Body Cameras – Not just for the police anymore.

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By David Strickland, Vice President of Kenton Brothers

In the news lately, there is a lot of talk about body cameras for police. There are a lot of positive reasons people are having these discussions.

  • 90% reduction in complaints against officers
  • 50% higher conviction rate when used in arrests
  • Higher evidence capture rate at crime and accident scenes
  • Passive documentation of real time events

These are very powerful reasons why body cameras work. Have you ever thought about how they can be used effectively in other types of businesses and security scenarios?

Kenton Brothers: Body Cameras

Improved safety in warehouse and logistic environments

Some companies are requiring Fork lift drivers and stacker drivers to wear cameras. And they have had great success:

  • Reduced accidents
  • Identifying Training opportunities
  • Recognition of safety enhancements needed such as lights or pathways marked on ground
  • Identification of Pallet Construction flaws
  • GEO location of Operators in large spaces

Technician / Electrician apprentice training

Some companies are utilizing body cameras to review technician work in the field to ensure accuracy of work compared to company specs.

This has improved output in the following ways:

  • Reduced call backs on new technicians
  • Increase in Productivity
  • Clearly identifies training opportunities
  • Ensures compliance with lock out tag out procedures

Increased safety and production in Manufacturing facilities

  • Passively captures evidence from the workers perspective of the manufacturing process
  • Identifies hidden areas of safety concern
  • Facilitates training opportunities
  • Identifies inefficiencies in the current processes

At Kenton Brothers Systems for Security, we are proud to offer body worn cameras manufactured by our premier commercial video surveillance manufacturer Axis Communications.

Kenton Brothers: Body CamerasThe Axis camera solution offers several benefits:

  • Easy integration with any VMS, EMS
  • Flexible and scalable
  • Fast reliable video and data offloading
  • Meets the highest government cybersecurity standards
  • End-to-end encryption

 “The same level of thoroughness has been applied throughout the solution, not just the camera unit. We took a holistic view of the customer requirement, from video capture in the field to presentation of evidence in the courtroom. This is where the openness became imperative – customers didn’t want to be forced into a specific VMS and EMS – and also drove key aspects related to security and ensuring the integrity of evidence.”

Axis Body Worn Camera System

The new Axis body worn camera system features three main hardware components: the camera itself; the camera docking station (8-bay or 1-bay); and the system controller.

This camera captures video up to 1080p @30fps and audio through dual microphones for noise suppression capabilities. Wide dynamic range technology is employed to guarantee image quality in even the most challenging light conditions, while Axis Zipstream for body worn reduces the demands for storage. Battery power is designed to cover a ‘full shift’, with 12 hours of normal usage and the capability for charging in-car or from a power bank.

The docking station and the system controller are separate units. The system is scalable for large and cost-efficient body worn systems. The system controller provides a single integration and management point, and allows for fast and reliable video offloading (100Mbit per camera). All data is encrypted both at rest and in transfer using AES256 and TLS. In addition, video data can be fully end-to-end encrypted with specific integrations.

The camera also features built-in:

  • GPS/GNSS receiver for location tracking
  • Bluetooth Low Energy 4.1
  • IEEE 802.11b/g/n
  • 6-axis gyro and accelerometer

The Axis Body Worn Assistant mobile application allows users to review footage and add categories, descriptions and notes. The applications for this technology are endless.

We are very excited to offer this solution to our customers! Would you like to know more about the Axis Body Worn Camera Solution? Give us a call!

Connecting five buildings with line-of-sight radios. Who Needs Wires?

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By Ryan Kaullen, Field Services Manager at Kenton Brothers

At Kenton Brothers, we get many types of requests for different scenarios and applications. We recently received a request from a customer in the Westport area of Kansas City, MO. The wanted to install video cameras at five separate buildings. And they wanted all of those video feeds to go into a video management system at one of the five locations. This can be a fairly challenging technical request. Our solution was to use Ubiquiti line-of-sight radios to communicate between the buildings. That way, we could stream the camera feeds to the centrally located recording server because they would all be on the same network.

The Ubiquiti radios are mounted on the roofs of the buildings and aimed at the main building where the recording service is housed. (All camera systems have to have a network path back to where the video is recorded.) When you’re physically located in a single building, this is a relatively easy task. In situations where there are two buildings, fiber is often in place between the buildings making a single network possible.

Kenton Brothers: Who Needs Wires? Connecting Buildings with Line of Sight Ubiquiti Radios

Fiber connections weren’t an option between all five buildings, so wireless became the solution.

 

The picture above shows one of the Ubiquiti radios. As you can see, the buildings are several blocks apart. This physical challenge made a wireless connection the ideal solution. And at the same time, it’s the most cost effective for the customer while meeting their business needs and plans for future growth.

In the past, high speed wireless systems used to be expensive, unstable, and slow. New technology like Ubiquiti’s line of products has lowered the cost, improved the stability dramatically and allows dozens of cameras to be streamed at the same time. This technology has allowed customers to cover areas of their business with commercial video surveillance that wouldn’t have been an option financially a few years ago.

Kenton Brothers has deployed dozens of wireless commercial video surveillance systems over the past 7+ years. These have been successful projects resulting in happy customers. Why? Because we’re fixing pain points in their business and making them more secure.

At Kenton Brothers, it is our mission to Protect People, Property, & Possessions. Would you like to learn more about commercial video surveillance? Give us a call!

 

Kenton Brothers: Who Needs Wires? Connecting Buildings with Line of Sight Ubiquiti Radios

COVID-19 Fighter Security Solutions – Avigilon Mask Detection

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Avigilon’s face mask detection technology can determine if a person appears on camera without face protection… and alert your team.

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People Counters and Intercoms – Adapting to this New Normal

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By Neal Bellamy, IT Director at Kenton Brothers

Like many businesses, Kenton Brothers is adapting to the “Stay at home” order and the “New Normal”. While we remain operational, we are changing our operations to reduce risk and exposure for our team and yours. One of the ways we’ve adapted is by looking at our systems and seeing what they can do for us.

With fewer people in the office, we’ve introduced some new challenges.

Commercial Counter - People Counter in ActionOne such challenge is when people come to our commercial counter. The commercial counter is not always staffed like it used to be. The employees staffing our commercial counter are still in the building, but they’re helping out other teams. We don’t want a customer waiting for service, so we looked to our systems to increase alerting.

In this case, we used the Axis “People counter” software to send alerts to our team members when someone gets to the commercial counter. This counter is loaded directly onto the camera and can send alerts from the camera itself or notify the Video Management System (VMS) which can apply more logic to the alert.

The intercoms installed at our main entrances have become even more vital.

Old intercom systems used to be answered by a physical device at one or two desks in an office or retail environment. Today, intercoms are assigned to an extension on your phone system and can be answered by any station.

Most intercom systems have mobile applications where you can see and talk to the person at the intercom from anywhere in the world. We have an Axis 8105-E and 2N Solo mounted at two of our main entrances. The person who usually answers the intercom is at home, but shifting the answering station to another person was as simple as changing the extension in our phone system. We could have enabled the mobile app for after-hours answering if that was necessary as well.

Although these are “strange times” we can look to technology to help fill some of the gaps. These tools and technologies can  increase our ability to do more with less. If you’re faced with some business or security problems in this new world, give us a call. We’re happy to help!

VIDEO: Commercial Video Surveillance 2020

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As a business owner, I’m concerned about my people, properties and possessions. A commercial video surveillance system might be the right answer.

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