In this guide I want to answer the questions I get most often from Bali villa owners considering CCTV: how many cameras do I need, what resolution actually matters, how much storage do I need, and can I really watch my cameras from overseas. The answers are more practical and specific than most of what's written about CCTV online, which is usually either too generic or trying to upsell maximum specifications.
How Many Cameras for a Bali Villa?
Most standard Bali villas — 2 to 4 bedrooms on a single plot — are adequately covered by 4 cameras: main entrance/gate, villa entrance door, pool area, and carport or parking area. These four positions cover the primary access and value-area surveillance requirements.
For larger villas with multiple buildings, guest villas, or complex garden layouts, 6–8 cameras may be needed. For villas where interior monitoring (lobby, common areas) is required alongside perimeter coverage, add 1–2 indoor dome cameras.
More cameras isn't always better. Cameras that are poorly positioned, have low-quality optics, or aren't correctly aimed provide less useful coverage than fewer well-positioned cameras.
Resolution: What Actually Matters
For identification of individuals and vehicle plates in Bali's typical villa camera scenarios, 1080p (2MP) is the practical minimum and 4MP (2K) is the practical sweet spot. 4K cameras produce larger files and require more storage without providing proportionally more useful information at typical Bali villa camera distances (5–15 metres).
Resolution is less important than lens selection. A 4MP camera with the wrong focal length for the distance — providing an image that's zoomed in too tight or too wide for the capture distance — is less useful than a 2MP camera with the correct lens.
How Much Storage Do I Need?
For a 4-camera system at 1080p recording continuously 24/7: approximately 80–100GB per day. A 2TB hard drive provides approximately 20 days of retention. A 4TB drive provides 40 days. Most Bali villa owners find 15–30 days of retention sufficient for their purposes — long enough to identify an incident after the fact, short enough that storage costs are reasonable.
Remote View: What to Expect
Modern Dahua and Hikvision IP systems stream remote live video at 1–3 Mbps per camera — requiring 4–12 Mbps upload speed from the Bali internet connection for 4 cameras streaming simultaneously. Bali's IndiHome residential fibre typically provides 10–20 Mbps upload, which is adequate. Mobile data (4G/LTE) at the villa location is the consideration — remote areas may have insufficient upload speed for smooth multi-camera streaming.