Axis continues to diversify its product portfolio beyond surveillance
Las Vegas - Following a year in which it unveiled a variety of new IP speakers, Axis Communications on Wednesday added yet another network security product to its portfolio outside the surveillance camera realm as the company officially launched its new IP radar detector.
Speaking before a gathering of media attendees and industry analysts, Martin Gren, the founder of Axis, explained that the radar detector is designed to help secure sealed off areas where people would not be normally coming and going from.
“Network radar has a lot of advantages,” Gren says. “It’s almost as reliable as thermal cameras but it’s cheaper than a thermal camera and it’s also good for a wider area of detection and can work in really, really bad weather conditions. It works in the day, at night, in the sunshine and in pouring down rainstorms.”
Gren says the radar detector – the AXIS D2050-VE – is also a great complement to existing surveillance solutions in smaller outdoor areas.
According to Fredrik Nilsson, vice president of the Americas at Axis, while some thermal cameras can cost in excess of several thousand dollars, the Axis radar detector is priced just around the $1,000 mark, making it much more attractive to a wider array of customers.
“This kind of fills that void,” Nilsson says.
When asked if the company’s focus on developing solutions like the new radar unit and the aforementioned IP speakers were a reflection of the changing market dynamics in video surveillance, Nilsson said it was more so driven by their belief that the Internet of Things is going to fundamentally change how technology, in general, interoperates.
“We started this journey to convert the market from analog to IP a long time ago and that conversion is kind of coming to the end,” Nilsson says. “Of course, there’s a lot of value in camera systems today [because of IP], better image quality and that keeps on growing, not at the 40 percent we saw in the past – I think the latest estimate was around five to 10 percent – but it’s a pretty healthy market. The real value of IoT is when we start integrating these systems. Why do you still have a separate access control system or a different mass notification system? We believe the value of IoT is bringing all that together. For us, the cameras are the base for all of that.”
Building on its Acquisitions
Continuing with its theme of “the Magic of the IoT” on Wednesday, Axis officials also discussed how they’ve incorporated recently acquired companies into the company's fold to develop other connected solutions.
Last summer, Axis acquired two lesser known brands in the security industry – IP intercom firm 2N and analytics provider Cognimatics. Less than a year later, Axis is using these two purchases to lay the groundwork for an even broader expansion into the IoT. For example, the company has begun leveraging its Stereo Sensor Unit combined with Cognimatic’s analytics to create the TrueView People Counter solution.
TrueView will enable retailers to track people entering and exiting their stores to help them better measure customer conversion rates and address various issues that may arise during the business day, such as not having enough staff at the registers.
About the Author:
Joel Griffin is the Editor of SecurityInfoWatch.com and a veteran security journalist. You can reach him at [email protected]
