14 days of continuous recording means the footage is there when you need it

Why 14 Days of Continuous Security Camera Recording Matters

Most security camera systems offer 7 days of cloud storage or rely on DIY NVR setups where you're constantly managing disk space. scOS provides 14 days of continuous 24/7 recording per camera, included in your subscription.

This isn't just double the storage—it's the difference between evidence that exists and evidence that's already gone.

Crime Doesn't Happen in Isolation

Understanding why 14-day retention matters requires understanding how criminals operate. Professional burglars don't just show up and break in. They plan. They observe. They surveil.

They watch your property before they strike. Often for days or weeks. Noting when you leave. When you return. When the house goes dark. When vehicles come and go. They're building a profile of your routine, looking for the optimal window when you're most vulnerable.

This surveillance phase is evidence. That car that drove past slowly last Tuesday? The person who walked by your property at 2am three times this week? The vehicle that parked opposite your house for 20 minutes last Thursday?

These are reconnaissance. These are the warning signs that criminals are assessing your property.

But they're only evidence if you still have the footage.

With 7-day retention, that slow drive-by from 9 days ago is already deleted. The pattern exists, but the proof doesn't. With 14-day retention, you can identify surveillance behavior spanning two weeks—enough time to see patterns that reveal intent.

Delayed Discovery Requires Extended Retention

You don't always discover security incidents immediately. This is especially true during:

Holidays and extended trips — You're away for 10 days. Something suspicious happened on day 3. You return on day 11. With 7-day retention, that footage is already gone. You'll never know what happened. With 14-day retention, you can review the full 10 days you were away, plus several days before you left.

Business travel — Regular trips mean you're not monitoring footage in real-time. When you return and review, you need retention that covers your entire absence plus context before and after.

Busy periods — Life gets busy. You don't check your security app for a week. Something occurred 8 days ago. With 7-day retention, it's deleted. With 14-day retention, it's still there when you finally have time to review.

Police investigations — Authorities often request footage days or weeks after an incident, especially for area-wide investigations. Neighboring burglaries, suspect vehicle sightings, pattern analysis. The crime that triggered the investigation might have happened 5 days ago, but the reconnaissance happened 12 days ago. That context helps solve crimes—but only if you still have it.

Pattern Recognition Needs History

scOS Activity Pattern Recognition and external criminal pattern data work by identifying anomalies—deviations from normal behavior. But "normal" requires a baseline built over time.

Same vehicle, multiple sightings — A car passes your property slowly at 2am. Isolated event? Or the third time this week? The fourth time this fortnight? Without two weeks of retention, you can't see the pattern. The same vehicle appearing repeatedly across 14 days reveals surveillance. Three sightings in 7 days might look random. Four sightings across 14 days is a pattern.

Behavioral reconnaissance — Someone walks past your property at unusual hours. Once? Maybe coincidence. Three times in two weeks, always between 2-3am? That's surveillance. The person testing whether anyone notices. Whether anyone reacts. Whether your home looks like an easy target.

Vehicle registration checks — DVLA Vehicle Recognition captures plates. But what if the same unregistered vehicle keeps appearing? Or the same cloned plate? Patterns emerge over time—but only if you retain enough footage to compare across days and weeks.

Evidence for Investigations

When police request footage for an investigation, they rarely want just the moment a crime occurred. They want context:

Days leading up to the incident — What vehicles were in the area? Who walked past? Were there suspicious patterns before the crime?

Neighboring incidents — Burglaries cluster. When one home is targeted, police investigate patterns across multiple properties. "Did you see a blue Ford Focus between midnight and 3am any time in the past two weeks?" With 14-day retention, you can answer that. With 7 days, you can't help.

Suspect movements — Criminals often case multiple properties. The person who burgled a house three streets away might have walked past yours 10 days ago. That footage helps establish patterns, timelines, and suspect identification—but only if it still exists.

Vehicle tracking — A stolen vehicle used in a crime was seen in your area 11 days ago. Your cameras captured it. That footage helps police track the vehicle's movements before the theft. But 7-day retention already deleted it.

This isn't theoretical. Real investigations rely on historical footage from properties that weren't directly targeted but captured suspects during reconnaissance phases. Your 14 days of retention might help solve a crime that happened to someone else—and deter the criminal from ever targeting you.

Continuous Recording vs. Motion-Triggered Gaps

scOS records 24/7—continuous footage with no gaps. This matters because motion-triggered recording has a fundamental flaw: it only records what it thinks is important.

Pre-event context is lost — A person approaches your property. Motion triggers. Recording starts. But you don't see how they arrived. Where they came from. Whether they circled the block first. That context existed in the seconds before recording started—but motion-triggered systems missed it.

Gaps create doubt — "Did the camera record that?" With motion-triggered systems, you're never certain. Maybe it triggered. Maybe it didn't. Maybe the sensitivity was too low. Continuous recording eliminates that doubt. It recorded. Always.

Loitering isn't always motion — Someone standing still watching your property for 10 minutes. Minimal motion. Traditional systems might not trigger. Continuous recording captures the entire loitering period. Evidence that motion-detection would miss entirely.

Timeline integrity — With continuous footage, you can see the complete sequence of events. No jumps. No gaps. The full narrative from hours before an incident to hours after. This timeline integrity is critical for understanding what actually happened.

Intelligent Storage Management

14 days of continuous recording across multiple cameras requires significant storage. scOS handles this intelligently through dynamic quality management:

High-detail when needed — Motion events record at maximum quality. Faces, plates, details—everything captured with clarity when something is happening.

Efficient compression during quiet periods — Overnight hours when nothing is happening compress efficiently. The footage exists (continuous recording, no gaps), but storage usage is optimized.

Automatic retention cycling — As new footage records, footage older than 14 days automatically deletes. Rolling retention. No manual management. No storage warnings. No risk of running out of space at the worst possible moment.

Included in subscription — You're not paying per GB or managing your own NVR. 14 days per camera is included. No surprises. No hidden costs. No anxiety about whether you'll have the footage when you need it.

Access When You Need It

Storage only matters if you can access it. scOS makes 14 days of footage instantly searchable:

Ask scOS Director — "Show me last Tuesday morning" or "Did that car pass by last week?" Natural language access to 336 hours of footage per camera. Director finds the relevant moments across two weeks of recording.

Tap from Daily Briefings — Your briefing hyperlinks every event. See "Delivery 8 days ago" and tap to watch. Instant access to week-old footage without timeline scrubbing.

Full timeline navigation — Through the scOS app or CaelusView portal, scrub through any camera's past 14 days. Jump to specific dates and times. Review continuously or skip to motion events.

Multi-camera coordination — Event Chaining means related footage across multiple cameras is already linked. "Show me that visitor from last Thursday" pulls footage from driveway camera, front door camera, and side gate camera automatically. The full story, already assembled.

Download for permanent storage — Need footage for longer than 14 days? Download event chains, event clips, or custom time ranges whenever you need them. Use CaelusView on desktop for precise clip selection, or simply ask scOS Director through the scOS app: "Send me the footage of that delivery from last Tuesday." Your footage, exportable for evidence, insurance claims, or personal records.

The Psychological Value of Comprehensive Retention

There's a specific anxiety that comes from inadequate retention: "Do I still have that footage?"

You heard something at 2am last week. You didn't check immediately—you were half-asleep, not sure if it was real. Now it's 9 days later and you're wondering: did something happen? Can you still check?

With 7-day retention, that footage is already gone. The question becomes permanent anxiety. "Did I miss something important?"

With 14-day retention, you can check. Director answers: "Completely quiet at 2am that night" or "Cat triggered motion at 2:14am." The question gets resolved. The anxiety ends.

This is peace of mind. Not wondering. Not worrying about deleted footage. Not anxious about whether critical evidence still exists. You have 14 days. That's enough time to review when you're ready, not rushed by retention limits deleting evidence before you've even realized you need it.

Real-World Scenarios Where 14 Days Saves You

Scenario 1: Extended holiday You're away for 12 days. Day 4, someone tests your side gate latch at 3am. You return day 13. With 7-day retention, that's already deleted. You'll never know someone was testing your property. With 14-day retention, you review your trip, see the attempt, and understand your property was targeted while you were away. You install a better lock. You report it to police. The evidence shaped your security decisions—but only because it still existed.

Scenario 2: Police investigation Neighbor's car was stolen 6 days ago. Police request footage from surrounding properties showing any suspicious vehicles in the past 2 weeks. You review your 14 days. A flatbed truck appeared three times: 13 days ago at 1am, 9 days ago at 2am, and 6 days ago (the theft night). Your footage establishes pattern, identifies suspect vehicle, helps police track the organized theft ring. Without 14-day retention, you'd only have the night of the theft—context lost.

Scenario 3: Pattern recognition You notice the same person walked past your property yesterday at 2:30am. Ask Director: "Has this person been here before?" Director analyzes 14 days: "Yes, same individual passed 11 days ago, 8 days ago, 5 days ago, and yesterday—always between 2-3am." Four sightings. Clear surveillance pattern. You report it. Police increase patrols. The person stops appearing. Your home was being cased, but 14-day retention revealed it before it became burglary.

Integration With scOS Intelligence

14-day retention isn't just storage—it's the foundation that makes other scOS features more powerful:

Works with Activity Pattern Recognition — Patterns span days or weeks. 14-day retention gives the AI enough history to establish baselines and identify anomalies that shorter retention would miss.

Enhances Conversational AI — Ask Director about anything in the past two weeks. "Did the gardener come last Tuesday?" "Show me everyone who visited last week." The answers exist because the footage exists.

Supports Event Chaining — Related events across multiple days link together. "That vehicle appeared three times this week" connects sightings across 7+ days into one coherent narrative. Event chaining needs retention to build these connections.

Feeds Daily Briefings — Historical briefings remain accessible. "What happened 10 days ago?" Your briefing told you, and the footage is still available to review.

No Storage Anxiety, No Management Burden

Traditional systems create constant storage anxiety:

NVR systems: "Is the hard drive full?" "Did old footage overwrite something important?" "Do I need to buy more storage?" Manual management. Technical complexity. Risk of failure at the worst moment.

Cloud systems: "Did I hit my storage limit?" "Am I getting charged extra?" "Which cameras are still recording?" Usage caps. Overage fees. Uncertainty about what's actually being retained.

scOS: 14 days per camera. Included. Automatic rolling retention. No management. No anxiety. No surprise costs. Storage that just works so you can focus on security, not IT administration.

The Evidence Is There When You Need It

Ultimately, 24/7 continuous recording with 14-day retention boils down to one simple truth: the footage exists when you need it.

Not "might exist if the motion sensor triggered." Not "existed but we deleted it 8 days ago." Not "you hit your storage limit so we stopped recording."

It exists. 14 days. Every camera. Continuous. Always.

That certainty—that foundation of comprehensive evidence—is what transforms security cameras from "maybe we caught something" to "we have the complete story."

Crime prevention. Pattern detection. Investigation support. Personal peace of mind. All of it depends on retention that actually covers the time periods that matter.

14 days isn't excessive. It's what real security requires.

See all scOS features to understand how 2 Weeks 24/7 Recording works alongside other intelligent security capabilities.