 Welcome back to the ThinkTecAway studio for another, this is gonna be an exciting episode of Security Matters. Chad Cooper's with us today. Many of you may know him from Motorola fame. Most of you may know of him from CCTV fame. I think we're gonna bring some industry perspective to you. Not to malign bad installation or anything like that, but just to point out the fact that things get done for a lot of different reasons and I'm still looking forward to this discussion anyway. We'll get to it. Chad, thanks for taking time out of your schedule to join me. I know you have a real job. You don't just spend all your time scouring the world for bad installation. No, you know, they are somewhat easy to find. So I thank you for having me on the show today, Andrew. It's great. It's gonna be fun. Well, welcome. Let's go ahead and give our audience a few minutes. Many, you've been around a long time. A lot of folks know you, but give our audience some sense of your history with the industry and maybe how you happened onto CCTV fails and take us through it. So I've been in the security industry for about 35 years, doing different roles throughout my time here, everything from distribution to manufacturing, from access control to close circuit video. And in the last 12 years or so, I have found a pretty good niche doing architects, engineers and security consultant help and support for Motorola solutions as of last year. So I've been here for the last three years now and everything is great. That's awesome. Yeah, I expect Motorola, well, I think doing a lot of stuff in smart city work. Are you seeing a trend there for Motorola? So we've been in Hawaii, at least they're really heavy in the telecom space, right, with our first responders. And so I thought it was sort of a natural fit and they brought a vigilante on board for them to work on the smart city solution because they're kind of embedded in a lot of those government organizations. Do you work on that work? Are you more with just the consultants trying to help them do design? I'm pretty much with the consultants helping them do design, writing specifications and that type of thing to get the vigilante and the Motorola name brand into those specs that are hitting the streets. Some of it is for public works, some of it is private. It doesn't really matter on that side. Yeah, nice to have a big name like Motorola behind you. So we were kicking around just before we came on screen, this idea of best practices. You know, the industry, by and large, knows how to do what it does. And CCTV fails has found a bit of a niche, I think, to tell us sort of what not to do. Tell us how you got involved with getting these images out and sort of, I think it's like a necessary service personally. But take us through the evolution of CCTV fails. You know, really the evolution is a pretty simple thing, a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, that was a consultant at the time. He was posting the spaghetti, the network spaghetti pictures that showed the back of the network closets that were a total mess. And I thought that those were very interesting. And I really looked at it saying, that I think that our industry could really benefit from somebody showing some of the fails for CCTV. And getting those out there has been a tremendous boost for myself to show that I have lots of comments about them. But also connecting my network and my community on LinkedIn in regards to those type of pictures and those type of conversations that are going on in the background. So bringing some humor to our industry is part of it also, is some sarcastic humor, I guess, that really shows worst case scenarios of what's going on out there. And I think that as products in our industry have become more commoditized, there's a lot more do-it-yourselfers out there. And in doing that, you end up with a lot of poorly-installed systems. Yeah, just like those network closets, you see the self-made IT guy, right? Can make an absolute mess. I walked into a few of those. So it's interesting, I didn't think about the DIY perspective, the do-it-yourself perspective. I always, when I see these images, when you post them, I always think like, just what company could allow that, right? And I know that maybe a guy gets in a bind somewhere, he had to drive 20 hours to do something, he's got to get it done in the next two hours, and doesn't have what he needs, right? The whole MacGyver approach, they call that out in Hawaii, I don't know. But if you could give it a number, just off the top of your head, how many of the installations that you come across are just, let's just say an A grade, 90% or better, they're just that good. Can I feel like our industry does a good job? I think our industry does do a relatively good job, but I also think that there's a long ways to go in training. And I think that a lot of companies are not investing enough money into their people to get them trained to do it the right way, not to take shortcuts, to really take a look at the finer details, because a good system, as you know, from your installation, side of your company, a good installation comes down to those fine details. Is it all the way down to just wire tying and wrapping your network cables? How is that done? Is that need and clean terminations? There's a lot of small details that go into place, and if you don't train your people, you're gonna end up on CCTV fail. Love it. It's interesting, you know, you go from, because we're sort of DOD and have that four tier structure, we have like that apprentice level, then you get your journeyman level and your master level. And it's super obvious when you see a master level installation of just about anything versus even a journeyman who can get there in four or five years, but maybe gets stuck doing some things he's not used to. And then the apprentice who, you know, his labels are not the same distance, you know, they're not one inch from the end, or what, they're all over the place. And my quality control manager goes nuts when he sees this. He's like the IST fails guy, so he takes pictures of all that stuff and then brings it in and they do lessons learned and critiques and all that stuff. I have to believe that the stuff that you do with CCTV fails ends up in a lot of training rooms for people to, you know, as an example of things not to do. Do you get that kind of commentary out of the industry or what do people say when you post this stuff? I see a lot of the jokes, but there's some serious sad to it that needs to be talked about. Yeah, there is a lot of jokes that are, you know, set on each one. I've got a couple of commenters that, you know, they're quite quick with the, with the comebacks. From the perspective of them being used in training rooms, I've only actually seen a couple different companies that have actually used some of them and they've actually asked me if I, if they can use my, you know, my photos in those room, in those training sessions, but I haven't seen anything in a major way. And I think that that's, you know, it's kind of a shame that I haven't, you know, had that type of exposure yet, but I think that they will soon, you know, fall into that realm. Yeah, I know our QC manager had one and he brought it and he said, look guys, I know, I know which one of you did this. And so it wasn't, it wasn't ours, but our guys are looking around, and they're like, what? Like everybody, somebody's gonna get, you know, their hat handed to them, you know what I mean? And he just, just to get their attention, you know, to get things started was really funny. Let's, I was, I want to get to, let's get a few of these to keep our audience that's probably sitting there waiting. Eric, can you give us number 10 and let's see where we go from that one. Yeah, so this one is a, is a pretty simplistic one actually, you know, I tried to start off easy on everyone here, but this is a, you know, this is a dummy camera on the top of the building. And, you know, that's just the beginning of the fail here because really the wiring side comes over the, the roof of the building. I don't know where the penetration went to get inside the building, but I assume that it's on the, on the roof side, which would be a failure also. And then, and then it comes down and there's no drip loop, there's no conduit, there's nothing, and it goes right into that other camera. So, you know, we have a, we have a lot of weather issues in the fail, in the fail scheme of what's going on. Yeah, that's one that I, unfortunately you see it a lot, you know, and I wouldn't, I didn't even notice that that was like a dummy camera on the top. So the gap probably figured out that that's, I think there's a lot of liability issues with, you know, using dummy cameras. I know that things like when I got in the industry 25 years ago, there was a, there were people that sold like just a housing as if a dummy camera was a good idea. And I think then there were some then lawsuits where a false sense of security had been provided to employees who got in some trouble and or got in, you know, had a violent incident occurred to them. And so that my understanding today is that false cameras are, you know, fake cameras are basically a liability concern, especially for a business. I agree. But I have seen and I still continue to see a lot of those in the retail pharmacy side. It's amazing actually how many that I actually run into. And at the price of cameras, I mean, why, why a dummy? Why don't you get some real data? You know, it's interesting. And then the weather proofing, right? That's a obviously sort of a, probably a DIY or maybe the business owner ran his maintenance guy out there. Hey, go hang this camera, right? You can tell no familiarity with tabling. Do you see a lot of weather exposure issues? I mean, I see them all around town here. Yeah, I see a lot of weather exposure issues and it could be anything from, you know, the wrong cabling run that, you know, we know it's gonna fill with water and cause shorts and other problems to, you know, to the weather drip loop is a special one that I see in a consistent basis. Installers or the people that are doing these, they just don't understand what they're getting into and getting water back running into the building. Yeah. Do you see many, I don't know if we're having any of these, but I don't know if they just go cheap or what happens, but I also see indoor cameras outside, just, you know, little domes just full of water. Yeah. Yeah, I think I have a really good one here on that. Oh, okay. Awesome, awesome. I think we call them in the industry fish bowls. Fish bowl, yeah. Yeah. Eric, let's see number nine, sir. So this one's a little bit, might be a little bit hard to see, but this is Ivy that's growing up over the top of some sort of a vine growing up on top of all of this. So, and completely covering that camera. Now, we didn't see this camera during the summertime in the fall because it was totally engulfed in foliage, but once that all fell off in the wintertime, oh, hey, there's a camera up there. Wow. Wow. So this camera was totally covered. Yeah, I mean, it can't be in use, right? It must have been abandoned, what I think, or no one's looked at the video in forever. Well, you'd be surprised at how many times that I've gone into live systems and the cameras are pointing at the walls, the operators, you know, their pan-tilt zoom set at home position to look at a wall. And they don't understand that they can move that camera and reset that home position and have actual usable video. I did an airport that there was 35 of them that way. Wow. Is the consultant community attuned to installation stands? I'm sure once you get done with them, you're like, hey, this is the kind of companies we're looking for, but do you have to teach some of this to consultants who may not be that familiar? Maybe they're more architecturally focused than they are installation focused? Well, I think where we start to see some of the consultants are laying the field of view on the actual drawings. Okay, good. Revit and BIM models are really, cause you can take and look at a live view, a 3D live view and Revit and that will really give you at least, you know, pillars that are in the way and how the camera's angled and what it's kind of going to be looking at. So it gives you quite a bit of information, but the consultants are, you know, putting that field of view on their drawings, it gives us a much better understanding and the installer as to what they're thinking about for that field of view. Yeah, I love it when it's provided live. I've, you know, had technicians that had to go back two or three times. And then the customers, you know, the consultant's conversation with the client, the client's sort of real view what he wanted to see sort of changed, you know what I mean? It's like, oh, well, I've got to maybe relocate that camera to get that field of view or whatever. So that does happen. But I like it when they at least take a shot at first, you know, and you kind of know what you're building to it helps the installer. And now when you're looking at, you know, multi-lens cameras inside of a single position, I mean, they can be pointed at anywhere. And until you get that sign off for the, from the end user as to what they want to see, you know, the consultant should be at least attempting to put that field of view on. And that can help expose some of the problems later on as to what they might be seeing, whether it's a tree or, you know, bushes or anything of that nature. Awesome. All right. Perfect. Well, we are, let's see, we're back midway through. We're going to take a break and we're going to pay some bills. We'll be back in one minute with Chad Cooper. Hey, Aloha, welcome back to Security Matters. We're with Chad Cooper today of Motorola and CCTV fails. And we're just looking at, you know, some of these possibilities of things that can happen out there, maybe give you a, maybe you can learn a few things from the why. Maybe you can learn to not have to do that. And I'm going to give you a little bit of a break and I'm going to give you a little bit of a break and I'm going to give you a little bit of a break and I'm going to give you a little bit of a break and you can learn to not have. But anyway, Chad, thanks for sharing with us today. I appreciate you being here. We had gotten our way through a first view. I think we're down to number eight. Eric, if you could show us number eight. So this post was actually not a CCTV fail so much, even though that there is CCTV equipment that's in this control box. But if you happen to notice the, it's about a six or seven foot snake that's inside this box. It actually got the most likes out of probably all of my posts. Now, I don't know if that's just a emotional response to people not liking snakes, but this leads you to not only our weather issues, but other openings that are left open allow critters to come in, whether they're rodents and chewing on wires to snakes like this to spiders, scorpions, whatever, wherever you happen to live and whatever problems that your environment has, you have to make those enclosures, not only just the camera enclosure, but the equipment enclosure has to make, you have to make that secure. Yeah, and I've seen ants absolutely invade and just set up a whole colony inside of equipment enclosures, it's nasty. All right, so secure your containers folks very tightly. Number seven. So this was actually a extension mount, if we could call it that, at a casino that I once visited. And I felt that this was kind of actually one of the first pictures that I took that I just, I had to save it because I just couldn't imagine. And I was going to use this in, and I have used this picture actually in a lot of my trainings that I've done. Awesome. And is that obviously not a wind rated at that distance hanging out there? No, that has not been engineered by anybody with a degree, that's for sure. Yeah, it's funny, I frequently see poles, with a lot of stuff hanging on them and people haven't investigated the wind rating on the poles. It's like a light pole in a suburban area or something. Some of these communities, and that's a thing the industry tends to overlook. Like I'll just take power off the pole and mount on there, but you should be aware that the wind rating on those poles may take them down if you hang up in the camera off there, it may be more than that pole's built for. Well, and it's not just the poles, it's any mounting structure, right? So if you look at trees, trees sway and give, as you know, living in Hawaii, those palm trees, they're meant to give as much as possible during the larger weather events that you have. And so that will cause your cameras to shake, rattle and roll. Yeah, light poles, not a good idea. For me for light, it's not cameras. Right. What do we got next, Eric? So this was a picture that was actually here locally in my area and it seemed to be a mix of do-it-yourself type of work and, you know, putting up, you know, mounting a two by four to mount a camera, I thought was pretty interesting. Yeah, I think a lot of times this is the maintenance guy from the facility, you know, like, hey, let's go get a camera on the parking lot or something and they buy one and throw it up there. I don't know, it's interesting. A lot of times when you see these sort of homemade mounting ideas, you can tell they probably didn't talk to one of your consultants. Probably not, I'm hoping. Okay, Eric, what do we got next? So this is that fishbowl. So if you can see the bottom of the bowl there is complete or the dome is completely covered in water. It's about an inch and a half deep. And so this is a fail that directly results in not following the manufacturer's prescribed mounting to retain the IP67 rating. You know, if you drill through that outer, you know, that dome casing for mounting, you are gonna get water in it. You will fail that camera and that installation. Yeah, it happens quick in Hawaii. We get water from 360 degrees like seriously, I mean, blowing even upwards, you know, because of the wind and I've been called out to places where they're like, we got this new system and it's not working and show up and it's all indoor cameras outside that are just flooded. It's ridiculous. You know, silicone caulking was a great improvement, but it just doesn't hold for any length of time. Ultimately, it will fail. Yeah, especially if you got a lot of weather variation, right? It just doesn't hold up. Right. All right, what do we have to Eric? I'm not sure what number, I lost track, but. So this camera, somebody had, you know, really taken some initiative to use the paint roller as a actual mounting arm. And it looks to me, it looked to me like a real camera and the wiring was there, everything was there. So this is just, I don't know if it was as a joke, but it was very interesting. Yeah, and it used the, what is that about a one inch, the screw in the bottom of the handle, right? To mount that down there. I was wondering how he turned that onto there, right? I said, I can't really tell from the angle if it's stuck out far enough to spin. Yeah, I couldn't tell from the picture. Yeah, amazing. Well, you know, sometimes you gotta figure out a mount. Interesting, non-standard for sure. I've never seen, ever seen, have you ever seen another one of those? I've never seen another one of those, but I have seen something very, very close to that. And I think it's coming up here in a second. Okay. Oh, there's its match. So there's the paint can, the camera inside of the paint can. I really don't understand what they were trying to do as a sun shield or what, but it matches the paint roller. So, hey, have at it. I think maybe painting contractors sometimes get asked to mount the cameras. And you know, you know what I mean? So they're just doing their best. I don't, it looked like there was a housing inside that can. Yeah, it looked like a bullet camera inside the paint can. Ah, interesting. Maybe someone tried to block it and throw the can over it or something. Who knows? Really interesting. No, because it actually had the lip, the brow on it. So I don't know. Yeah, it had to be mounted in the back too. Yeah, so they had to bore a hole through that thing. Yeah. That's just something else. Well, you never know. What do we got next? So this is an interesting one. Oh, yeah. You know, it's a high voltage line coming into this toolbox used as a junction box and then the camera's mounted to that. Exactly where all the wiring went, I can't remember now. I can't really see it, but the toolbox was one of those things I think where it was, you know, we have nothing in our truck that can work for this. So we're gonna use that, I would hope. I don't know what else somebody was thinking there. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad they didn't leave HV wide open, but it's obviously been there long enough to have been painted. Yep. So someone signed off on it at least, I'm guessing or else it was a new install that got painted up in that corner and then like you said, no enclosure available. Or it could have been a maintenance room and somebody, some maintenance guy was making a joke, but either which way, it had a camera mounted on it. So it hit one of the top ones. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you would think, I don't wanna surrender my toolbox, but when you're in a bind, you never know what you gotta do. That's a pretty good, at least it's accessible, by the way, because the lid just pops open. So, I mean, it's surely not gonna hold up to UL, but it's not a bad job all in all. All right, what do we got next? So this is one of the clear plastic totes that you find at like Home Depot or somewhere of that nature. And there is everything in there from a network switch to two cameras on the outside of it. This is used as a junction box. The nice thing is that it was clear that you could actually see if it was retaining water or not, I guess. Wow, and that's a coat? Like a pot? A tote, like a storage box. Oh, I got you, okay. Wow. Yeah, I wonder how long that stays waterproof. Anyway, hard to say, right? I guess it depends on the type of clasp. Yeah. Interesting. All right, well, what else do we have over there? I think we got one or two left. That was it, awesome. So what do you think, Chad, the sort of the takeaway is from seeing things done, not non-standard, let's just call it that. Is it negligence? Is it, what do you think drives those types of things? Inexperience, I don't know. There's three things on the mind. I think some of it is inexperience, but I also think that some of it is the way jobs are bid. When jobs are bid, you're to be the lowest bidder as you know, Andrew. You have to sometimes cut corners. Those installers, the salespeople that are making the bids, they want to bid 30 hours on the job and your installers are saying it's gonna take 50 hours. So they got to figure out where to cut 20 hours from. And unfortunately, those shortcuts sometimes can lead to this type of a problem. The installers, I don't think want to take it that way, but they feel they have to, to be able to get the job done under the timeframe. Yeah, I mean, the low bid problem's out there for the industry, right? There's companies that are larger with more overhead and then there's the single guys. And I think there's a lot of states that aren't licensed. You're in Washington, is there, there's a license required in Washington, correct? A low bid for commercial work, sure. So that's what we have in Hawaii as well, but I think there's a lot of right-to-work states or whatever they call them where there's no license required. So guys without much experience are out there installing stuff from Home Depot or whatever it may be or Best Buy or something. And then the standards fall off very quickly. I'm always sort of afraid that that hurts our industry overall because people see that and just think that's the way things are done. What's your take on that as far as the perspective that the people outside of our industry might have on our industry and they see a camera mounted on a paint roller, for example? Yeah, it's kind of strange because sometimes I feel like our industry gets a bad reputation in regards to that. And some of that is the reason why posting some of this because if I can affect just a handful of installations out there or installers that are like, yeah, I really shouldn't do it that way because I've seen an example that won't turn out very well. And if they can correct that before they even do the installation, then I've succeeded. Awesome, thank you so much. Last word for our audience, we got a minute or so left. Yeah, hey, you know what, just keep following me on LinkedIn at the Pound CCTV fail and feel free to connect to me. If you'd like to contact me, reach out. I'd like to talk to other people in the industry. Or if you see bad images, send them to them too. Yeah, I get a lot of donor images also. Awesome, Chad, thanks so much for your time today. I appreciate you being on. We'll talk again soon. Take care of yourself a lot. Thank you very much. Take care.