After spotting a gap in the market, Openpath — a provider of touchless access control and workplace safety automation — is now offering Pro Series Video Readers with sleek hardware, and touchless unlock and remote management capabilities.

“Security cameras are so necessary, but they themselves have a challenge around distance and angle — they’re set up for surveillance, but you cannot see the face or identify the specific person very easily,” said James Segil, president and co-founder of Openpath. “We have readers on every door, so we wondered why we didn’t have a camera in every reader, and realized no one else was doing that. We think this will be the new industry standard of security at a door — a reader with a camera in it — and it seems so obvious. We think that for security, having a camera built in becomes the new requirement for the new normal.”

By adding a camera right on the reader, Openpath’s Video Reader Pro attaches visual verification to every access event from the vantage point of exactly where the event occurred — at the door. Combining video with access logs gives security teams the full story of events throughout the day and allows them to see what’s happening outside the entrance in real-time, plus up to 180 days of cloud storage viewable in the Openpath mobile app for historical access. The video feed is also optimized for mobile with remote features on any device, allowing security administrators to quickly and easily take the necessary actions, such as granting remote guest access, activating lockdown capabilities, diagnosing automated alerts or informing on-site personnel to a specific situation that may require immediate attention.

All of these features, plus the way the readers lend themselves to generating RMR and the ease of installation, make the Pro Series a tempting offering to integrators, Segil said.

“What we are doing by putting a camera in the reader is reducing a reason to put extra cameras in that hallway or in front of that door,” Segil explained. “We’re making the installation easier, and we’re giving the integrator the opportunity to offer something new and different to their customer. And the recurring revenue on a video reader is higher than the RMR on a plain reader, and as you start to add additional capabilities onto the device, you can charge them more and more.”

In the future, end users will be able to add cloud storage, tailgate detection, facial identification and other features to their readers.

“Putting the technology in place now is a future-proofing opportunity where this can be a computer platform on the edge that’s built into every door,” Segil says. “The processor is massively powerful and can do many things. In a couple years, maybe the world is ready for facial authentication. We aren’t launching that capability now, but we will be able to integrate with that type of third-party software. For us, this was a big deal both in terms of trying to move the company and the industry forward, but also to make sure we integrated with the partners we have.”

End users already using Openpath readers are excited to upgrade. 

“As a longtime partner of Openpath, we continue to be impressed with the level of innovation and market disruption they deliver,” said Eric Roseman, vice president of innovation and technology, Lincoln Property Company. “Their new Pro Series of Video Readers is proof positive that Openpath is the disruptor in the access control market and we at Lincoln Property Company are excited to add this new capability to our buildings.”

For more information, go to www.openpath.com.