On the show floor at ISC West 2017

Day 3

I-View Now exhibited at ISC West 2017 with its own booth space, a first for the company. When I stopped by I met with I-View Now president Larry Folsom and Nicole Swartwout, who is focused on platform integrations with the company. At the show, the company was discussing a few new integrations at this year's show. Particularly, that Bosch, Hikvision and OpenEye cameras can now come I-View Now ready.

In addition to these integrations the company has brought video to end users for alarm confirmation, through Affiliated's AlertMessage offering and Bold Technologies' NotifyMe, Folsom said that functions like these can really impact the industry.

This year, DICE brought two of its sister companies to the booth, IPtelX and Aventure6. In addition to catching up with Cliff Dice, DICE CEO, it was great to meet HR Topham, senior account manager with Aventure6, and Jordan Dice, president and CEO of IPtelX.

Cliff Dice said that the company was talking quite a bit with attendees about its cloud based automation solution, which now has more than 1 million accounts across 50 central stations.

Mark Matlock, UCC's senior vice president, said that at ISC West the company has been talking about the acquisition by Lydia Security Monitoring, COPS Monitoring's parent company, 14 months ago and how it has benefited the company. Matlock said that the company is preparing to activate its back up central station, which is collocated with COPS' Dallas-based monitoring center, approximately 320 miles away from UCC's own central station in San Antonio.

Matlock said that the company has experienced some growth recently, adding on 10,000 accounts since the beginning of the year.

The Fortress UTM—standing for unified threat management—is a recently announced device that takes the place of an Internet router and monitors communications between connected devices, bringing cybersecurity into the residential market. On the show floor I got to meet Roumen Kassabov, Fortress Information Security's software engineer, Juliet Okafor, Fortress Information Security's VP of global business development, and Michael Monroe, Fortress Cyber Security's senior engineer, product lead.

At the Kwikset booth, the company was showcasing some of its most recent locks, which were also announced at this year's CES. Its Obsidian lock is a keyhole-less design that only has a number pad to control the lock. Nick English, the company's national sales manager, told me that the design, as well as others, better fit consumers looking for a more modern or contemporary look. The company was also showcasing its Convert, a system that can turn stand locks into smart locks.

I was glad to meet with MivaTek's Joe Liu, company chairman and CEO, and Elaine Kuo, MivaTek's marketing director. MivaTek provides a platform to access connected devices from a smartphone, review and record video clips. This can allow users to verify that an alarm is real and then call contacts, such as the local PSAP, from the app.

For my final booth visit, I met with Matthew Davis, project manager and help desk for Z-Wave Products. He showed me how the company's Z-Wave Tool Box can help an installer visualize connectivity and traffic between smart devices in order to better diagnose an issue.

All around I thought that this was a great year—one thing I heard at just about every booth was how traffic was really good. I look forward to seeing how the technologies announced and discussed at the show progress over the next year.

Day 2

The weather was very nice for the walk, and—as it always is—it was great to step away from the strip and the convention center for some more tranquil fresh air. I was happy to be alongside so many others in the industry, raising money for Mission 500, which benefits children in need.

Back on the show floor my day started out with a series of video interviews at�Security Systems News' media stage.

First, I spoke with Hank Groff, senior vice president, sales and business development for Dynamark, about the show and Dynamark's focus of partnering with security dealers to provide them with more than third party monitoring.

John Wells, operations manager for Comtronics, and I talked on camera about the company's switch from operating its own central station to using wholesale monitoring with NMC and how that has helped the company look at new technologies.

Tony Byerly, president of Securitas Electronic Security, talked on camera about the company's final phases for incorporating its acquisition of Diebold's North American electronic security division.

My last ssnTVnews interview was with Mike Donegan, national sales manager for Security Partners, and Jacob Trone, VP of Financial Security. We discussed Security Partners' new funding program for dealers and the benefits to it.

Each of these video interviews, as well as my talk on Wednesday with Justin Bailey, AvantGuard's COO, will be available online in the future.

At COPS Monitoring's booth I had the chance to catch up with Jim McMullen, COPS president and COO, and David Smith, VP of marketing and business development. McMullen said that several show attendees have stopped by the booth and mentioned that they like COPS' redundancy across multiple sites. The company has five monitoring centers throughout the United States, including in New Jersey, Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Arizona.

OneEvent is, as I mentioned earlier, one of the companies I got the chance to speak with ahead of the show. On the show floor I got to meet a few of the team members face-to-face: Kurt Wedig, co-founder and CEO, Dan Parent, co-founder, COO and VP of engineering and Bob Mullaly, the company's chief data scientist. The company is initially looking at how its data analytics engine can help to predict a fire, based on environmental factors.

Mullaly mentioned that the system, beyond early detection and prevention, also has the capability to give first responders more information on the nature of the event if a fire does take place.

I spoke with Everbridge recently about�its acquisition of IDV Solutions. I stopped by the IDV Solutions booth on the show floor to meet Scott Morrison, IDV Solutions' executive vice president of marketing, and Annie Asrari, director of product management for Everbridge. While I have talked with the companies about IDV Solutions Visual Command Center, it was great to see what it looks like and how it works in person.

At Vanderbilt's booth I met with Mitchell Kane, company president, and Kim Loy, the company's director of marketing. I had a great chat with Kane about trends in the industry. He identified mobile credentials in access control and cloud-based or hosted systems as major trends in the industry. Both of these categories are fairly mature from a technology standpoint, Kane said, but have not matured much in the market.

MONI Smart Security is exhibiting at ISC West for the first time since its rebranding; Jeffery Gardner, company president and CEO, and Peter Tonti, vice president of product development, said that dealers' responses to the new name and look, as well as its more consumer facing presence, have been very positive. At the end of March MONI announced that the company is offering a sign on bonus at the show, which Gardner said can really help a new dealer get started.

In early February, Bold Technologies officially released the latest version of its automation software,�ManitouNEO. At this year's ISC West, Coles and Matt Narowski, company director of development, gave me a brief demo of the new platform. Among the latest innovations is a new video interface and the ability to funnel more data on a central station's performance into the platform's dashboard.

At UL's booth I met with Steve Schmit, engineering manager, Lou Chavez, principal engineer, security and life safety, and Neil Lakomiak, director of business development and innovation with UL. It was interesting to hear what the organization is focusing on, such as upcoming standards for tactical video solutions—such as thrown cameras; alarms, detectors and shut off systems for water leaks; and mPERS systems.

My last booth meeting of the day was with March Networks. Nathan Dinning, March Networks' product manager, Donna Reid, director of marketing, and Dan Cremins, global leader of product management, talked with me about some of their latest systems. At ISC West, the company is showcasing a new camera, purpose built to bring high quality video into an ATM camera. March Networks also is debuting an integration between its Searchlight business intelligence offering and FLIR's Brickstream 3D Analytics Sensor, as well as a new 9000 series of video recorders designed to fit well into all-IP environments.

Day 1

Starting out the show, it was great to hear the opening keynote: Philip Celestini, section chief for the FBI Cyber Division, sharing the FBI's view of cyber threats, trends and protective measures. He talked about the four levels of cyberthreat from his perspective: certain nation-states, international crime syndicates, insider threats, hacktivists and then—at the bottom of the list—terrorists.

My first meeting on the show floor was with Kevin Lehan, PR manager with EMERgency 24 and Deanna Blair, independent sales representative. It was great to hear more about the company's Incident Crisis and Control Service, or ICCS, which opens two-way communication with first responders in the event of an emergency. Blair discussed how critical partnerships and integrations are in the industry today. The company has recently partnered with Aiphone to offer its ICCS through Aiphone's IX series. E24 comleted the video capabilities with Aiphone by last year's ISC East and the two-way voice capabilities before the show.

I was able to speak a bit with Aiphone's general sales manager, Bruce Czerwinski, and the company's marketing manager, Dana Pruiett, about what they plan to discuss at the show. Czerwinski said that the company is focused on the message that it is not only focused on door entry, but instead multiple communication paths.

From there, I stopped by Affiliated Monitoring's booth. This year the company decided to bring ISC West attendees on a tour of their headquarters in Union, N.J., with the help of a virtual reality headset. This was my first experience with any virtual reality system, and I found it quite interesting. I also got a live demo of Affiliated's AlertMessage system, which allows an alarm's call list to discuss the alarm, from Matt Solomon, who does marketing for Affiliated. The company recently brought video clips, through I-View Now, into the tool to aide the contacts in identifying if the alarm is true or false.

I've spoken with AvantGuard Monitoring about a few things lately, such as the company's�new hybrid monitoring models�and�its new chat feature. In an ssnTVnews interview, I spoke with the company's COO Justin Bailey on camera about some of the feedback AvantGuard has been hearing at the show on these new offerings.

Brad McMullen, vice president of national accounts for STANLEY Security, told me that the company has been working on a few new things, including a personal safety offering, a new offering in data insights and a tool to help control shrink in the retail industry. The personal protection offering, STANLEY Guard, will help companies protect their workers outside of the building, he said. Through a mobile application, a user is able to trigger an alert and record both video and audio of a situation. Stanley is just rolling this out now.

With data, McMullen said the company is now reviewing data, such as with an access control system. He gave the example of a terminated employee still attempting to gain access to the facility, or another employee trying to open a door late at night.

Lastly, for the retail sector, the company is rolling out an offering that will help detect shrink at the point of sale, such as with mis- or un-scanned items. These alerts can be compiled for the user, or given in real time in order to address the problem before the consumer in question leaves the store.

At the Rapid Response booth, I spoke with Christopher Denniston, marketing and communications manager, and Morgan Hertel, VP of technology and innovation. Hertel spoke about how the industry has been changing over the last five years, particularly with video and analytics playing a larger role. When asked what he sees changing most, Hertel pointed to the users. “Your user base is radically changing,” he said. “They're younger, they're more savvy, and they have different expectations.”

At the Z-Wave Alliance booth I got to catch up with Mitchell Klein, Z-Wave's executive director�who was also at this year's TechSec solutions conference, and meet Sigma Designs' vice president, Z-Wave business line, Raoul Wijgergangs. In addition to the company's new�S2 framework, the company also has been working on a new device, the Certified Installer Toolkit, which helps installers diagnose problems by allowing them to visualize the connectivity between different connected devices.

IC Realtime was discussing an interesting new product: a silent and rapidly deployable aerial surveillance solutions that uses an industrial balloon. The system is called PLAS, or Persistent Low Altitude Surveillance. Robert Mitchell, IC Realtime's SME on government practice and law enforcement referred to the system as “emergency management in a box.”

Nortek Security and Control on Tuesday, April 4, launched its new 2GIG Rely, a new DIY system. I enjoyed talking with Robert Beliles, Norek Security and Control's vice president of product, about the system. Outside of the DIY market, the system has appeal for renters, customers with a second home, and those who don't want a contract. Beliles also underlined the focus on creating a small and aesthetically appealing system.

Robotic Assistance Devices, or RAD, is working on several things, including a robot that will be “walking” in tomorrow's Security 5k/2k—Steve Reinharz, RAD's president, really liked the idea of “robots raising money for humans.” The company's robot has many different uses as the robot can be equipped with a variety of sensors. Reinharz said that the company's roadmap includes an autonomous charging station for the robot. Speaking generally on robots in security, he said, “This is not security integration, this is not security guards, it's its own thing.”

At the Honeywell booth I had the pleasure of speaking with Ilan Dee, director of product marketing, cloud services, Honeywell Security and Fire, and Alice DeBiasio, general manager of Cloud Services, Honeywell Home and Building Technologies, about the company's latest advancements with Alarmnet 360. The offering can now show dealers a visual representation of their customer base which could be broken down into areas of communication type, communication failures by area, home automation services and other categories. Debiasio and Dee pointed out how this information could be used to upsell and gain more RMR from a company's existing customer base.

Also at the Honeywell booth I got to speak with Samir Jain, general manager, enterprise solutions at Honeywell Security and Fire, and Susan Adam, marketing director, enterprise solutions at Honeywell Security and Fire. Jain and Adam told me a bit about the company's recent enterprise access control system, Pro-Watch, which incorporates mobile credentialing as well as mobile management and controls. The company is also talking about its advancements in fire notification, such as its new L-series.

As I mentioned in my short post yesterday, I made sure to save time to see the inaugural Unmanned Security Expo @ ISC West. I was interested to see robotics, such as with RAD, but also some of the anti-drone companies. One company, DroneShield, looks to audio detection to notice drones in the area and then couples that with a gun of sorts that electronically makes the drone land. Apollo Shield takes a different approach, detecting drones and then directing them to return the way they came.

I look forward to walking in tomorrow's Security 5k/2k. The weather looks like it will be pretty nice for tomorrow, starting off cool but warming up throughout the morning.

Pre-Show

I arrived safe and sound in Las Vegas mid-day Tuesday and am certainly excited the show this year. I've spoken with several people about what they will be exhibiting at this year's show and look forward to being able to see the technology in person. For example, I plan on stopping by OneEvent's booth on the show floor to hear more about�the company's data analytics system and its capabilities in the fire detection space. I also look forward to seeing how MONI Smart Security's booth has been�redesigned to reflect the name change. I've also made sure to carve out some time to see the inaugural�Unmanned Security Expo @ ISC West.

Check back here for daily updates on my show floor meetings and some of the latest technologies.