How to Capture Footfall Footage With a Phone (or the Building's CCTV)

If you want to capture footfall footage that turns into a clean, certifiable count — and, further down, exactly how to record footfall video on a phone — the good news is that you almost certainly already own the equipment. A Footfall Certificate is built from ordinary video — a phone propped in the window, an IP camera, or the building's existing CCTV — and the quality of the final number depends far more on where the camera looks than on how expensive it is. This guide walks landlords, brokers and property managers through capturing footage that the counting engine can read cleanly the first time.

Key takeaways

• Any camera works — phone, IP camera, or existing CCTV. What matters is a steady mount and a clear view across the pavement.
• Film the full width of the walkway, roughly perpendicular to the flow, with people appearing large enough to track.
• Seven days of coverage captures the real weekday/weekend pattern; more continuous footage tightens the estimate.
• No faces are stored — the engine counts silhouettes and deletes source video after processing.
• Get the framing right once and the rest of the certificate takes care of itself.

Choosing your camera: phone vs IP camera vs upload

You have three honest options, and the best one is whichever gives the clearest view of the pavement.

Phone. The fastest route for a vacant unit. A modern phone shooting 1080p at 30fps, mounted in the window, produces perfectly countable footage. Use a cheap suction or clamp mount so nothing drifts, plug it into power, and it can film all day. This is the go-to when the unit is empty and there is no CCTV pointing the right way.

IP camera. If the property already has an outward-facing IP camera, you can point the tool at its stream directly. This suits property managers running several units, because one setup covers a whole building and can record on a schedule.

Upload existing CCTV. If the building's CCTV already sees the storefront, you may not need to film anything new at all — just export a clip and upload it. The catch is the same as always: the camera has to see the full width of the walkway you want to count, not a narrow slice of doorway.

There is no accuracy penalty for choosing the convenient option, only a framing penalty if the convenient camera has a bad angle. When in doubt, a phone you can position freely beats a fixed camera pointing the wrong way.

Framing: the five rules that decide your count

Ninety percent of a good count is set before you press record. Get these right:

1. See the whole walkway. The counting line has to span the pavement from building line to kerb. If pedestrians can walk past off-frame, they will not be counted. Frame wide enough that the full width of the flow is visible.
2. Shoot roughly perpendicular to the flow. A camera looking straight down the pavement makes people overlap and occlude each other. An angle that catches pedestrians crossing the frame — think of the camera looking across the street rather than along it — separates them cleanly.
3. Keep people big enough to track. As a rule of thumb, a person should be at least a fair fraction of the frame height when they cross your line. If pedestrians are tiny specks at the far end of a long lens, tracking degrades. Closer and wider beats far and zoomed.
4. Mount it rock-steady. Shake is the enemy. A wobbling phone forces the tracker to work harder and can inflate or drop counts. Clamp it, weight it, lean it — just make sure it does not move for the whole session.
5. Mind the light. Dawn glare, headlight flare at night, and a camera pointing into the sun all hurt detection. A shaded, evenly lit view is ideal; if you must cover nights, make sure the streetlight actually illuminates the pavement.

The certificate's quality-check step will flag common problems — subjects too small, low light, camera shake — before you commit to a full count, so a two-minute test clip is always worth it. Once the framing is right, you move on to drawing the counting line.

How long to capture footfall footage

A Footfall Certificate observes seven days because a single day lies. A Tuesday is not a Saturday, a rainy morning is not a sunny one, and lunch trade tells you nothing about the evening. Seven days captures the real shape.

You do not have to film every second of those seven days. Where coverage has gaps, the estimate scales what was observed up to a full period and attaches a confidence interval that reflects how much you actually saw — the honest way to project. More continuous coverage produces a tighter interval and a more confident certificate; a few short clips produce a wider, clearly-labelled one. How seven days of sampling becomes a defensible estimate explains exactly how that scaling works and why a short "spot reading" is labelled as such rather than dressed up as a full week.

Privacy, stated plainly

Filming a public pavement to count pedestrians does not mean building a surveillance file. The engine detects and tracks anonymous silhouettes and records line crossings; it stores no faces, creates no identities, and deletes the source video after the count is produced. The full GDPR and privacy position is maintained once on the shared StreetProof methodology and privacy pages and referenced from every certificate, so a tenant or data-protection officer can read the same policy you did.

From footage to certificate

Once you have clean footage:

1. Upload it (or connect the camera) on the FootfallCert app.
2. Draw the counting line and confirm the quality check.
3. The engine counts, samples up to seven days, and seals the certificate.
4. You receive the one-page PDF, the interactive version, the QR verification page and the listing badge.

For the full picture of what you are producing and how it all fits together, start from the Footfall Certificate guide, and when you are ready to run one, see the pricing page. Brokers certifying a first listing should use the broker certificate — $149.

Frequently asked questions

Can I record footfall on a normal phone? Yes — 1080p at 30fps, mounted steady with a clear view across the pavement, is enough. Stability and an unobstructed line matter more than the camera's price.

How long do I need to film? Seven days of observation, to capture the full weekday and weekend pattern. Coverage can have gaps; the estimate scales observed footage with a stated confidence interval, and more continuous coverage tightens it.

Does recording pedestrians breach privacy rules? No faces are stored and no identities are created; source video is deleted after processing. The detailed position lives on the shared methodology pages.

Can I upload old CCTV footage instead? Often yes, if the CCTV sees the full width of the walkway. The view decides it, not the source.