When Were Security Cameras Invented?

What do the theremin, rocket tests, and a New York City nurse have in common? Their tie to the modern day security camera.

Katie McEntire

Staff Writer, Prophylactic & Security

Security cameras oasis't always been the precipitous-shooting, quick-responding, app-enabled devices we know and employ today.

IP cameras like the most popular wireless security cameras didn't come on the scene until the 1990s. Before that, nosotros only had CCTV cameras to watch over our homes and businesses. We'll walk through the nigh pivotal moments in the history of security cameras

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CCTV'southward military origins

The primeval version of the security camera was closer to our modernistic CCTV cameras than the wireless cameras we use in our home. This system was invented in the 1920s by Leon Theremin (the inventor of a certain quirky sci-fi instrument we all know today).

It was later posted at the entrance of the Moscow Kremlin to scout for anyone approaching. Decades subsequently, CCTVs were used in World War Ii by US and German language militaries to watch rocket tests from a safe distance.

CCTV spreads worldwide

In 1949, a US company began selling the commencement publicly bachelor CCTV organization. This made security cameras more attainable to businesses, banks, and individual residences rather than the military.

It wasn't long until CCTV systems spread around the world. It fifty-fifty fabricated an appearance in 1953 at Queen Elizabeth Ii's coronation.

Queen Elizabeth II coronation CCTV camera history

Katie McEntire, SafeWise.com

The first security system

Fourteen years later, American inventor Marie Van Brittan Brown earned the first patent for her invention—a CCTV organisation used to lookout the front door and mind to visitors' voices.i Sound familiar? That'due south the first dwelling security system.2

Patent illustration for first home security system

Paradigm: Marie Van Britton Brown Security System Patent Image, Lemelson.MIT.edu

Van Brittan Brown was a nurse who often had to walk home through a dangerous area at night. She was tired of feeling unsafe in her neighborhood and decided to do something. Collaborating with her husband, an electronics technician, she patented the system in 1969.

The security arrangement consisted of multiple peepholes to come across people of unlike heights, two-way microphones for Brown to communicate with visitors, and a remote lock for her door. She even added an emergency push that would alert police force to any danger.

Thank you to her invention, Marie Van Brittan Brown went on to be cited in 32 more patents throughout her life.

Security cameras in the new millennium

Fast forward through the 70s and 80s: this is when security cameras were installed in more public places like banks, retail stores, and ATMs.

And, finally, in the 90s, we began to meet the ancestors of the cameras nosotros know today—with the first nanny cam, IP camera, and webcams inbound homes.

This was the first time security cameras were used within the dwelling house rather than as a public surveillance tool for law and businesses.

Final give-and-take

Once security cameras were made more accessible to the general public, they became more common than ever. Today, security cameras come up in all shapes and sizes—from tiny nanny cameras in our nurseries to video doorbells watching over our front end porches.

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