When I lived in Germany I always left with my house keys, but here in rural Brazil, the only key I need is my cars!
(I used to live so close to the city center I didn’t need a car, and now I live so far away that I don’t even bother locking my front door).
I was more thinking about modern internet solutions that enable things like viewing a camera remotely that produce alerts for things like movement, and can even show a little clip of what was seen.
Having a camera on site in a rural area is only relevant if you’re aware of the happenings, no? because if you’re away for a long time, say an 8 hour shift at work… absolutely anybody can come in and tear down your cameras, ransack your house, and light the remainder on fire destroying all video evidence.
A friend I know had her rural home robbed of all christmas gifts under a tree in the 90s. She lived in the US in a fairly rural area (pop ~100.) Houses are all set back from the road. They even tried pulling an extremely large TV out through the front door, but it wouldn’t fit.
Cameras wouldn’t help… because they stole their computers, all the gifts obviously, and even a small gun safe. This was a former veteran and IT worker’s family home and they had for the time fairly bleeding edge hardware. Sure, if the family returned home and caught them red handed perhaps it would have went differently, but disabling camera infrastructure back then in a rural residential setting is trivial if no one is home.