Where do angels meet in London? At the security exhibition IFSEC!

0 Comments

Last week London held Europe’s largest security exhibition, IFSEC International, and of course we couldn’t miss this exciting event!

IFSEC is a great exhibition where you can meet everyone from the world of security systems, such as manufacturers, distributors, installers, integrators, consultants and end users. You can see hundreds of latest technology innovations for the protection of your property and people.
What surprised us this year was the general theme of the exhibition, that is, openness and collaboration. Manufacturers seem to realize success is not tied to just hardware, but rather the overall solution, interoperability and the ease of installation.  It also seems everyone senses change coming to the industry. Cameras are getting cheaper and smarter (you could see a camera that can recognize people, follow them and even talk to them), DIY products are entering the market and cloud solutions are changing business models.  For all of these reasons, manufacturers need to cooperate and embrace openness.  

IFSEC 2016

 

Let’s take a peek at what caught our attention:

  • Higher resolution cameras (eg. new Avigilon 7K Pro camera that cover larger areas with less cameras, very handy for parking lots for instance), lower priced cameras, more h.265 codecs.
  • More integrations and many cloud solutions built around camera hardware.
  • Axis zipstream compression (together with h.265 camera are about to reduce bandwidth needs).
  • The AXIS Design Tool continues to evolve, showing that manufacturers are differentiating themselves by catering to the needs of the integrators.  
  • Smart doors. Assa Abbloy made us believe the future of unlocking doors is not using keys (no more lost or forgotten keys at home, hurray!)
  • It was interesting to see the Home Automation House, a new smart home built on the  exhibition floor and packed full of interesting smart products (lights, baby monitors, security systems, home audio etc.)
  • Jon Carter, UK Head of Business Development for the Connected Home at Deutsche Telekom said at IFSEC: “There is not an industry player that can even start to replicate the same level of innovation as Amazon. It can capture more and more data as connected products feed back to the core data warehouse through Echo to better understand the customer’s needs and offer products which are relevant to them (if interested in topic, see http://www.ifsecglobal.com/amazon-steal-your-business/?cid=homepage_1st)

 

We’ve met many interesting people and saw things that convinced us that security systems are one great field to work in. See you next year, London.

IFSEC 2016