Verkada Cameras: Onboard Storage, Retention, Status Lights and Placement Guidance

The Verkada cameras these facts apply to

This page covers six cameras; Verkada lists more.

For placement principles that apply to any maker's cameras, see the general guide to apartment camera placement.

Source The data sheets and install guides for the six cameras.

How long a Verkada camera keeps video

Each of the six cameras stores video on a microSD card, and its data sheet's ordering table ties a storage size to a maximum number of days of standard quality (SQ) video, shown below. Video is captured at 24 frames per second, except on the CM61, which records at 20.

Standard quality video is recorded continuously up to the designated retention, and when motion is detected, the camera also saves high quality footage; Verkada calls this adaptive quality. In a scene with excessive motion, such as a busy intersection or entrance, the space for high quality footage may fill up. The earliest high quality video is then cycled out, and older footage is stored only in standard quality.

Retention is also a setting, from zero days, which Verkada calls live-only mode, up to the camera's maximum; fewer days of standard quality video leaves more space for high quality video. The whitepaper warns that decreasing the setting deletes historical video, thumbnails and other captured artifacts from the camera and the cloud, and calls this an irreversible action. When storage is full, the camera progressively deletes the oldest footage to make room for new footage.

Source The ordering tables in the six data sheets, Verkada's adaptive quality recording whitepaper and its Common Storage Questions page.

What reaches the cloud, and the bandwidth Verkada lists

By default, recorded video footage is not stored in the cloud. Archived video clips are stored in the cloud for the lifetime of the Verkada account. Cameras that are not being viewed send only metadata and thumbnails to the cloud.

Cloud backup is enabled per camera. It uploads footage from the moment it is enabled, not earlier footage, and keeps video for 30 days, or longer with an extended cloud backup license. The CD31 and CD31-E are the exception: they have 15 days of onboard storage and come with 15 days of cloud backup.

Low Bandwidth Mode reduces resting bandwidth by up to 75% and streaming bandwidth by up to 33%, with a slight trade-off in video quality and scrubbing performance.

For the two domes, the mini dome and the bullet, the Bandwidth page's tables list 300 Kbps for a standard quality stream, while their data sheets list "Standard quality (SQ): up to 600 kbps" under live streaming settings.

Source Verkada's Common Storage Questions, Cloud Backup, Bandwidth Consumption & Uplink Requirements and Low Bandwidth Mode help pages, and the data sheets for the six cameras.

Does a Verkada camera record when the network is down?

Verkada says its cameras continue to record and save video without a network connection as long as there is a power source. To record footage, a camera must have been added to a Command organization and have connected to Command at least once via the internet.

While the camera is offline, embedded links and live-viewing links are not accessible, and thumbnails are not stored locally or indexed after it reconnects. Once reconnected, cameras try to upload the oldest footage first, and the video may take some time to become accessible; index times depend on network bandwidth and reliability. If cloud backup has an upload schedule, footage will not upload outside it. For a camera with cloud backup, footage uploaded before the outage can still be viewed, and backup resumes once the connection to the cloud is re-established.

Source Verkada's Loss of Network Connection, Common Storage Questions and Cloud Backup help pages, and its hybrid cloud architecture data sheet.

What the status light means

Most Verkada cameras have a white ring-shaped status light. Solid orange means the camera is on and booting up, flashing orange means it is updating firmware, and solid blue means it is running, connected and recording data. Plain flashing blue, meaning the camera is unable to connect to Verkada Command, only appears on cameras running factory firmware.

Verkada says the camera is recording as long as the light is blinking blue, whether exclusively blue or with 1 to 8 orange blinks in between. Only orange blinks and no blue means it is likely not recording, on the assumption that it is upgrading and rebooting.

Red appears only on the CF83, CP63, CBx3, CDx3, CHx3 and CYx3 models: solid red means contact Verkada Support, and flashing red on the outer light counts out the error while the top cover is on. With the top cover removed, the error shows on a LAN or WAN debug light while the device status light shows solid red.

The first solid orange boot sequence can take up to 20 minutes to show the correct status if the camera is unable to reach any endpoint. When a network switch's Power over Ethernet (PoE) budget is exceeded, the camera will not power on or will be stuck on a constant orange light.

Source Verkada's Camera LED Status Indicators, Loss of Network Connection and Camera Power Requirements help pages.

Mounting height, placement and tailgate detection

Five of the six install guides say to mount the camera on the wall or ceiling and try to keep it 8 to 10 feet above the ground. The bullet guide drops the hedge: keep the camera 8-10 feet above the ground.

All six guides say to avoid overhangs or obstructions, which may reflect the camera's infrared (IR) illumination, the light it uses in the dark, and reduce image clarity in night mode. Verkada's deployment checklist adds that IR emitters should not face a white or reflective surface or be obstructed by the camera housing.

The two domes list a horizontal field of view of 109° to 39°, or 91° to 36° after lens distortion correction. The mini dome, a fixed-lens camera, lists 95°, or 79° after correction, and the fisheye lists 180° horizontal and 180° vertical. The fisheye install guide also recommends an angle mount to optimize its field of view and prevent reflections.

Tailgate detection pairs a Verkada camera with an access-controlled door and raises an event if multiple people enter on one access grant. It requires no new hardware as long as a Verkada camera is paired with the door, but a door position indicator (DPI) must be installed on the door and enabled in the settings. It is not currently supported on the D80 camera model.

Verkada's requirements put the camera on the inside of the door, opposite the reader, so people walk towards it after badging in; higher than the top of the door frame, with a gap between the bottom of the frame and the edge of the field of view; and at an angle between 10° and 55° relative to the perpendicular axis, measured when looking directly at the door.

Source The install guides and data sheets for the six cameras, Verkada's Camera Deployment page, and its Tailgate Detection and Configure a Door in Command help pages.

Placement for license plate recognition on bullet cameras

Verkada's Bullet series cameras can perform license plate recognition (LPR).

On lighting, Verkada says: "If the area where license plates are captured is far away and not well-lit, we strongly recommend using an external infrared (IR) illuminator to improve the visibility of the license plates."

Source Verkada's Configure License Plate Recognition help page.

PoE power and environmental ratings

Verkada's cameras use PoE for power and network connectivity, and power sources must conform to IEEE 802.3 standards; Verkada says devices will not negotiate properly on UPOE or other proprietary PoE methods. Most outdoor models require 802.3at PoE+ to support the built-in cold-weather heater at temperatures below 16 °F (-8.5 °C), and some models require an 802.3bt PoE++ power source for full functionality.

Verkada's power page says all indoor Verkada cameras use 802.3af PoE. The indoor dome's data sheet lists 802.3at PoE+ with IR, and the power page's own Dome series table puts both domes under an 802.3at PoE+ heading with IR.

For the bullet, the data sheet lists 802.3at PoE+ both with and without IR, while the power page's Bullet series table heads the without-IR column 802.3af PoE.

Verkada's ratings page says the indoor Camera Dome series is IK08-rated, and that the outdoor Camera Dome series, the CF83-E and CF81-E fisheye cameras and the Bullet cameras are IK10-rated and IP67-rated, which it defines as dust-tight and water-tight. The outdoor dome, bullet, fisheye and multisensor data sheets print the weather rating as IP66/67.

Source Verkada's Camera Power Requirements and Camera Environmental Ratings help pages, and the data sheets for the six cameras.

Service for Verkada cameras in the Bay Area

Elwin Security installs, configures and supports Verkada cameras as part of security camera installation for commercial and multifamily properties in the San Francisco Bay Area. Calls are answered 8:00 AM-8:00 PM daily at (408) 539-0535.

Questions about Verkada cameras

Verkada camera questions