Network cameras - Round table discussions

A new generation of security professional is waiting in the wings. They will be faced with unprecedented challenges, as they seek to transform the security marketplace to the ‘next level’. Technology changes ensure the market will be very different 10 years from now and the fresh labour pool will need to be able to meet the host of new challenges. We asked our Expert Panel Roundtable: What exciting career opportunities in the security industry await the next generation?

Assembling security solutions has long been considered the role of the integrator, whose role is to pick and choose the best technology tools and then to assemble the complete system. However, more manufacturers are offering pre-integrated end-to-end solutions that include multiple elements from the same manufacturer, designed to work seamlessly together. At the end of the day, end users want to know: Whose role is it to provide security ‘solutions’ – the manufacturer or the in...

Residential security and smart homes are rapidly changing facets of the larger physical security marketplace, driven by advances in consumer technology and concerns about rising crime rates. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people spent more time at home and became more aware of the need for greater security. As workplaces opened back up, returning workers turned to technology to help them keep watch over their homes from afar. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What are the...

Cost is a reality to be managed. No matter how powerful or desirable a technology may be to a customer, the sale often comes down to the basic question: Can I afford it? And affordability extends not just to the purchase price, but to the cost of technology over its lifespan. In addition to advances in technology capabilities, the security industry has also achieved inroads to make its offerings more worth the cost. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the physical securi...

Crime prevention is a basic goal of security, even if a security system merely convinces a criminal to seek out a different target. However, many of today’s security technologies are most useful after the fact, to provide forensic information about a crime that has already taken place. Solving a crime presents a whole new level of challenge. Surely, prevention is the best approach. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: How successful is the security industry in crime preventi...

Adoption of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the European Union in 2016 set a new standard for data privacy. But adherence to GDPR is only one element, among many privacy concerns sweeping the global security community and leaving almost no product category untouched, from access control to video to biometrics. Because privacy concerns are more prevalent than ever, we asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the impact on the physical security market?

Many of us take critical infrastructure for granted in our everyday lives. We turn on a tap, flip a switch, push a button, and water, light, and heat are all readily available. But it is important to remember that computerised systems manage critical infrastructure facilities, making them vulnerable to cyber-attacks. The recent ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline is an example of the new types of threats. In addition, any number of physical attacks is also possibilities. We asked this we...

Perimeter security is the first line of defence against intruders entering a business or premises. Traditionally associated with low-tech options such as fencing, the field of perimeter security has expanded in recent years and now encompasses a range of high-tech options. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What are the latest trends in perimeter security technology?

In the past few weeks, the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel has brightened, providing new levels of hope that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. Dare we now consider what life will be like after the pandemic is over? Considering the possible impact on our industry, we asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: Which security technologies will be most useful in a post-pandemic world?

The topic of video analytics has been talked and written about for decades, and yet is still one of the cutting-edge themes in the physical security industry. Some say yesterday’s analytics systems tended to overpromise and underdeliver, and there are still some skeptics. However, newer technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are reinvigorating the sector and enabling it to finally live up to its promise. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What new technologies a...

During the coronavirus lockdown, employees worked from home in record numbers. But the growing trend came with a new set of security challenges. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the impact of the transition to remote working/home offices on the security market?

When technology performs a required task effectively, there is little reason to upgrade to the ‘next big thing’. In this regard, the physical security market is notoriously slow to change. Much of yesterday’s most robust and dependable equipment is still in place at thousands of customer sites, still performing as well as the day it was installed. However, there comes a point when any technology becomes outdated. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: Which securi...

We are several weeks into 2021, and it is already shaping up to be an eventful year. The happenings and trends from 2020 will likely carry over into the new year, but in a fast-moving industry such as ours, there will also be additional trends to watch. Looking toward the year ahead, we asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What will be the biggest security trends in 2021?

As an industry, we often speak in buzzwords. In addition to being catchy and easy to remember, these new and trendy industry terms can also reflect the state of the security market’s technology. In short, the latest buzzwords provide a kind of shorthand description of where the industry is - and where it’s going. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What new buzzword(s) rose to prominence in the security industry in 2020? (And how do they reflect industry trends?)

What a year 2020 was for the security industry! There were vast challenges that could not have been foreseen at the beginning of the year. It is safe to say that the events of 2020 defied all industry prognosticators. However, is that any reason not to hope our expectations looking ahead to 2021 will be much closer to reality? Can we possibly benefit from looking ahead and trying to plan for the challenges of the year ahead? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What will be the se...

Securing large campus environments can be particularly demanding and requires a range of technology solutions. In effect, a campus may represent a dozen or more individual facilities to be secured, in addition to protecting the overall environment. Seeking more insight into the number and variety of needs of securing a campus, we asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What are the security challenges of protecting large campus environments?

Video analytics are undergoing a fundamental change in the market as machine learning enhances their accuracy while expanding their capabilities. But what are those expanded capabilities and how are they impacting the operation of security and video systems? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What new video analytics are having an impact in the market and how?

The new school year is a good time to reflect on the role of security in protecting our schools. From video to access control to some newer technologies, our Expert Panel Roundtable found plenty to talk about when we asked this week’s question: How does security technology make our schools safer?

One impact of Chinese companies entering the physical security market has been an erosion in product pricing, creating what has been called the "race to the bottom". However, political forces and cybersecurity concerns have presented new challenges for Chinese companies. Adding cybersecurity increases costs, and the addition of more functionality to edge devices is another trend that has impacted product pricing. We asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: Has price erosion ended (or slowed do...

In the digital age, software is a component of almost all systems, including those that drive the physical security market. A trend toward hardware commoditisation is making the role of software even more central to providing value to security solutions. Software developments make more things possible and drive innovation in the market. We asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: How do software improvements drive physical security?  

There will be more artificial intelligence, more machine learning, video systems with more capabilities, and all of it will add greater value to our solutions. Those are among the expectations of our Expert Panel Roundtable as they collectively look ahead to the remainder of 2019. One unexpected prediction is that AI will not prove to be a game changer – at least not yet. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What will be the biggest surprise for security in the second half o...

The year ahead holds endless promise for the physical security industry, and much of that future will be determined by which technologies the industry embraces. The menu of possibilities is long – from artificial intelligence to the Internet of Things to the cloud and much more – and each technology trend has the potential to transform the market in its own way. We tapped into the collective expertise of our Expert Panel Roundtable to answer this question: What technology trend will...

In today’s global economy, goods are manufactured all over the world and shipped to customers thousands of miles away. Where goods are manufactured thus becomes a mere detail. However, in the case of “Made in China”, the location of a manufacturer has become more high-profile and possibly more urgent. The U.S. government recently banned the use in government installations of video system components from two Chinese manufacturers, presumably because of cybersecurity concerns. A...

They say that every choice has a cost. It's a basic principle that, economically speaking, nothing is free. If it doesn't cost actual money, it may be expensive in terms of time, attention and/or effort. These are interesting observations to keep in mind as one peruses the various "free" video management system (VMS) offerings available on the market. Some are provided by camera companies to unify their products into a "system", even if it's a small one. Other free VMS offerings are entry-level...

Even the most advanced and sophisticated security systems are limited in their effectiveness by a factor that is common to all systems – the human factor. How effectively integrators install systems and how productively users interface with their systems both depend largely on how well individual people are trained. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the changing role of training in the security and video surveillance market?

The physical security industry is embracing the cloud in a big way. Cloud-based systems – which involve accessing a shared pool of information technology resources via the Internet – are much higher-profile in the video and access control markets, and large and small companies are getting on the cloud bandwagon. We asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: What factors are contributing to growth in cloud systems in the security market?

By definition, an edge device is an entry point to a network. In the physical security industry, edge devices are the cameras, sensors, access controllers, readers and other equipment that provide information to the IP networks that drive today’s systems. In the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing refers to an increasing role of edge devices to process data where it is created instead of sending it across a network to a data center or the cloud. In our market, edge computing takes the...

In recent years, information technology (IT) departments at end user companies have often been seen as adversaries of traditional security departments – or, at least, as a thorn in their side. One of the issues is territorial: As physical security products have migrated to use of Internet protocols and the network infrastructure, the IT and security departments have clashed – erm… make that interacted – more and more often. New realities such as cybersecurity have made i...

Meeting a customer’s expectations is a key component of success for any business, including the physical security market. However, understanding customers’ expectations is a big challenge, which is made even more difficult because those expectations are a moving target. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: How are customer expectations changing in the physical security market? Their wide-ranging answers highlight elements from technology expectations to adaptability to...

There are many benefits of security systems, and some may be more obvious than others. Certainly, when choosing security systems to be installed, end users have goals and expectations for the systems in mind. But are there other benefits or opportunities that customers may not have thought of? It’s an interesting question, so we asked our Expert Panel Roundtable: Considering security systems integration, what is the biggest (or most common) missed opportunity?