The security market it clearly sold on the value of video, but customers shouldn’t depend solely on video to protect their premises. Rather, they should implement a combination of video systems and other sensors for a more effective approach overall.
That’s a message I heard when I visited the Optex booth at the IFSEC show. The supplier of many different types of sensors says a “deeper and wider” integration of video with sensors provides a higher level of security required by end users in critical infrastructure protection applications, such as power plants and telephone infrastructures. Optex also employs its technology at railroad crossings, tunnels, and canals, among other places.
Even in residential applications, sensors add value, for example, by sensing an intruder before he or she gets into the house, thus providing a strong preventive benefit and early warning signal. Combining sensors with outdoor cameras – for instance, a sensor can trigger a camera to begin operating – provides better protection than either technology alone.
Farsight Security Systems, a monitoring company, is an Optex subsidiary in the United Kingdom. The subsidiary provides Optex a first-hand look at how sensors can be used to improve the total system, reduce costs, improve accuracy, and promote faster monitoring response. Farsight also offers a system to secure lone workers using a duress alarm system. Optex is also promoting the concept of early voice warning as an additional technology to promote greater safety. The company has seen success with voice warning systems employed at car dealerships.
At IFSEC, I met Toru Kobayashi, Optex chairman, president and CEO, a mechanical engineer who started the company 35 years ago by inventing the world’s first automatic door sensor. I also visited with Mike Shibata, chairman of Optex (Europe) Ltd., who mentioned plans to combine management of various Optex divisions into a unified presence in each country and to “change the atmosphere and culture of the company.” Optex has global market shares of 40 percent for outdoor intrusion detectors, 12 percent for indoor intrusion detectors, 30 percent for outdoor beam detectors, and 50 percent for CCTV lighting.
Optex reminds us there’s a reason sight is just one of our five sensors. There are many additional ways we can enrich security systems, too, by adding capabilities beyond what an operator can see on a video screen.
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