Where to Place Cameras on a Shop Floor: A Practical Guide

Short answer: aim each camera at a specific job — a zone, an entry, a hazard, or a choke point — mounted 2.5–4 m high, angled down, and pointed away from windows and bright lights. Good placement is about sightlines and light, not covering walls evenly. Get those right and a handful of cameras outperform a floor full of badly-aimed ones.

Here's the practical version.

Start from what each camera is for

Before you mount anything, decide the job of each camera. On a shop floor there are four:

1. Overview — see the activity in a work zone (a machine cell, an assembly line, a bay). Wide angle, mounted high.
2. Accountability — who went through a door, a dock, a gate. One well-aimed camera per entry/exit.
3. Safety — a hazard you want on record: a press, a forklift lane, a chemical or hot area. Framed to catch the danger point.
4. Identification — read a face, a badge, a label, a plate. Narrow, lower, at a choke point where people pass one at a time.

A camera trying to do all four does none well. Assign one primary job per camera, then place it for that job.

Mounting height and angle

• Overview cameras: 3–4 m, angled down so you see the floor and activity, not just the tops of heads.
• Identification cameras: ~2.5 m at a choke point, angled so faces stay in frame. Mount too high and you get scalps, not faces.
• Keep the tilt moderate. A camera pointed straight down sees a small circle; one angled ~15–30° down sees far more useful floor while still catching detail near it.

Light is the thing most people get wrong

The single most common placement mistake is pointing a camera at a light source — a window, an open roller door, a bright lamp. The result is a silhouette: everything in front goes black.

• Point cameras away from windows and exterior doors, not toward them.
• If you must shoot toward light, use a camera with strong WDR (wide dynamic range) — but placement beats WDR every time.
• Watch for glare and reflections off machines, glass, and polished floors, and for IR bounce at night (a camera too close to a wall or object lights it up and blinds itself).

Turret (ceiling) vs bullet (wall)

Both belong on a floor; use each for what it's good at:

• Turret — ceiling-mounted. Wide top-down coverage of a zone, compact, harder to knock out of alignment. Its flat, exposed lens avoids the IR glare a glass dome can suffer at night (IR reflecting off the bubble), so it's a strong choice for overview of work zones. A dome does the same job but is more prone to that IR reflection, especially once the bubble is dusty or scratched.
• Bullet — wall-mounted. Longer, narrower reach down an aisle or along a line; visible, so it also deters. Best for aisles, perimeters, and long throws.

A practical floor is usually turrets over the zones, bullets down the aisles and at entries. Pick the mount per job, not one type everywhere.

Don't forget power and cabling

Placement isn't just about the view — a camera has to be reachable and powered:

• PoE (Power over Ethernet) runs power and data on one cable, but Ethernet caps at ~100 m from the switch. Plan camera spots within that reach, or add a switch closer.
• Budget the PoE switch. Every camera draws power; the switch's total PoE budget (watts) must cover all cameras plus headroom — a point that's easy to miss until half the cameras won't power on.
• Back up the switch. Cameras and the switch have no internal battery; a small UPS on the PoE switch and router keeps the floor covered through short power cuts.
• Match the housing to the environment — dust, heat, moisture, washdown areas need the right IP rating; add IR range for dark corners.

The fast way to get placement right

Placement rewards experience — reading a specific floor's pillars, machines, light and choke points. That's exactly what Mama does from a phone walkthrough: it maps the space and returns where each camera goes, ceiling vs wall, the coverage map, and the PoE/cabling implications — a full placement plan without a site survey. You walk the floor once; you get the layout, the mounts, and the power budget in a day.

FAQ

How high should factory cameras be mounted? Overview cameras at 3–4 m angled down; identification cameras around 2.5 m at a choke point so faces stay in frame. Too high and you only see the tops of heads.

Turret or bullet cameras for a shop floor? Turrets (ceiling) for wide top-down coverage of work zones; bullets (wall) for long, narrow views down aisles and at entries. Most floors use a mix.

How do I stop glare and backlight from windows? Point cameras away from windows and exterior doors. If you must shoot toward light, use a camera with strong WDR — but correct placement matters more than any setting.

How far can a PoE camera be from the switch? About 100 m over standard Ethernet. Beyond that, add a switch or PoE extender closer to the camera. Also confirm the switch's total PoE wattage covers all cameras.