooms and video walls
One operator position covering cameras, doors, barriers and alarms rather than four separate screens.
How a CCTV project runs
Why clients use us for CCTV
Engineering before equipment
We establish what has to be identified and from where before a single camera model is discussed.
Tested, not switched on
Coverage, focus, night performance, recording, playback and export are verified before handover.
Coverage-based camera counts
The number of cameras comes from the coverage the site needs, not from a package with a round number in it.
You get the documentation
As-built drawings, camera schedules, test results and your own credentials. The system is yours to keep, extend or move.
Compliance-aware design
Where SIRA applies, the system is designed to the requirement from the survey onwards — not adjusted after a failed inspection.
We work on existing systems
Assessment, repair, extension and upgrade of systems installed by others, where it is technically sound to do so.
The infrastructure is ours too
Cabling, switching, fibre, racks and power are part of the same design, because that is where most systems actually fail.
Maintenance under contract
Preventive visits, health checks and priority response — which for SIRA-regulated premises is a requirement, not an extra.
