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Security dealers increasingly are offering smart home devices such as smart lighting control, smart thermostats and smart door locks to their customers. By taking the right precautions, dealers can help ensure that those devices enhance the customer’s lifestyle without posing cyber security vulnerabilities.

The keypad has been a fixture of the access control world for a long time. The first pushbutton combination lock is credited to Alfred A. Peters in 1875. And since then, they have been a popular — and often a more affordable — option for securing doors when a customer doesn’t want to keep track of keys or cards.

Without question, the availability of high definition over coax (HDoC) technologies has had a significant impact on security integrators’ ongoing efforts to upgrade end users from traditional analog solutions.

Technology migration can be tricky to predict, but it seems safe to say most video analytics will be deployed in the cloud within the next couple years or so. Already, a good number of companies are seeing the benefits of analytics, whether in the cloud or at the edge.

Video is the darling of the dealer-run or third party central station, and while it’s not new technology by any stretch of the imagination it’s a growing category offering innovative ways to bring sight, sound and detailed visual information and data to security monitoring.

The security industry looks to the SDM 100 — a group of the 100 largest security companies ranked by their recurring monthly revenue (RMR) — as a wellspring of industry trends and operational best practices. So, which manufacturers and distributors are behind the SDM 100, supporting them with the products, solutions and services that help make them successful?

An awards program from the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security, sponsored by SDM, recognizes excellence in system integration at sporting venues. These are the 2018 finalists.