What is corridor mode on a CCTV camera?

Corridor mode rotates capture to 9:16 vertical framing so resolution lands along a hallway's depth instead of the two walls. One camera covers a longer corridor at usable identification quality, cutting camera count per floor.

Can visitors check in without reception?

Yes - online pre-booking issues an automatic QR credential, kiosk self-service check-in grants time-limited access to booked floors only, and the full record is kept and exportable. Walk-ins register at the kiosk with ID verification.

Does attendance integrate with HR software?

Yes - face clock-in, shift scheduling and attendance reports live in the platform, and an open API pushes the data to enterprise HR systems for payroll automation.

Smart Building Security: From the Fence to the 40th Floor

Q: How many cameras does an office building need?

Rule of thumb: 2-3 per entrance, one 180-degree panorama plus 2-4 domes in the lobby, one per elevator car, one 9:16 corridor unit per hallway run, 2-4 per parking level plus an outdoor PTZ, stairwell doors per floor, plus perimeter. A 20-storey tower typically lands between 80 and 150 channels.

Q: Can one system manage multiple buildings?

Yes - cloud access and multi-terminal management let several buildings report into one platform with per-building permissions, while each site keeps local recording so a WAN outage never stops evidence.

Why Building Security Teams Are Always Behind

The original document lists what breaks in conventional building management:

Blind spots on every floorCoverage grew floor by floor over the years — different brands, different eras, and corridors, stairwells and loading docks that nobody's camera quite reaches.

Alarms that cry wolfHigh false-alarm rates train guards to ignore the console — so the one real event of the month gets the same shrug as the hundred false ones.

Lobbies that bottleneckManual sign-in and badge checks pile up at 8:55 every morning; visitors wait, staff queue, and reception spends the day photocopying IDs.

Incidents found on replayA fall in a stairwell, a fight in the parking level, smoke in a plant room — without analytics, these surface hours later when someone reviews footage.

Five systems, zero linkageCCTV, access, visitors, attendance and alarms each in its own island — an access alarm can't pop the nearest camera, and attendance lives in a spreadsheet.

System Architecture

Layered per the original design: smart devices at perimeter, entrances, lobby, elevators, corridors and parking; floor PoE switches into a core; edge recording plus a unified platform managing video, doors, visitors, attendance and alarms — with cloud and mobile access.

Simplified diagram. Riser design, IDF/MDF layout and camera schedule follow your floor plans — send them for a drawn design.

Six Jobs This System Does

Every card is a chapter of the original solution, told from the building manager's chair.

A perimeter that shouts firstIntrusion, cross-line and climbing analytics with human-target filtering form the first defense ring; a confirmed event fires strobe and siren on the spot and notifies the security center — clear pictures at night included.

Entrances that beat the sunGlass doors mean brutal backlight: WDR imaging, low-light performance and high-zoom units capture usable faces both at noon glare and at midnight, plus people counting at every entrance.

A lobby that counts itselfA multi-lens 180° panorama holds the whole hall in one frame; people counting and crowd-density analytics reveal peak hours so managers staff reception from data, and abnormal-behavior detection flags trouble as it starts.

Elevators & corridors, no wasteElevator cameras overlay live floor position with the video; corridor cameras switch to 9:16 vertical framing so the long narrow hallway fills the frame instead of two walls — fewer cameras, better coverage.

Doors that know everyoneFace (~0.2 s), card, QR or phone opens the door; visitors pre-book online and walk in on a QR code; every passage is logged for audit, and attendance flows to HR through the open API — one enrollment, four credentials.

One center, every eventThe security center's video wall runs multi-view tours; 96 algorithms (fall, fight, smoking, climbing, crowding, illegal parking, speeding) pop confirmed events with linked video; thermal units watch plant rooms for abnormal heat; device health is monitored so dead cameras get fixed, not discovered.

The Numbers That Matter

Key capabilities from the official solution:

Face access in ~0.2 s — card, QR and phone credentials as alternatives

96 deep-learning algorithms: intrusion, fall, fight, smoking, climbing, crowding, illegal parking, speeding

180° lobby panorama with people counting and crowd-density analytics

9:16 corridor mode — vertical framing that stops paying for empty wall pixels

Attendance data flows to your HR system through an open API

System Components

These are the equipment roles the solution is built from. Exact models are chosen per site conditions, country requirements and budget — several of our product lines fit each role, so we spec the model list after receiving your requirement list.

Item	What it does
Perimeter & entrance WDR bullets	Backlight-proof faces at glass doors; intrusion analytics on the fence line.
Lobby / floor / elevator domes	Discreet indoor coverage; corridor units run 9:16 vertical mode.
Plaza & parking PTZ (33×)	Patrols open areas and zooms to plate or face level on demand.
Lobby 180° / parking 200° panoramic units	Multi-lens stitching for hall density analytics and wide outdoor tracking.
Recording & AI search	Per-riser NVRs with person/vehicle search; scales to a central pool.
Floor & core PoE network	Commercial PoE switches power cameras and terminals per floor; gigabit uplinks to the core.
Face terminals + visitor kiosk + thermal + platform	Doors, visitor flow, plant-room fire watch and the unified platform sized to door count and building count.

Item

What it does

Perimeter & entrance WDR bullets

Backlight-proof faces at glass doors; intrusion analytics on the fence line.

Lobby / floor / elevator domes

Discreet indoor coverage; corridor units run 9:16 vertical mode.

Plaza & parking PTZ (33×)

Patrols open areas and zooms to plate or face level on demand.

Lobby 180° / parking 200° panoramic units

Multi-lens stitching for hall density analytics and wide outdoor tracking.

Recording & AI search

Per-riser NVRs with person/vehicle search; scales to a central pool.

Floor & core PoE network

Commercial PoE switches power cameras and terminals per floor; gigabit uplinks to the core.

Face terminals + visitor kiosk + thermal + platform

Doors, visitor flow, plant-room fire watch and the unified platform sized to door count and building count.

Send floor plans on WhatsApp — we reply with a per-floor camera schedule, riser design and BOQ using these exact models.

Design Notes & Honest Limits

Read this before you order:

Elevator cameras need the travelling-cable path planned with the lift company — retrofitting video into an existing lift shaft is a coordination task, not just a camera purchase.
The 96 algorithms split between cameras and platform licenses — fix the analytics list per zone first, then size servers; enabling everything everywhere doubles the server bill for functions nobody reads.
Face recognition in workplaces is regulated in many countries — signage, consent and retention need legal review before enrollment starts; card/QR modes work standalone where face is restricted.
Thermal in plant rooms is early warning, not a certified fire-alarm system — code-required smoke detection stays; thermal buys you the hours before smoke.
Corridor 9:16 mode needs cameras that support rotate framing — decide it at ordering time, because housing orientation and bracket choice follow.

FAQ

How many cameras does an office building need?

Working rule from this architecture: 2-3 per entrance, one 180° panorama plus 2-4 domes in the lobby, one per elevator car, one 9:16 unit per corridor run, 2-4 per parking level plus a PTZ outside, stairwell doors on each floor, plus perimeter. A 20-storey single-tower office typically lands between 80 and 150 channels; the corridor mode is what keeps that number from doubling.

What is corridor mode and why does it matter?

Corridors are tall and narrow, but normal video is wide: a 16:9 frame on a hallway spends most pixels on the two walls. Corridor mode rotates capture to 9:16 vertical, so the resolution lands along the corridor's depth. The practical result: one camera covers a longer hallway at usable identification quality — the original document calls it out precisely because it cuts camera count on every floor.

Can visitors get access without bothering reception?

Yes — the visitor flow is: online pre-booking (or phone), automatic QR credential, self-service check-in at the kiosk, time-limited access to only the floors booked, full record kept and exportable. Reception handles exceptions instead of everyone. Walk-ins can still register at the kiosk with ID verification.

Does attendance integrate with our HR software?

Yes — face-based clock-in, shift scheduling, attendance statistics and reports live in the platform, and the open API pushes the data to enterprise HR systems for payroll automation. That's the stated design: enroll once for door access and attendance both, then let HR consume the records instead of re-keying them.

Can one system serve a whole portfolio of buildings?

Yes — the architecture supports cloud access and multi-terminal management, so several buildings report into one platform with per-building permissions. Each site keeps local recording (so a WAN outage never stops evidence), while the portfolio manager gets unified dashboards, alarms and visitor policies. Bandwidth planning per site is the one thing to size carefully — sub-streams for routine viewing, full streams on demand.