Napco launches new video division

AMITYVILLE, N.Y.--Napco Security Group, a publicly traded firm known for its access control and intrusion products, announced this week the creation of a Video Technologies & Services Division, based around the company's ISee Video products. The new division, to be headed by Napco vice president Tom Karl, will have a single management and engineering focus geared toward new consumer-friendly video and online products that will allow dealers to sell video as a service. It will not have separate financial reporting. Karl called the move "fairly substantial" for Napco, and is based on the success of its IP-gateway products in the ISee line, which convert analog cameras into IP cameras, "but does it with a recurring revenue model." Targeted at the residential and light commercial markets, the product suite allows dealers to offer customers the ability to view video through a web browser from any location, through a server that "basically authenticates the customers." Dealers can make use of Napco-housed servers, for a "nominal fee," or Napco will work with the dealer to set up and maintain a video server in that dealer's location. The service can also use a camera's motion detection capability to send email and text alerts of a video event, which Karl and Napco feel is a "very powerful tool" for generating RMR. While the product line began more than three years ago, Karl said dealer feedback has significantly refined the product. "Our first product required some IT savvy on the part of the dealer," he noted, "and we realized that was an issue, as the standard installer is not an IP engineer." Now Napco offers something called the G-Box, which configures a homeowner's router automatically, and "that has turned this into a plug-and-play product," Karl said.