Established in 2007 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Deveraux Developments has quickly become a leader in multi-family residential construction, helping to accommodate a rising rental demand in the nation’s growing cities. Part of Deveraux’s success stems from its consistent focus on innovation, from sourcing next-generation design and construction solutions to securing its development sites.

“For liability and insurance reasons, we were spending large sums of money to have security guards tour our sites, but it was difficult to get feedback and reports on their monitoring,” said Remo Rea, senior project manager at Deveraux Development. “We needed something more agile.”

Rea contacted Marcomm Systems Group Inc., a service-oriented integrator with a focus on custom solutions. Michael Elkin, Marcomm security sales and marketing manager, explained some of Deveraux’s unique hurdles: “The first site was a remote storage location outside of Regina that housed material for an upcoming project where there was no power or Internet. We felt confident in our portfolio of best-of-breed solution providers and our team’s ability to build something that would work for Deveraux Developments.”

It was that confidence and Marcomm Systems Group’s customer-focused approach that convinced Rea to go ahead with the solution, which included nine 5x3 foot solar panels from Alpha Technologies to power a 4G LTE wireless router and two Axis network dome cameras. All video streams are accessed and recorded using the Genetec cloud-based surveillance system, Stratocast. The solution guarantees five days of full autonomy without sunlight.

“As a cloud-based service, Stratocast not only allowed us to minimize power consumption by eliminating the need for onsite servers, but also helped us keep our costs down and our IT department free of involvement,” Rea said.

Elkin added, “The real beauty of Stratocast is the ease of installation.” The Marcomm Systems Group team was able to enroll, configure and test the cameras from their Ottawa-based office, including setting the camera names, frame rates, and resolutions. On site in Regina, technicians simply needed to power the cameras and connect them to the network, in order to enable a secure connection to Stratocast.

Following the installation at the remote storage location, another two construction sites in Regina, each with power, were also outfitted with Stratocast systems and two Axis network cameras. All three projects were completed in a mere three days.

“We are getting the visibility we need at a substantially lower cost than the drive-by security guards,” Rea said. “The system is very economical, and ends up being a capital cost for our company. We will be able to easily move the entire system to other sites as we complete and launch new construction projects.”

With their success using Stratocast at three construction sites, Deveraux is working with Marcomm Systems Group to get another solar-powered Stratocast system online in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Once the project is complete, the cameras and system will be permanently installed onsite to protect common areas of the development. 

“As forward-thinking developers, we are always looking for ways to forge new paths and apply new technologies that help our team adapt quickly,” Rea concluded. “Whether for business or security, this is what Marcomm Systems delivered with the cloud-based solution, Stratocast. Working with both Marcomm Systems Group and Genetec has been seamless, and we are very happy with our ongoing investment in Stratocast.”