Despite only being two years old, Monitoreal is already making huge strides that take other companies years to reach.
Founded in 2019, the channel-first company already has a global reach and boasts 20 employees. Monitoreal is sold in multiple regions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America, and is continuing to expand its reach into other regions with a number of distributor agreements in progress.
“We operate globally, with sales resources in most of the worldwide regions,” said Tom Burns, head of worldwide channel strategy and distribution at Monitoreal. “And we work with distributors and integrators to deliver our unique products to businesses and homes around the world.”
Founders Aydar Yakupov and Michael Alatortsev grew up together and shared similar backgrounds in engineering and technology. Even though today Alatortsev lives in the U.S. and Yakupov is based in the island of Cyprus, they continued to stay in touch with each other. In 2018, during one of their frequent calls, they discovered they had the same realization: surveillance systems didn’t help prevent crime from happening and needed enhancements for use on a daily basis.
Unless the user was watching the live feed, the system — despite giving a clear image — didn’t provide any situational awareness.
“Motion detection, they both agreed, was ineffective and most often turned off due to the overwhelming number of meaningless alerts,” Burns said. “They began a project to come up with something better, utilizing AI-computer vision algorithms in a compact hardware configuration, and it didn't take them too long to come up with the first working prototype.”
The solution they created addresses the need for situational awareness and more accurate object detection without having to expose user data in the cloud, and lowers the number of false alarms from motion-based products. Its global office is based in Cyprus, with U.S. sales offices in Stamford, Conn. and Orange County, Calif.
Yakupov remains as the CEO and managing director from the Cyprus office.
Keeping the analytics separate from the camera hardware allows a customer to choose the right camera, resolution and lens to work with the application, or allows them to use Monitoreal with cameras that are already installed. Monitoreal has three models of its AI-smart object detection appliance, which features 20 unique objects, alert zones, a rules engine and a user-friendly interface. The base model accepts up to six cameras at once and comes in white or black. The Pro model accepts up to eight cameras, has features that improve performance in busy or low light scenarios and comes in anodized aluminum. Additionally, Monitoreal offers accessories like its WiFi-enabled 4 Channel Relay which works to control up to four electrical devices and can be paired with alarm panels for video verification.
Separating itself from competitors, Monitoreal gives customers free software upgrades; no false alerts based on moving trees, shadow or pixel changes and other irrelevant motion; and processes video behind a firewall, meaning it doesn’t use Internet bandwidth or rely on the cloud.
According to Burns, the response the company has received from distributor and integrator partners has been very positive. And, with plans to expand its product roadmap with solutions that complement its core products and increase functionality, the future looks bright for Monitoreal.
“Integrators like that our appliances can be sold in addition to their current offering rather than displacing a current product they are already selling,” Burns said. “They appreciate the opportunity to sell analytics — many don’t sell analytics today — in an appliance that is priced well and easy to install and set up. Lastly, both our distributor and integrator partners show enthusiasm for the programs we offer, which are designed to help them accelerate their familiarity with our products to help them be successful in the markets they serve.”