I personally have been in the security business for over 25 years. Now more than ever, clients are looking for assistance defining what solution will meet or exceed their needs. Whether those needs are well defined at the present moment or not, clients are looking for a solution provider to help fine tune their requests in line with today's level of technology and their needs while making the intended solution blend into their interior or exterior building aesthetics.
Years ago this was more difficult to accomplish, but today's technology is making incremental advances by the week or month providing you more choices. Once upon a time, we had yearned for a multitude of systems (access control, visitor management, CCTV, ID badging systems, etc.) to have true integration capabilities. Today, many security directors are hoping they can integrate their existing credentials and databases on the new security system they are buying, while praying the system they buy is not obsolete within a few years. All of these necessary stipulations seem to have been thrust upon us by the new economy.
This is the new economy of bosses demanding their staffs to "Do more with less." Yesterday it was difficult to get all our needs met, but easier to make a decision between "this big ugly reader" or that "bigger uglier camera." Today the question is "Can you really make a firm decision on a new security system, and create a completely new security paradigm while not second guessing that decision five minutes after you purchase it?" Not many people want to be the first client in the new world of security.
The market has adapted to its self-imposed needs as it usually does. As the technology market meets new innovative milestones, we all benefit from the faster smaller abilities those milestones bring. Technology vendors have heard the cry for doing more with less and responded. The results are advanced benefits designed to provide advanced user authentication, lower administrative costs, faster retrieval times of data, better CCTV resolution and higher system redundancy for the same price or less than yesterday's technology. Those concepts are spoken in client meetings and the buzzwords of today are being slung around faster than the buzzwords of the last decade. To the layman these names, phrases, buzz words and acronyms mix together in a conversation that starts to sound like a quarterback calling an offensive football play. Words like BlueBox, POE, S2, & SAS, or Brivo, Cloud-Based, Layer 2, RAID 6 on Wi-Fi!
Today, virtually any security need can be met through system design. We are in a cycle now where features and benefits are increasing and the costs of the technology are coming down. IP cameras have come down in price and now megapixel cameras allow fewer cameras to cover larger areas. Pan tilt cameras are becoming passé' because megapixel cameras can record the requested field of view (area) allowing you to record everything and zoom in on the recorded video after the fact. This provides higher confidence levels for building owners and better evidence for the police. Alerts can come instantly and to multiple staff members, all driven from analytics based software that is programmed with your requested needs. Credentials are also changing. What was once known as your access card may now become your mathematical facial template or a Bluetooth credential on your phone. Since both intuitive analytics with facial recognition and Bluetooth card readers have enabled us to provide solutions where either your face or your phone can provide you access to your home or business. We can now decide on the new security paradigm to protect our space and prepare for the future. Today credentials can even be sent via email to your visitor so accessibility is easy for them as well
Moving forward, what does this really mean for residential and commercial real estate? What does this mean for clients who have large portfolios of buildings or for small commercial businesses that have had reductions in administrative staff? And what does this mean to the tenants, vendors or employees in any of those properties when it comes to living their lives in the world of changing technologies that cause us to stop in the middle of our day to search our pockets, briefcase or pocket book to find our access card? When you push the intercom button and have to wait, because the person you are visiting just ran out to pick up food, or the company we are visiting has a receptionist who ran out for lunch, how long will you have to wait? Today's technology can reduce that entry (wait) down to seconds while increasing confidence in building security levels. Intelligent solutions are designed into your daily process. In many cases you can accommodate all building occupants and the security process, use less people to manage the systems, and reallocate that manpower to places where you could really use them. Places where you may not have had the budget in the past.
How, you may ask? Imagine the lobby of your building has cameras in it that are one quarter the size of the existing cameras, and instead of five cameras there are only three cameras smaller than a golf ball with resolution five times better. Instead of looking for your access card, the camera at the front door reads your movement and facial features and opens the door for you as it announces "Welcome Michael". Invited guests and visitors can be sent access credentials to their phone, or can ring the intercom, which in turn calls your cell phone so you can remotely provide them access from your phone. In this scenario, your unexpected pop in guest does not have to wait for you outside standing in the rain. Managers in residential and commercial high-rise buildings can get tenants and residents in quicker without tenants fumbling for access cards in dark vestibules. Management can avoid illegal subletting when all residents need to be enrolled in the facial recognition access system at the front door, exit doors and laundry room. Best of all, there is true reporting of who came in the building and tracking of who was with them or around them when they entered.
Idesco is a full service security system and communication solution integrator that has been in business for 72 years. We have been part of the security evolution and look forward to see what the next few years bring us.
Michael Perlow, VP of sales at Idesco Corp., New York, NY
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