A satisfying story was issued this week by SIA Daily News Services, as published in San Jose Mercury News (http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=563&topicId=13712&docId=l:1318773571) on Dec. 3. A California man was at work when he received an e-mail alert about a motion-activated camera at his home. When he checked the video feed on his smart phone, he saw “two guys rummaging around” in his house and called police. There was a patrol car in the area, and officers were able to apprehend the suspects in the act of burglarizing the home, according to the article.
This particular installation, according to the San Jose Mercury News story, featured a do-it-yourself system from Logitech. What a nice publicity story for Logitech! But, unfortunately for our industry, Logitech is a do-it-yourself system which bypasses the professional security installation channel.
As a collective force for promoting the value of professionally installed and monitored security systems, let’s get more proactive about publicizing our own industry’s success stories. Tell us about similar cases in which your customers have used their video surveillance apps to fight crime, or cases in which video-based central station dispatches have had similar results. SDM will publish all stories that are “fit for print” on its web site and perhaps some of these will get the attention of consumer media outlets. Contact the editor at stepanekl@bnpmedia.com to send a story.