GADGET LAB → SECURITY
nies like Polaroid and Hive have even hired
sought-after consumer design firms like
Ammunition and Fuseproject, whose other
products include Beats by Dre headphones
and the Snoo robotic bassinet, to design their
cameras.
One irony here: We are increasingly fear-
ful that our smart-home devices are eaves-
dropping on us, that hackers can crack into
our internet of things for fun and profit, that
manufacturers listen in on our conversa-
tions. (Earlier this year Bloomberg set off a
frenzy by revealing that Amazon employees
listen to Alexa audio clips.) These days, to
equate our home security cameras with our
increasingly suspect home devices may no
longer enhance a feeling of peace of mind.
More important, though, is the conflict
with the underlying purpose of security
cameras. While footage can be used to alert
police to a break-in or to secure a court-
room conviction, the most effective func-
tion of surveillance cameras is, say it again,
deterrence.
Research conducted in the US and UK
shows that the presence of surveillance
cameras in urban settings caused a sig-
nificant decrease in property crimes on
the streets and in subway stations, and
a decrease of 50 percent in parking lots.
But for that deterrence to work, criminals
need to recognize the device, and the device
needs to convey authority. As a research
report by Arizona State University’s Center
for Problem-Oriented Policing states, only
an obviously visible security camera has the
desired demotivating effect: “For this crime-
prevention process to succeed, the offender
must be aware of the cameras’ presence.”
So the more attractive and inconspicuous
security cameras are, the less likely they are
to impress intruders.
In the short term, discretion may be a
shrewd move. In Olean, the camera system
was removed when a new mayor was
elected. In 1969, The New York Times
reported that the mayor objected that it
“smacked of an invasion of privacy.” Para-
doxically, the near future feels like a privacy
invasion much worse than anything Olean’s
mayor could have imagined, in which dis-
creetly sleek cameras are absolutely every-
where, making us all paranoid prisoners of
our own society.surveillance cameras. In 2018, some 50 mil-
lion of them were sold; research firm Strategy
Analytics estimates that four years from now,
customers will buy 120 million.
The thing is, these companies have been
pushing the cameras as stylish additions to
a home. But the attempt to reconcile deter-
rence with a chic image is bound to have dys-
topian consequences.
Public surveillance cameras come in two
forms. One, shaped like a cylindrical bul-
let, is pretty easy to see and is pointed at a
subject—say a person standing at a bank
teller’s window—like a shotgun. If the cam-
era is robotic, it can single out and follow a
subject or suspect. The second kind, a dome
camera typically enclosed in a tinted plastic
bubble, is more sinister. People are aware of
it but never know who, or what, it is filming.
The home surveillance market, however,
is more about friendly design; a security
camera that resembles a Nest thermostat
or an Amazon Echo is in keeping with the
modern, tech-enabled lifestyle. Compa-JONATHON KEATS wrote about sound
design in issue 27.06.At the end of the ’60s, in the embryonic
days of cable television, an enterprising
executive had an idea. He persuaded the
leadership of Olean, in upstate New York,
to hook up closed-circuit TV cameras, via
the newly laid cables, along the town’s
main street. With 20,000 residents, Olean
was hardly crime-blighted Manhattan. But
when the first-of-its-kind surveillance sys-
tem was installed in 1968, law enforcement
officials from as far away as Israel and Thai-
land came to marvel at the eight robotic
cameras attached to utility poles. Miscreants
were also impressed: Not a single crime was
attempted during the 18-month run of the
experimental network.
After that, there was no stopping video-
based crime deterrence. More than 50 mil-
lion CCTV cameras now watch over the
residents of the United States, and four times
as many keep Chinese citizens in check. No
surprise, then, that in the past five or so years
companies like Nest and Ring have been
pushing peace of mind in the form of home
Surveillance works best when the bad guys can see they’re
being watched. So why design smart-home security cameras
to blend in so beautifully? —Jonathon KeatsPrivate Eyes