Oncam Grandeye to offer analytics, cloud service

LOWELL, Mass.—Jumbi Edulbehram said he didn't join 360-degree camera provider Oncam Grandeye just to sell cameras. "I've done enough of that," he said. He's interested in expanding Oncam Grandeye into video intelligence and cloud service.

At ISC West in April, Oncam will be showing its new 12 megapixel 360-degree camera and introducing some new video analytics and its cloud service. “By the ASIS show in September, we'll have a full-blown analytics and cloud solution, that's the plan,” Edulbehram told Security Systems News.

The 360-degree camera is a niche product that is growing fast, he said. Two years ago, Oncam was alone in this market segment, but now Sony, Axis, Samsung and others offer 360-degree cameras. “They recognize the opportunity in this camera segment, but Oncam has been at it the longest,” Edulbehram said.

Oncam is developing analytics that will run directly on the 360-degree image. Previously, the 360-degree image had to be de-warped and run on several different streams of images.

The new analytics “require some doing,” Edulbehram said. The company plans to introduce some simple analytics initially and more complex analytics as time goes by. The system will be available “via cloud and via mobile apps.”

Eldubehram believes 360-degree cameras “are taking off in a big way” driven by a megapixel count that is high enough that “now you can mount the camera high and get really good 360-degree views.” With the next generation of 12- to 15-megapixel high-frame-rate Oncam Grandeye cameras “there is no need to use PTZ cameras, they'll all begin to be replaced with 360 cameras,” he said.

The strategy is to increase the megapixel- and frame-rate count and to have intelligence built into the camera.

The immediate opportunity for Oncam Grandeye's video analytics and cloud service will be in retail and banking. For the cameras in general the opportunity “is all over the map, we have casino, retail, shipping customers and we have mining, oil and gas [customers],” Edulbehram said.

Edulbehram's background is in video surveillance, cloud systems and video analytics. He previously worked with Samsung, Next Level Security Systems, Axis Communications and IntellVid. He was named regional president, Americas, for Oncam Grandeye in December and is charged with “driving the business and building the brand in the Americas,” he said.

Founded in 2007, Oncam Grandeye is part of Oncam Technologies. It has regional offices in the U.K., Turkey, South East Asia, the United Arab Emirates and here in Lowell.

The company has 90 employees worldwide, about 20 of whom are in the United States. Edulbehram said he's hiring a few more people and expects to have a staff of 25 soon.