About Doberman
Doberman was founded in Leicester by an installer who got tired of watching security companies send salespeople to do surveys and subcontractors to do installs. We design, install, and maintain hardwired CCTV systems for homes and businesses across Leicester and Leicestershire. No subscriptions. No subcontractors. No sales reps. The person who surveys your property is the same person who installs your system.
Our approach
Every installation starts with a site survey. We visit your property, walk the perimeter, identify the coverage you actually need, and design a system around it. There are no templates. A three‑bed semi in Oadby needs a completely different layout to a retail unit on Belgrave Road, and we treat them that way.
We don’t quote from a desk. We don’t guess camera positions from Google Street View. We turn up, measure cable runs, check where your consumer unit sits, look at what’s casting shadows at 7pm, and work out where the NVR should live so you can actually get to it when you need to.
Night commissioning is standard on every job. We return after dark to verify that every camera delivers usable footage in real‑world conditions - not just the daytime demo you see in a showroom. If a camera’s IR is bouncing off a nearby wall or a tree is creating a blind spot at night, we catch it and fix it before we hand the system over. We learned this the hard way early on: a camera that looks perfect at midday can be completely useless by 9pm if there’s a white render wall two metres to the left reflecting IR light straight back into the lens. Now we check every position in both conditions before sign‑off.
If we think you need two cameras instead of four, we’ll say so. If your existing system just needs a firmware update and a clean, we’ll tell you that too. Our job is to give you honest recommendations, not to maximise an invoice. Read our guide to camera placement if you want to understand the thinking behind how we design a layout.
What we install
We’ve standardised on the Ubiquiti UniFi Protect ecosystem. That means G6 Bullet 4K cameras, PoE switches, and the UNVR‑Instant network video recorder. We chose this stack for specific reasons, and we’re transparent about them.
Power over Ethernet (PoE)
Every camera runs on a single Ethernet cable that carries both power and data. No plug sockets near cameras, no Wi‑Fi dropouts, no signal degradation through double‑brick walls. One cable per camera, terminated properly at both ends. That’s the kind of reliability you want from a security system. We explain the full comparison in our PoE vs Wi‑Fi guide.
Local recording, no cloud dependency
Your footage is stored on‑site on the UNVR‑Instant’s internal hard drive. No monthly cloud subscriptions, no footage held hostage behind a paywall. You own the hardware, you own the recordings. If your internet goes down, your cameras keep recording.
4K resolution with smart detection
The G6 Bullet cameras shoot genuine 4K at up to 30fps with built‑in person and vehicle detection. The wide dynamic range (WDR) handles high‑contrast scenes - critical for south‑facing cameras in areas like Stoneygate where low winter sun blows out standard sensors. See our specs cheat sheet for what these numbers actually mean.
Single‑app management
The UniFi Protect app gives you live view, playback, motion alerts, and system health from your phone. No juggling three different apps from three different manufacturers. One ecosystem, one interface, one login. We set it up on your phone before we leave.
We don’t carry five different camera brands to upsell you on premium options. We picked the system we’d install in our own homes - and did - and standardised on it. That means every installer knows the firmware inside out, every cable run follows the same spec, and every customer gets the same proven hardware. Standardising on one ecosystem also means we can diagnose issues faster: when a customer calls about a camera dropping offline, we already know the likely causes because we’ve seen every quirk of this platform across hundreds of installs.
How we work
The person who surveys your property is the same person who designs your system and the same person who installs it. That’s not a marketing line - it’s how we’re structured.
No subcontractors. No sales reps who vanish after you sign. No handoffs between a "design team" and an "install team" who’ve never spoken to each other. When you phone with a question six months after installation, you’re speaking to the person who drilled the holes and terminated the cables. They know your system because they built it.
This matters more than most people realise. A subcontractor working from someone else’s spec sheet will run cables along the path of least resistance, not the path that gives you the cleanest install. They’ll mount a camera where it’s easiest to drill, not where it gives the best coverage. We don’t have that problem because the person making design decisions is the same person standing on the ladder.
You get a direct line to your installer. Not a call centre. Not a ticketing system. A direct line. Read our full installation guide to understand exactly what happens from first contact to handover.
Leicester & Leicestershire
We work exclusively in Leicester city and the surrounding Leicestershire area. That’s not a limitation - it’s a decision. Knowing the local property stock means we can plan more accurately, quote more honestly, and install more efficiently.
Clarendon Park terraces have solid Victorian brickwork with lime mortar that requires different fixings and drill bits to the lightweight block you’ll find on Hamilton new‑builds. Oadby semis from the 1930s often have cavity walls with a rubble fill that makes internal cable routing unpredictable - we know to check before we commit to a route. Belgrave Road shop fronts typically sit behind metal roller shutters that need cameras mounted above the shutter line with specific bracket angles to avoid dead zones.
Industrial estates on Troon Way and around Meridian Business Park have long perimeter fences where camera spacing and lens selection matter more than resolution. A 4K camera pointed at a 40‑metre fence line without the right lens gives you 4K of blur. We know the focal lengths needed for the distances involved because we’ve installed on those estates.
South‑facing properties in Stoneygate and Knighton get hammered by low winter sun between 2pm and 4pm. Standard cameras wash out completely. We spec WDR cameras in those positions as standard because we’ve seen the problem dozens of times and know which settings resolve it.
This local knowledge isn’t something you can learn from a product datasheet. It comes from installing systems on these streets, on these buildings, across every season. We’ve worked through Leicester’s property stock enough times to know which surprises to plan for before we turn up. If you’re curious about what a typical Leicester installation looks like, see our CCTV cost breakdown for Leicester.
CCTV is one layer of home security, but connected communities make a real difference too. We’d encourage anyone in Leicester or Leicestershire to check whether there’s a Neighbourhood Watch scheme on their street. It’s free, volunteer-led, and one of the most effective ways to reduce crime in your area alongside a good camera system.
What we don’t do
We think it’s just as important to be honest about what we don’t do as what we do.
No traditional alarm panels or monitoring contracts
We don’t install standalone alarm systems, wireless alarm panels, or monitored alarm packages with monthly fees. What we do install are hardwired PoE motion sensors, entry sensors, glass break detectors, and PoE sirens that integrate directly with your CCTV system - no separate alarm panel, no wireless signal to jam, no monitoring subscription.
No key fobs, intercoms, or access control
Standalone intercom systems, key fob entry, and commercial access control are outside our scope - those require different certifications and expertise. We do install hardwired PoE video doorbells as part of the UniFi Protect ecosystem, but full access control is a different trade and we’d rather point you to a specialist.
No massive commercial sites
If you need 50+ cameras across a multi‑building campus, you need an enterprise integrator with project managers and a different class of hardware. We focus on residential CCTV and small commercial CCTV - systems between 2 and 16 cameras - and we do them exceptionally well.
No subscriptions or monitoring contracts
You pay for the hardware and installation. That’s it. No monthly fees, no rolling contracts, no "premium tier" to unlock features that should have been included from day one.
Already have a system that just needs attention? We also handle CCTV upgrades and replacements.
Transparency
We have a commercial interest in you choosing Doberman. We’re transparent about that.
Our CCTV blog exists to help you make an informed decision - even if that decision is to go with someone else or do it yourself. We publish real pricing information, plain‑English spec explanations, and honest comparisons between technologies because we believe an educated customer makes better decisions. Sometimes that decision won’t be us, and that’s fine.
We don’t use fake urgency. We don’t invent "limited time offers". We don’t claim to be the cheapest - we’re not, and anyone claiming to be probably isn’t either. What we do promise is that every quote is based on a genuine site survey, every system is designed for your specific property, and every installation is done by the same person who looked you in the eye and told you what they’d recommend.
If that sounds like the kind of installer you’d want working on your property, get in touch. If not, our CCTV guides will still help you ask the right questions of whoever you do choose.