Max Security USA · Quoted per site
Community cameras that do more than record.
We survey, install and monitor cameras for gated communities and HOAs. The entrance camera reads the plate. The roadway camera does the work for stop-sign enforcement. The one on the pool gate produces a clip a board can use.
- Your existing cameras assessed first
- Licensed installers
- Retention set by your board
- Footage owned by your community
The cameras you already have are usually aimed at the wrong thing rather than broken. Put one entrance camera where it belongs and the same feed runs the gate, the stop-sign review, the visitor log and the incident file. One install. Several jobs.
How one feed does several jobsOne installation, several jobs
Every camera has more than one job.
We place cameras so everything else can see. The feed that records the entrance also reads the plate, watches the stop sign, gives a remote guard a view of the lane and attaches the clip to an incident report.
Reads the plate at the gate
A plate-reading camera aimed down the lane reads each plate and sends the read to the free visitor platform, which checks it against residents, guests and vendors. A plate on the deny list, or on a deny entry in the watchlist, is flagged on the guard’s screen.
Watches the stop sign
The same roadway view measures speed and catches the car that rolled the stop line. A person reviews every candidate clip before a notice goes out. Traffic enforcement runs on these cameras; there is no second set.
Produces the clip when something happens
A car left in the fire lane overnight, or a bent mailbox post. Log the incident in the platform and the footage is attached to it, with the time, the location and the name of whoever filed it.
Gives a remote guard eyes on the entrance
If your gate is worked remotely, this is what the guard looks at. They see the car, check the pass and lift the arm or keep it down. The camera is the guard’s window onto the lane.
Backs up the on-property log
The log already says who was scanned in, by which guard and for which host. Plate reads land in the same log, so the answer to who was on the property on Tuesday night covers the cars nobody scanned.
Watches the booth as well as the gate
Our monitoring center keeps a camera on the guard booth, including the booths our own guards sit in. We have not found a better way to supervise one.
Which gate cameras can read plates, and what happens with a read: license plate recognition at the gate.
Passes, deny lists and incident records live in the free visitor management platform, which works with or without cameras. Traffic safety and enforcement is a separate service that runs on the same feeds.
Before you buy anything
Your existing cameras probably stay.
When a camera system has never once helped, the cameras are rarely the problem. They were aimed at whatever looked sensible on the day the installer came, and the recorder keeps whatever it was set to keep. We start with what you have. Some cameras get turned a few degrees. Some are left alone. A few positions get a camera built for the job.
We do not assess a system from photographs. One of us walks the property, looks at each view, opens the recorder cabinet, checks the network and the lighting, and comes back after dark if plate reading matters.
What makes a camera good enough
Five things decide whether an existing camera can do a job. The megapixel count on the box is none of them.
View
It has to see the thing you care about, and see it large enough. A wide shot of the entrance proves a car came in and will never give you the plate.
Angle
Mount it too high or too far to one side and the plate turns into a smear, whatever the sensor cost.
Light
Night is where cameras quietly fail. Reading a plate means exposing for a reflective rectangle rather than for the scene around it.
Storage
The recorder has to hold as many days as your board wants kept. That number usually comes up after an incident, when it is too late to change.
Network
Live viewing and monitoring both depend on getting video off the property reliably. A recorder on a flaky link is a recorder nobody can reach at 2am.
Installed by Max Security USA
What goes in, and who puts it there.
Cameras, cable, power, a recorder and the service that keeps it all running. Licensed technicians do the install, licensed electrical trades do the electrical work where required, and we pull permits where your municipality asks for them.
Entrance and lane cameras
Placed and lensed for the one job a general-purpose camera is worst at, which is reading a plate at night without the headlights washing it out. Usually one per lane, with an overview camera above.
Roadway and junction cameras
Put at the stop sign your board keeps arguing about, and angled so the footage can back a notice rather than just prove a car went by. If a position cannot do that, we tell you at the survey.
Common areas and amenities
Clubhouse doors, the pool gate, the mailroom, the back door the vendors use. Common areas and the paths to them. Gardens and windows stay out of frame.
Cable, power and network
Trenching, conduit and the network runs back to the recorder. This is the line that surprises boards, and it is priced after the site walk, never before.
Recording and storage
A recorder sized for the number of cameras and the days of retention your board wants. More days means more disk, and that trade is written into the quote where you can see it.
Service, cleaning and repair
A camera nobody cleans ends up a bleached lens and a dead channel, found the day someone needed it. Service is agreed per site, including how quickly a failed camera is back on the wall.
Cameras and monitoring cost money, quoted per site the same way access control and gates are. Nobody can price cable runs and licensed labour before they have walked the property, and we do not try.
Live monitoring
Somebody watching, on terms your board sets.
Recording is what you look at afterwards. Monitoring is what happens while the person is still standing at the gate. One ends with a clip of someone walking away. The other ends with a phone call or a patrol car, whichever your board wrote down.
Monitoring is optional. It is a staffed service, quoted per site alongside the install, and it runs from the Max Security USA center. The center is staffed around the clock in any case, because it also works remote gates and lobbies for other properties.
Staffed around the clock
Monitoring runs from the Max Security USA center. There is somebody in the chair at 4am because there is somebody in the chair at every hour.
Worked from events
Nobody sits in front of forty idle feeds hoping to catch something. Operators work from what your site is set to raise, whether that is a denied plate at the gate or motion at the pool after closing.
A response agreed in advance
Your board writes down what happens next before it happens. Call the resident. Send a patrol. Call the police. Each kind of event has an action, and each action is logged.
Camera patrols on a schedule
At hours you choose, an operator walks the property by camera, checking the gates and the car parks against a written list and recording what was found. Useful at 3am, and again at the board meeting.
A guard working your entrance live is remote gate guarding. A car and a person on the ground when something is raised is vehicle patrol. Cameras make both jobs easier. They replace neither.
Monitored or recorded
Monitored versus recorded only.
The comparison is the same cameras with an operator against the same cameras with nobody watching. Once the hardware is on the wall, that is the decision left to make.
| At the gate | Monitored | Recorded only |
|---|---|---|
| While it is happening | Somebody watching, on terms your board sets | A clip of someone walking away |
| Who is watching | Licensed operators at a center staffed around the clock | Nobody watches live |
| What happens next | A response your board agreed in advance | Footage reviewed after something happens |
| A dead channel or a fogged lens | Raises a fault | Discovered on the day it mattered |
| Routine checks of the property | Scheduled camera patrols against a written list | Nothing until somebody asks |
Scroll the table sideways to compare →
Privacy, law and who owns the footage
Common property only.
Recording the common areas an association owns and controls is ordinarily lawful. The two limits that matter are where the camera points and whether it records sound. Ours cover roadways and amenities. Windows, patios, gardens and changing areas stay out of frame.
Audio is a different legal question from video in several states, and Florida treats recording a conversation more strictly. We specify cameras without audio unless your counsel tells us otherwise in writing.
Before anything goes up a pole, have your attorney confirm the placement, the signage and any notice your governing documents require. If your board wants a written resident policy, we will help draft it.
How your footage is handled
Access is by role, and logged
A guard, a property manager, a board officer and a monitoring operator do not get the same access. Every export is logged.
Retention is your board’s decision
Chosen at design, limited by how much disk you buy, written into the quote. After that many days the footage is overwritten and gone.
Evidence stays with its record
A clip attached to an incident or a violation notice stays with that record instead of ageing off the recorder.
Vehicles are identified by plate
The gate, the log and the violation notice all work from the plate. None of them needs to know a face.
Police requests go through management
A request from the police follows a process your board agreed in advance. Whoever happens to answer the phone does not decide it.
The association owns it all
Footage, plate reads, records and the audit trail belong to the community. Clips export from the recorder and the visitor log from the platform, and we export plate reads and the rest for the board on request. We never sell them and never use them for advertising.
When things go wrong
Four ways every camera system fails.
The internet drops, the power goes, a spider builds a web across the lens, and somebody asks for footage from March. Knowing which of these applies to your site beats finding out the week you need the clip.
The internet drops
The recorder sits on your property, so the cameras keep recording with no connection at all. What pauses is anything that needs the outside world. Live viewing, the alerts to our center and the plate check at the gate wait until the link comes back.
The power goes out
Where the site design calls for it, cameras and the recorder sit on battery backup sized to a realistic outage. Past that window, recording stops until the power is back.
A camera fails or a lens gets dirty
Camera health is monitored. A dead channel or a fogged lens raises a fault, instead of quietly recording nothing for weeks until somebody needs the footage and finds a black square.
Somebody needs the footage months later
Footage lasts as long as your retention and your disk allow, and then it is gone. If something might matter later, export the clip or attach it to a record while it still exists. Asking in March for a clip from January only works if January is still on the disk.
Getting a quote
How a camera quote happens.
Four steps and no obligation. The first call often ends with us telling a board to spend less than it had planned.
Step 1: A call
Fifteen minutes on your entrances, the cameras you already have, what has gone wrong lately and what the board wants fixed.
Step 2: A site walk
Every entrance, the roads, the amenities and the recorder cabinet. We come back after dark if plate reading matters.
Step 3: An itemised quote
Line by line. What each camera is for, which of yours we keep, and which items are optional, marked as optional.
Step 4: Install and service terms
Scheduled so no entrance is left uncovered during the work. Response times and what counts as an emergency are agreed in writing.
There is no self-service sign-up here, and that is deliberate. A system that records residents should be set up by somebody who has stood on the property, never from a web form.
Where we install and monitor.
Somebody has to stand under the camera with a ladder, so this side of the business is local in a way the free platform is not.
New York & Long Island
Home ground, run from the Huntington office. Nassau, Suffolk and the five boroughs.
New Jersey
Gated communities and managed properties across the state.
South Florida
Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, including communities that empty out for the summer.
Max Security USA was founded and is led by decorated law enforcement veterans with more than 130 combined years of service. The office is at 709 W Jericho Tpke, Huntington NY 11743. The wider service list is at maxsecurityusa.com.
FAQ
What boards ask before they vote on a camera budget.
If yours is missing, ask it on the call, before the vote rather than after.
Do we need to replace our existing cameras?
Usually not, and we tell you at the survey rather than after the quote. The brand on the housing does not matter; whether the camera can do the job does. Where it can, we keep it. Where it cannot, we quote that one position.
Can the cameras read number plates at the gate?
Yes, with a camera placed and lensed for the job, aimed down a single lane and exposed for a reflective plate rather than the scene around it. The read is checked in the free visitor platform against residents, guests, vendors, the deny list and deny entries on the community watchlist.
Who watches the footage?
On a recorded-only install, nobody. Footage gets reviewed after something happens. Where a community buys monitoring, licensed operators work the feeds from our center, which is staffed around the clock, responding to raised events and running the scheduled camera patrols.
How long is footage kept?
Your board sets the retention period. Storage is the constraint, so the number of days is written into the quote. Past that, footage is overwritten and gone. Anything attached as evidence to a violation notice stays with that record.
Who can access our footage, and is that access recorded?
Access is by role, set by your board, and logged. A guard, a manager and a monitoring operator do not need the same access. Exports are recorded, so the question of who looked at what has an answer. Law enforcement requests go through management, under a process agreed in advance.
Is it legal to record video on community property?
Recording the common areas an association owns and controls is ordinarily lawful. The limits that matter are where the camera points and whether it records sound. Cameras cover roadways and amenities and stay off windows and changing areas. Florida treats recording a conversation strictly, so we specify cameras without audio unless counsel advises otherwise.
What about resident privacy?
The system covers common property and the approaches to it, never homes. A view that would take in a window or a garden is masked, or the camera is moved. Vehicles are identified by plate, and nobody is identified by face. We will help draft a resident policy if your board wants one.
What happens if the internet or the power drops?
Recording is local, so the cameras keep recording through an internet outage and nothing is lost. What stops is anything that needs the connection, meaning live viewing, alerts to the monitoring center and plate checks at the gate, and all of it resumes when the link returns. Power is covered by battery backup where the site design calls for it, sized to a realistic outage.
What does it cost, and how long does installation take?
Cameras and monitoring are quoted per site, because they involve hardware, cable and licensed labour. The figure moves with how many positions you need, how far the cable has to run and how many days of retention you want. On the calendar, the wait is mostly hardware lead time and permits.
Who owns the footage and the plate reads?
Your community does. Footage, plate reads and records belong to the association, and we hold them as its service provider. Clips export from the recorder and the visitor log from the platform, and we export plate reads for the board on request. We never sell them and never use them for advertising.
Read the privacy policy or email [email protected].
Start by finding out what your cameras can already do.
A survey costs an hour of a manager’s time. It ends with a list of what works, what needs turning a few degrees and what is missing. If the answer is two new cameras instead of twenty, that is a fine outcome.