Security Methods That Work

The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

Security Methods That Work

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Security Methods That Work

Welcome to the Real Estate Espresso podcast, your morning shot of what’s new in the world of real estate investing. I’m your host, Victor Menasce. On today’s show, we’re talking about security for your real estate projects.

But first, we have several opportunities for investment within our development firm, Y Street Capital. Our storage fund continues to make investments in some great projects across the US. To learn more about our storage projects, visit ystreetcapital.com and visit our investor page. There’s an opportunity to register for our investor portal. That’s where all the information is contained, and we promise we’re not going to spam you. The podcast is not a solicitation for investment. Any investment would be by private placement memorandum only open to accredited investors and is in compliance with securities regulations. So visit ystreetcapital.com investors and have a look at our investor portal.

On today’s show, we’re talking about security for your real estate projects. There’s conventional wisdom that security cameras can offer very little protection, and the thieves know that. Even in the event of interest, the image resolution or the lighting is often insufficient to really capture enough detail to identify, prosecute and convict, but that’s changing. There’s a lot of optimizations that can be made when recording security video. The first is that if two subsequent video frames are identical, there’s no need to store the second video frame or the third or the fourth until there’s actually a change in the image, but not every image change is of interest.

For example, a tree swaying in the wind will create a lot of motion in the video, but that’s not particularly interesting from a security standpoint. Most cameras today are using a wide-angle lens, capturing a very wide area and that means a large percentage of the image is not going to contain information of interest. If you decide you want to zoom in on something of interest, then you’re going to have a hard time getting sufficient resolution. Finding a suitable mounting location for a camera, especially outdoors, is challenging. You’ve got to have a good view, have a good vantage point, a solid network connection and a route to power the camera. All of this will limit the choice of where you locate the camera. For this reason, the newer pan-tilt zoom camera with optical zoom can make a significant difference.

For example, if you want to read the license number on a vehicle, you need to be able to zoom in, particularly in low-light conditions. Unless you can zoom in with an optical zoom, chances are high you’re not going to be able to read the license plate at all. Of course, a human monitoring the security cameras 24×7 can zoom in to events of interest, but that’s cost prohibitive. Even if you’re paying a security guard to monitor the cameras, they’ll eventually get bored, lose focus and stop paying attention. In such a scenario, they’re going to miss the events.

AI is significantly transforming security camera capabilities, it’s enhancing their effectiveness in numerous ways. AI algorithms enable cameras to distinguish between different objects, like people, vehicles, animals, and other items, thereby reducing false alarms triggered by insignificant motion. AI can recognize specific objects, like certain types of vehicles or packages. AI-powered facial recognition can identify individuals, which is useful for access control, identifying threats or locating missing persons. AI can analyze patterns of behavior to detect suspicious activity. For instance, a person loitering or making unusual movements or other behaviors can predict a potential threat.

Traditional motion detection systems often trigger false alarms due to changes in lighting, shadows or movement of animals. AI is capable of differentiating between these objects and reducing the number of false alarms. It can also analyze vast amounts of video footage quickly making it easier to search for specific events. This can be valuable if you’re looking through history for an investigation. When it comes to analyzing real-time data, AI can predict potential security threats and alert security personnel even before an incident happens.

AI-enhanced security systems can send very specific alerts. For instance, instead of just sending an alert that motion was detected the system can send an alert that a person was detected entering a restricted area. In essence, AI transforms security cameras from passive recording devices into proactive security systems that can detect, analyze and respond to threats in real time. This is particularly useful with the newer pan-tilt custom cameras. The algorithms can detect and track specific objects or individuals within the camera’s field of view. This is where it might be possible to zoom into a license plate. It can ensure the camera is capturing clear detailed images of the target.

AI transforms the pan-tilt zoom cameras from manually controlled devices into intelligent surveillance systems that can track, detect and record events of interest. It is sophisticated enough to distinguish between transient and persistent events. An AI algorithm can analyze the movements of an object. A car driving by has a consistent linear motion over a short period. AI can recognize that as a transient event. But someone loitering, repeatedly returning to an area, checking the handle on a doorway or leaving an object behind, displays persistent behavior that AI can flag as suspicious.

AI can track how long an object or an individual remain in the camera’s field of view. A brief appearance is transient, but a prolonged presence triggers further investigation. AI can also learn typical patterns of activity for a given time of day. For example, during school hours there might be one type of activity and in the off hours a different type of activity. AI can consider the context of the scene. For instance, a car parked in a designated spot is different from a car parked in a no-parking zone. AI can also integrate data from other sensors, like access control systems.

So if you’re about to go out and provision a brand new security system, don’t settle for the one that’s using the old-fashioned digital recorder. You want a system that is capable of utilizing the latest AI tools. You want cameras that are AI-compatible. You want a video server that is capable of AI-enhanced analysis. That means not just the hardware, but the software as well. When all of these elements come together, then you have a modern system that’s far more effective and cost-efficient than one you might have purchased even a year ago.

As you consider that, have a wonderful rest of your day. Go make some great things happen. We’ll talk again tomorrow.

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