Solar surveillance trailer vs security guard
Direct answer: A single overnight guard post in DFW typically costs $6,000–$10,000+ per month and covers wherever one person is looking; a solar surveillance unit costs $695–$1,695 per month, watches 360° continuously, records everything, and never misses a shift. Guards still win where physical intervention, access control or customer interaction is the actual job.
The honest math
Guard pricing is hourly, so nights and weekends multiply fast: 12 hours a night at a loaded $22–$35/hour is roughly $8,000–$12,700 per month for one post — before holidays, turnover, and the supervision needed to confirm the post is actually manned and awake. A surveillance unit is a flat monthly rate a tenth of that size.
Coverage is the less obvious gap. A guard sees one direction, walks one route, and is human — attention fades at 3 AM, exactly when incidents cluster. Four cameras with edge AI watch every direction simultaneously with the same vigilance at hour one and hour nine, and everything they see is recorded.
What each does better
The unit wins on: continuous 360° coverage, perfect attendance, evidence (every event recorded with timestamps), deterrence at machine speed (strobe/siren the moment a person enters a zone), cost, and equipment that reports its own health.
A guard wins on: physical intervention, complex judgment calls (escorting visitors, checking credentials, handling deliveries), customer-facing presence, and tasks that are really operations rather than security. If the job description includes opening gates for vendors, a camera is not the answer — though gate control plus a unit sometimes is.
The hybrid most large sites land on
Big projects often keep a day guard for access control and replace the overnight post with a monitored unit: AI detection, human verification through the monitoring workflow, and voice-down deterrence. That configuration covers the vulnerable hours at a fraction of double-post cost — and produces better evidence than a lone guard with a phone.
One more factor experienced supers mention: a recorded talk-down (“You on the yellow excavator — you are on camera and being recorded”) is often more effective than a lone guard confronting a crew, and it puts no employee at physical risk.