Different state-of-the-art video surveillance solutions were installed in a renowned hotel in the coffee zone of Colombia.
By Hanwha Techwin
Challenge: This Colombian chain operates eight hotels in six cities in the country: Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Pereira, Barranquilla and Cartagena. Each space has its own exclusivity to obtain the highest degree of satisfaction from its customers: from the 24-hour reception, its three restaurants, the business center open all day, the outdoor pool, the rooftop terrace, the fitness room and the full-service spa to the corridors that cross each of the ten floors in which 202 rooms are connected.
This diversity of areas that converge in the same building, in which there is a constant transit of people of all kinds, from common users such as national and foreign tourists, businessmen, hotel employees to guests of official events and logistics personnel, requires a complete monitoring of the slightest corner of the place that can give the maximum guarantee of security to those who stay there. In November 2017, the manager of the Pereira hotel warned that the analogous camera system that had been installed left many blind spots. In that sense, when registering an eventuality in which it was wanted to corroborate the identity of possible violators of the internal regulations or to trace possible authors of some malicious conduct, punishable or not, within its facilities, a series of inconsistencies remained.
Solution
Hence, the manager communicated with her colleague in charge of another establishment of the chain in the Antioquia city of Rionegro where in the middle of that same year, in the midst of an expansion of the hotel structure, the migration of an analogous system to an IP one using technology from the company Hanwha Techwin had been successfully carried out. The implementation of SSM, a comprehensive management software platform that maximizes the efficiency of Wisenet network products, enables local and remote monitoring of images under digital processing for facial recognition. The client-server architecture presents a stable management of the video surveillance system through the configuration of multiple sites and clients.
That way, access to live/recorded videos is extremely easy from remote sites, making it suitable for medium to large-scale diverse location applications. In addition, its deployment is simpler and cheaper than a Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) by using the same wiring provided for Internet access and with it data communication, without the need to deploy a coaxial cabling infrastructure traditionally used for the video surveillance network. In that sense, 4 PTZ cameras (pan-tiit-zoom for its acronym in English) and 39 of the QND series were installed, which have automatic tracking, used in that case together with four monitors located in a monitoring center to validate all the perimeter security of the hotel.
The good reception that the integration of both systems had led to the fact that a couple of months later the manager of the headquarters of the same hotel in Barranquilla, capital of the Atlantic, requested in turn the installation of 25 cameras of the same reference (QND). This project was carried out between 20 and 25 days in which the engineers of the company Go Security also ensured the effective rapport of the current system with Hanwha technology, focusing on the location of several equipment that could correct several blind spots that were in the kitchen. The process ended in October 2019, a month before the call of the hotel manager in Pereira with the aim of incorporating this same solution to the problems of its headquarters.
Result
Unlike the other two venues, the Pereira hotel uninstalled the existing analog system and switched directly to an IP one. However, at the request of the manager herself, it was decided to acquire the same equipment installed at the initial headquarters; Hanwha Techwin Q-series QND-6020R cameras, which feature a maximum resolution of 2 megapixels (1920 x 1080), characterized by motion detection, manipulation and blur detection, aisle display and WiseStream compatibility. In this case what was wanted to attack were the extreme points of the hotel, in particular the angle of projection of the entrance to the rooms by the guests, in which the sharpness of the image failed. Hence, about 30 cameras of this type were installed, about three per floor, including one for each restaurant.
Successful integration
"The customer was well satisfied," says John Jairo Rengifo, commercial director of Go Security, who comments that he had some concern that, by adding a new system of a different brand to the initial one, the investment of years ago would be lost. However, Rengifo emphasizes the permanent accompaniment by the engineer in charge to certify that there was no problem with the configuration of this technology. Finally, the project manager of the same integrator, Fernando Quimbay, maintains that in none of the three sites of the installation were there any problems and remotely verify that the integration has been successful. So much so that Pereira's is already following in the footsteps of its subsidiary that inspired it to incorporate this solution and also plans to have an expansion this year, under the same vision of the entire hotel chain to grow more and more in a sustainable way.
