iPhone App Shrinks, Simplifies IP Video Management
- By Brent Dirks
- Jun 01, 2009
Since its introduction in mid-2007, the Apple iPhone has been flying off the shelves at a tremendous pace with more than 17 million units sold worldwide.
Lauded as one of the best consumer electronic devices ever produced, the phone’s applications can do pretty much everything under the sun -- from reminding you where you parked to acting as a dog whistle.
One of the companies taking advantage of the iPhone craze is IP video management software developer Milestone Systems, which recently announced integration of its XProtect Enterprise server with the iRa Pro and iRa C3 mobile surveillance applications from Lextech Labs.
The partnership between the two companies began in mid-2008 when Chicago-based Lextech reached out to Milestone and developed an API-level integration of its iRa products with the XProtect Enterprise platform. The completed solution was officially announced in February. Chris Wyller, North Central sale manager for Milestone, said the mobile nature of the application is helping to bring a new type of customer to the world of IP video surveillance.
“The mobile application is something that has always been defined but never truly tested,” he said. “For the majority of people who use video surveillance on the IP side, it’s neglected on how they are going to view that video. Now we can powerfully enable video with a very intuitive device and bring our software to someone who leaves a site and give them the same features, functionality, and command and control as if they were in their own LAN.”
Lextech Labs president and CEO Alex Bratton said the company has been working on the product line since the iPhone was released, wanting to focus on ease of use and the 5 to 10 percent of functions that security forces need to do their jobs.
Both applications are compatible with Milestone’s technology, but iRa C3 focuses on a multiple user environment with a Web-based command center that allows the configuration of camera feeds and user permissions to go along with view and control functions. iRa direct is geared toward single-user environments and lacks the ability to communicate video data from a Web interface to an iPhone or iPod Touch.
“We’re enabling a new breed of user to get to the video information,” Bratton said. “The video available today has typically been for a dispatcher, an IT administrator or an operator in a back-room, security-booth type of environment.We’re enabling a display for the average security individual. This could be a police officer, security guard or first responder in a fixed facility. This solution gets them operational, actionable intelligence so they can do their job and be prepared.”
On the path to IP in the industry, Bratton said some users have been left out in the cold because of the many new features network-centric security brings.
“The interesting evolution of the analog to IP shift in the security industry is that the industry overcompensated by trying to differentiating the IP side with so many new features that the average user can’t use them,” he said. “We have to get this simple and easy to use for all those people who need the information to do their jobs. This isn’t about the two people in the back room, it’s the 50 people who are out there doing something. I think that is a great growth opportunity for the industry.”
Milestone’s Wyller said the application is bringing in a new type of customer to the IP video management world and that his company has been pleased with the feedback from the industry and end users.
“What the iPhone/iPod Touch user group gives us is a hook into that type of user that we have not been familiar with,” he said. “The user is someone that is media savvy and has never seen video portrayed on that type of device efficiently. The application will give us the opportunity for someone to dive into IP video where before they were a little slower coming into the marketplace because they couldn’t use video on that type of device they spent $400 on.”
This article originally appeared in the June 2009 issue of Network-Centric Security.
About the Author
Brent Dirks is e-news editor for Security Products and Network-Centric Security magazine.