- Live assessment: The agent assesses the situation live on camera, with an average response time under 30 seconds.
- Live verbal warning: If the agent judges the person on camera a trespasser or a threat, we issue a live verbal warning through two-way audio, keep monitoring until the incident is resolved and contact local authorities when required.
- Alerts and report: You get instant alerts with live footage as it unfolds, then a detailed incident report through our client platform.
Residential Property | New York
We detected an attempted break-in at 1:35 a.m. and issued a verbal warning at 1:37 a.m., and the intruder left. The client had alerts, footage and an incident report at 1:38 a.m.
Cameras a provider calls “monitored” are not always watched by anyone. The word has been used for cameras that record for review after something is reported, for alarms or alerts passed to a monitoring company or the police, and for a person looking at live video. One association member paid a local security company for “supposedly ‘monitored’” cameras and had been “assured of 24 hr monitoring.” It turned out to mean the cameras were on. Even where a person watches live video, what they do after closing differs. Some issue voice warnings to the people there, some pass the alert to a dispatcher or the police, and some only tell the client.
Put four questions to any provider, us included:
- Live video: Does a person look at live video, or do the cameras only record?
- Hours: During which hours does that person watch?
- Response: What do they do when they spot someone at the pool or gate after closing?
- Reporting: What does the board receive afterward?
The community plan
Blinkless Remote Guarding can replace or supplement your gatehouse guard and roving patrol, depending on your community’s requirements, coverage goals and response needs.
Show on the plan
If the board is weighing guards, ask your insurance broker how the policy treats them. One community association insurance program’s appetite guide puts armed security in its “Stop! Not a match” column and unarmed security in its “Proceed with caution!” column.
| Place | A guard in the gatehouse | A roving patrol | Remote monitoring (through the community’s cameras) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perimeter fence and wall lines | Checked on its round | Watched | |
| Vehicle and pedestrian entrances | Watched | ||
| The gate and the gatehouse approach | The post, for the hours the contract pays for | Answered remotely when the gatehouse is empty | |
| Clubhouse and amenity buildings | Checked on its round | Watched | |
| Pool, fitness center and courts | Checked on its round | Watched | |
| Common grounds and streets | Streets driven on its round | Watched |
Where a method isn’t described as covering a place, the table leaves it blank. Which of these places your community has, what your cameras already cover and which hours need watching is what the monitoring plan sets out.
When the gatehouse is empty
When your gatehouse closes overnight, you can have the gate answered remotely, leave entry to residents who let their own visitors in through a call box or an app, or keep the gatehouse staffed around the clock. In several communities, residents have pushed back on losing the person at the gate. A Port St. Lucie, Florida, residents association asked bidders in its 2021 security RFP to price the remote option: a gatehouse staffed from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., plus an optional overnight virtual guard system, described in the RFP as one that:
“will eliminate inperson security guards from 11 PM to 7 AM – seven days a week”
The same RFP still kept a roving patrol for the streets, clubhouse and pool, and remote gate handling doesn’t replace one.
After 11 p.m.
When your gatehouse is empty, we answer the gate remotely:
- The visitor:pulls up to the gate
- We:speak with them
- We:check that their entry is approved
- We:open the gate
At a front door instead of a gate
Some communities have a lobby or front door rather than, or as well as, a gate. For those, we run a virtual doorman: the door is answered remotely instead of from a staffed desk. The plan says which your community needs: the gate, the door or neither.
How Do We Deal with People in the Pool After Hours Without Having to Hire a Lifeguard or a Security Guard?
Have the pool watched remotely. Blinkless agents watch it live through your community’s cameras once it closes and warn anyone they judge to be trespassing; no one is stationed there. Blinkless Remote Guarding costs up to 70% less than traditional on-site guards, and the free monitoring plan, which starts from the cameras you already have, puts your community’s price in writing before the board commits to anything.
Do We Need New Cameras Before Anyone Can Watch the Community?
Not necessarily. We work with existing camera systems in many cases: the monitoring plan starts from the cameras the community already has and shows where coverage is missing, and we can install new cameras there. To sketch camera positions first, the board can use the free camera placement planner to place cameras on a satellite view of the community.
Will Residents Object to Someone Watching the Pool Cameras?
Boards disagree. Some boards keep pool cameras for recordings reviewed after a report, so residents don’t feel watched. Where live watching is accepted, the person watching is paid staff, such as guards or access control officers; the objection is to a volunteer or a board member looking at swimmers. Blinkless agents are trained security professionals who assess the live cameras when activity is detected, and our monitoring is focused on common areas, entrances, gates, parking areas and shared amenities, not inside homes.
Does an HOA Have to Put Security Cameras in Its Common Areas?
Not under these statutes, as their text stood in September 2026: Florida sections 718.113, 720.303 and 720.304, Texas Property Code section 202.023 and New Jersey sections 46:8B-14 and 46:8B-15 require no association to install cameras in common areas, and Florida section 768.0706 requires no cameras either. This is the statutes’ text, not legal advice: the declaration and the association’s attorney govern what a board can do.
Statute by statute
- Florida 718.113 (2025)
- Material alterations to a condominium’s common elements follow the declaration’s procedure, or need 75 percent of the voting interests where the declaration is silent. It doesn’t mention cameras.
- Florida 720.303 (2025)
- Makes bids official records, and has cash-receipts reports disclose costs for security. It doesn’t mention cameras.
- Florida 720.304 (2025)
- Subsection (6) lets a parcel owner display a security contractor’s sign at the home. It doesn’t mention cameras.
- Texas Property Code 202.023 (amended 1 September 2025)
- A property owners’ association can’t prohibit an owner’s security camera on the owner’s own property, and may prohibit an owner’s camera anywhere else. It doesn’t apply to condominiums.
- New Jersey 46:8B-14 and 46:8B-15 (2025)
- Give the association the maintenance of the common elements and the power to contract. Neither names cameras.
- Florida 768.0706 (2026, unchanged since chapter 2023-15)
- Covers a residential building or group of buildings, such as apartments, townhouses or condominiums, of at least five dwelling units on one parcel. An owner or principal operator that substantially implements its measures, among them a security camera system at points of entry and exit that records and keeps footage retrievable for at least 30 days, gets a presumption against liability for crimes by third parties on the premises. It doesn’t require cameras.
Florida Statutes at The Florida Senate (flsenate.gov), the Texas Property Code (Texas Legislature) and the New Jersey Statutes. Florida 718.113, 720.303 and 720.304, Texas and New Jersey read 17 September 2026; Florida 768.0706 read 3 October 2026.
Before anyone signs
Before Blinkless or any other vendor starts, your management company will usually want an insurance certificate naming the association as additional insured, along with the rest of its vendor file.
The Board
Decides
If Your Association Goes Out to Bid
A security RFP can be written entirely around a guard company. One RFP, from a Port St. Lucie, Florida residents association, asked for a Florida Security Contractor license, guards holding a state guard card and guard retention rates. Whether your RFP leaves room for remote monitoring is up to your board and your manager.
The Management Company
Prepares the bid, keeps the vendor file
The Vendor File
Management companies' published vendor requirements ask for:
- Insurance: A certificate of insurance with the association endorsed as additional insured, workers' compensation and commercial auto
- Tax form: A W-9
- License: The trade license the work calls for
- Contract: A signed vendor agreement
Some management companies route vendors through a credentialing platform with an annual fee. Apart from the trade license, the list is the same for any vendor.
Each management company sets its own limits and often gives them only on request. Ask your manager for those limits and include them when you request your monitoring plan.
Blinkless
Supplies the paperwork and the scope
Insurance per Community
On our certificate, each community is named separately as additional insured, unless the communities all sit under one LLC, which usually isn't the case.
A Written Scope
Our quote is a written monitoring plan for your community.
We assess your community remotely from satellite imagery and, if you have one, your list of the cameras already up. Then we write down which areas need monitoring and from which cameras, during which hours, how intruders and break-in attempts would be handled, who gets alerted, and how the gate or the door would be answered if you need that.
The board sees the scope and the price in writing before committing to anything. The plan is yours to keep, whether you hire Blinkless or not.
- Tell us about the community. Where it is, how the gate works today and, if you know, what cameras are up.
- We look at it remotely. From satellite imagery and your camera list.
- You get a coverage map. What the cameras see now, and where the gaps are.
- You get a written monitoring plan. The scope above, with the price attached.