Disruptive technologies are giving an innovative response to the needs of electronic security in Latin America and, in turn, are modifying current market trends.
By Iris Montoya
Electronic security is one of the industries whose growth is exponential and is driven by applied sciences, as well as technological developments. In that sense, it is inescapable to address the concept of disruption, especially since it qualifies the new solutions that have entered this industry during the last decade.
What is disruptive and disruptive technologies?
The word 'disruptive' or 'disruptive', refers to a decisive or crude change. So the disruptive can be understood as that which generates a paradigm shift in an unexpected and 'violent' way.
For its part, disruptive technology is, as indicated in the text "Disruptive technologies and innovations" of the journal Higher Medical Education, one that "promotes profound changes in processes, products or services [...] and generally involves a strategy of introduction, penetration and use that consolidates it and displaces the previous technology, which makes it a disruptive innovation."
In this order of ideas, the article "Introduction to Disruptive Technology and its Implementation in Scientific Teams", deepens the concept indicating that "a disruptive innovation is formed in a market niche that may appear unattractive or inconsequential for commercial companies, but in the end the new product or idea completely redefines the industry".
That is, this technology is also able to promote a new market, which includes the value network and the perception of said added value. A dilemma that is nothing new, as it was first mentioned by Clayton M. Christensen and spread in his book "The Innovator's Dilemma" in the nineties.
Simply put, disruptive devices carry with them the phenomenon of transforming markets, industries and end-user dynamics. An example of this is what happened with the Internet, the personal computer and cellular technology, or what has been happening recently with DeepFake applications and Artificial Intelligence.
Obviously this phenomenon becomes a threat to manufacturers who do not keep pace with change. The paper, "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave," stated in 1995 that "one of the most consistent patterns in business is the failure of leading companies to stay on top of their industries when technologies and markets change." Visible issue in the dynamics created by cloud storage, IoT and video surveillance with analytics.
Disruptive technologies for security in Latin America
Glenn Patrizio, president of LAR, says that currently the importance for brands and manufacturers of a disruptive approach to electronic security, especially in Latin America, is given because all companies want to gain ground in the industry, and illustrated with an example a recent case.
"When talking about disruptive technologies in Latin America, it is necessary to mention the Chinese cameras, they took advantage of the fact that in this territory they were not obliged to comply with the regulations required in the United States, which are two, the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) and the TTA (Trade Agreements Act)".
Glenn explained that this absence of standard, added to the low prices and the offer of analytics, which at the time were not addressing the American solutions, since the needs of their verticals were (and are) different, gave them an important penetration of the market, where they put the game on their side of the balance, since they met the needs of public and private security that the region had.
The offer of Chinese origin was then a disruptive innovation that gave a technological response to the need to track and alert episodes of violence and organized crime that could be captured on camera, thus changing the dynamics of the market in Latin America, which now has as a standard of preference the devices that contemplate this feature.
On the trail of disruptive technologies
In a more global view, cameras are not the only disruptive technology that participates today in the electronic security market, in fact you can find various candidate solutions for this title.
Thus, we are going to present a VMS, a fisheye camera and a smart lock, which have addressed the pains of the end user 'thinking out of the box' and that, in a daring way, we consider that they can be (in the medium term) the next disruptive technologies in the industry.
Forensically powered analytics for VMS
For Glenn, VMS must currently have high cybersecurity standards, focused on preventing successful cyber attacks. In addition, it is already usual for them to offer analytics with exponentially higher performance than just a decade ago, which had a not so good percentage of accuracy.
"In the part of real-time analytics there are many brands that are offering the detection of flow of people, facial and license plate recognition, they track people, allow the creation of black and white lists, also generating important notices with this information, as is the case of the identification of a criminal who appears before a camera. Those are the important benefits today to really prevent crime and reduce street crime."
The president of LAR pointed out that among the best performing analytics offered today, the so-called BriefCam stands out, which has a patented technology in the forensic part and explained how it operates.
"When you have a video already recorded, with that material you can reconstruct an event that nobody saw. That is important because although there are personnel monitoring a CCTV, when an event occurs it can happen that nobody can detect it. This solution allows you to use recording and, by creating 'geofences' and 'geopointers', see exactly what happened in a scene."
As stated on its official website, the Brief Cam solution offers forensic video analysis, as it "allows users to accelerate investigations, obtain operational intelligence and situational awareness." This solution can be integrated directly into the Milestone client, and is responsible for providing the ability to "quickly review and search videos, facial recognition, real-time alerts and quantitative video information".
According to the same brand, thanks to the fact that it can transform raw video, BriefCam "dramatically shortens the time to target of security threats, while increasing security and optimizing operations."
Finally, Glenn pointed out that "there is an important evolution of technology in VMS, and it is the tendency for them to be smarter, have greater integrations and offer more services. This means that they are required to develop more technology to meet the demands of the end user."
360 degrees of video surveillance without distortion
Luis Arturo Chávez, sales director for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean at IDIS, commented that the 306-degree camera solution that his company is offering can be considered disruptive, due to its particular operation that corrects the distortion of the lens and even offers new features, such as seen from several different points, both in live and recorded video.
According to Luis Arturo, this device breaks the paradigms of visualization of video surveillance cameras. "IDIS cameras have a very special angular view feature, which is known as the fisheye. Physically the camera has a process, but internally, as part of the DNA that drives the brand, it has encodings and latencies, among other techniques, which are proprietary and patented and that make the experience with this camera totally different. "
This Korean product with NDAA certification, unlike the existing fisheyes, is composed of the set that makes its panamorpho lens (available in 6 and 12 megapixels), the patented engineering and analytics offered by the brand. Also, the way it presents the images distinguishes it from other solutions, because when it offers navigation similar to Google Earth; It allows you to zoom in, change the vision from a marble shape to a frontal plane, go through the spaces and rotate to all sides just using the mouse pointer.
Other features that add value are its size, this is a small camera, approximately 8 or 10 centimeters in circumference, includes SD slot and allows the installation of external microphone. Since it has no moving parts, wear is avoided and lasts longer over time.
An important detail is that in the subsequent review of the videos no special programs are required, you can extract the desired clip as an executable video, pass to a USB and play on a PC that does not have the camera or monitoring system installed, without losing the benefits of the interface that moves freely through the planes.
Luis Arturo explained that with this camera you can make up to 8 different boxes live and 4 in the visualization of recorded material. "For example, if in the lobby of a bank there are 5 ATMs, the entrance and the place where people write, then this solution can take each ATM in a different space of the screen, in addition to offering in take 6 a capture of the entrance and in take 7 we can check the trash can. "
Thanks to this you can have proof of everything that happened in an ATM transaction, including the time, date, day and card number, as it also brings text insertion, to give a forensic test.
For all the technical peculiarities of the device Luis Arturo ensures that this solution has a "wow" factor, since when performing proofs of concept that is the onomatopoeia that often escapes potential customers.
Finally, the sales director confirmed that in Mexico, "this solution is present in the Attorney General's Office with around 4,000 cameras, in more than 256 sites and more than 500 users at the same time; more than 600 chambers were installed in the Senate of the Republic; we also have facilities at the National Institute of Migration."
Smart lock for short rental spaces
Sebastián Malec, Head of Growth of Tedee, was able to present us during Expo Seguridad México 2023 the offer of smart locks of his brand, pointing out that this domestic access control solution is ideal to solve security problems when entering residential spaces dedicated to short rentals, such as the apartments offered on the platforms, so it offers comfort and security to the tenant, as well as to the owner of the property.
"Our difference with other smart locks is that they adapt to all types of doors, so you don't need to change the type of mechanism. They are the smallest locks on the market, but also stronger and the battery life lasts up to 1 year."
The Tedee executive explained the operation of this solution in detail. Inside you can see the smart lock that can be activated with a small button, but also with an application, with virtual assistant systems for home automation type 'Alexa' and can also be integrated into tourist homes with the Airbnb system or with Booking.
Also, this device has additional accessories such as keyboard, to open with a code. In such a way that this code can also be sent to the tenant remotely.
Sergio emphasized that it easily adapts to the structure of the door. "The 'butterfly' that is usually in the part of the bolt is replaced with the adapter, which brings the installation shaft, to which only the lock should be put later. In five minutes it is possible to complete the complete change and adapts to any type of door that can be found in Mexico, without the need to change the entire mechanism."
In Mexico, the most important verticals for this Tedee solution are, first of all, properties for tourist rental, because for customers in Cancun and Playa del Cármen it is vital to automate the Check-in and Check-out process. Secondly are the security companies that install this type of device and, finally, the locksmith distributors.
To conclude, this smart lock highlights the ease of use from the application, with an immediate reaction and the possibility of sharing access to third parties, in addition to settings and automatic locking. This solution can be installed both in security doors with European system, and in the American profile sheet.
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