Desert Highlands is a luxury golf club and residential community in the Sonoran Desert of North Scottsdale, Arizona. The beautiful property has a number of amenities for members and residents including a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course, dog park, fitness center and swimming pool. Residences are designed to take in the natural beauty of the surrounding environment while being environmentally sensitive. Stretching over 7,100 yards, the Desert Highlands golf course recently underwent a $7 million renovation project that included refurbishing every bunker.

Providing peace of mind to its residents and members is Desert Highlands’ ultimate priority. The community has professionally trained security officers on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So, when Desert Highlands began looking to upgrade its existing security system, it wanted a high-tech video surveillance solution that could provide security personnel with a clear picture of the property.

With the help of integrator company CC Tech Partners, Lafayette, Calif., which specializes in technology planning and solutions for private clubs, the community updated its security with a state-of-the-art Avigilon surveillance system.

“The majority of camera systems installed at private clubs today are older, analog-based systems that run on coax cabling and have low-resolution cameras,” said Noel Wixsom, founder of CC Tech Partners. “The biggest issue with older coax analog cameras is a lack of clarity due to low resolution, which can leave doubt.”

Desert Highlands needed an IP surveillance system that offered high-resolution video, along with an open architecture platform that would allow the community to mix and match or add cameras in the future without worry, according to Wixsom. Some infrared cameras were also important for image clarity in poorly lit areas or at night.

“We wanted to transform our surveillance system at Desert Highlands to something more sophisticated and efficient,” said Monty Becton, general manager at the community. “Providing our residents and members with peace of mind and ensuring the Desert Highlands experience remains safe and comforting are our ultimate priorities.”

The upgraded security system includes 55 new IP cameras throughout the property. Other features include technology that allows the Desert Highlands security team to locate vehicles or people with specific description criteria.

Having built-in analytics was critical, Wixsom said. “Analytics allow you to enhance the ability to investigate situations. You can do keyword searches, for example. If you wanted to do a search to look at a person wearing a blue sweater, you would type in the keyword ‘blue sweater,’ and the security camera software would come up with all the people wearing blue sweaters during the time period specified and follow that person throughout the property.”

Typically, a luxury club and its homeowners association’s security systems are not connected. With the Avigilon surveillance system at Desert Highlands, the two security components are completely integrated with one another, providing additional measures and more proficiency.

Avigilon Security Solutions are designed as easy-to-use software and hardware IP network products that include image capture, analysis, storage, transfer and playback of high quality video surveillance footage with visually lossless compression (no perceptible loss of visual detail), and electronic access control management.

Desert Highlands’ energetic lifestyle consistently draws discerning families and active Boomers in equal measure. Now, an updated surveillance system puts residents’ minds at ease and offers additional features for security staff.