SureView announces Immix/Digital Acoustics integration

TAMPA, Fla.—SureView Systems, which provides a video-based automated alarm management software platform for central stations and other command centers, announced May 26 it had successfully completed the integration of Digital Acoustics two-way audio suite into Immix, the company's automation software platform. “It's being sold and it's actually in production at a number of different central stations as we speak,” said SureView executive vice president of sales Matt Krebs.

Immix now delivers a single platform to manage video surveillance/CCTV, intrusion and fire alarms, access control, and two-way audio through Digital Acoustics' IP7 device. “Like a lot of things in the security industry, technology and products are end user-driven, and what we're seeing is a huge spike out in the field of end users requesting two-way audio capabilities through a central station environment,” Krebs said. “Digital Acoustics allows a perfect blend of IP-based audio product along with enterprise solution software that scales perfectly well for the type of customer that would be using Immix in the central station.”

According to Krebs, two-way audio presents several unique challenges to the central station, including the need to connect in a simple way to multiple locations, the operator's need of an efficient way to interact with their sites, and a method of recording conversations in order to maintain an audit trail. Of equal importance is scalability, and therefore Immix's ability to convert analog devices to IP so they can take advantage of the cost savings of IP communication gives Immix an edge.

Bill Thorpe, president of Atlanta-based Remote Systems Solutions, LLC, a security company that provides remotely managed security and guarding services, claims the new, integrated Immix saves time, makes his company's job easier, and improves performance. “We use the platform as a dashboard, if you will. When we're looking at a site that gives as an alarm, we can pull it up, look at the video, use the video appliances, use the audio appliances—it's all right there on the head-end screen. It's very intuitive for our officers, and with the nature of what we do, that's very important,” Thorpe said. “We've been doing intercom over IP for about five years. However, it was not integrated into the platform, so if we wanted to use audio we had to pull up a second screen, use that device, that software, then go back to our head-end. So it was a little disjointed … It would be like saying, 'Well, I'm driving my car, I want to know what my fuel level is, I have to go to the glove box to find out.'”