What to expect from security and surveillance monitoring solutions in an IoT world

Security – precautions taken to guard against crime, attack, sabotage, espionage, etc.

Security and surveillance has become a common facet of business. There are dangers in the world: some are personal dangers, others are dangers or risks associated with assets. While there has been much recent debate about the appropriate use and amount of surveillance, it is fair to say that some amount of security and surveillance is necessary in today’s world.

Security and surveillance solutions include everything from the most simple home monitoring systems and burglar alarms, to high-definition, motion-detecting cameras and retina scanning security solutions. Various forms of connectivity – both fixed-line and wireless – enable a basic type of M2M security solutions. However, when data from the solutions are aggregated and analyzed to predict behavior or thwart crimes, and we are able to access these data on common platforms and devices – including mobile devices – we have entered the world of the Internet of Things (IoT). I described this type of change from an M2M to an IoT world in a prior blog post entitled Progression from M2M to the Internet of Things: an introductory blog.

In 2012 there were 28 million security and surveillance IoT device connections worldwide growing to 170 million in 2021 at a compound-annual-growth-rate of 22%. See Figure 1. These include device connections in homes and businesses. Today, quite a large percentage of security and surveillance systems – especially those in homes – are unconnected. We anticipate an increase over the next ten years of the percentage of these kind of home systems that are connected.

We also expect an increase in the number of connected security and surveillance systems in emerging geographic markets. As economic conditions continue to increase the overall wealth levels in emerging markets, we anticipate homes and businesses finding it necessary to better secure their environments. While we do not anticipate the overall adoption rate of connected security solutions in emerging markets to exceed that of developed markets, the overall size of the emerging markets make them very attractive for service providers and vendors of residential and commercial security and surveillance solutions.

Over the next ten years, we anticipate an increased emphasis on four aspects of security and surveillance solutions – and these four aspects highlight the changes we are seeing from an M2M to an IoT world:

• IP enablement – We anticipate increased reliance on IP as the transport medium for security and surveillance solutions. This increased reliance on a common protocol like IP will facilitate the introduction of new solutions and services including various home management solutions, video-based surveillance, facial recognition solutions and others, as well as help simplify the integration of various solutions. Using a common and readily available communications protocol will simplify deployments and lower overall costs for these solutions. In an IoT world, we anticipate reliance on IP as the underlying protocol.
• Integration with other home and business automation systems – We anticipate home and commercial security and surveillance solutions to be integrated with other systems including home energy management; security of uniquely-tagged, valuable residential and commercial assets; and building automation solutions. This bundling of solutions with a common user-interface will add simplicity to the customer experience and provide a richer set of information to customers. We anticipate suppliers of traditional residential and commercial alarm systems will be the most likely sellers of these types of integrated solutions.
• Video – Higher bandwidth speeds and standardized applications for things like facial recognition and sophisticated movement identification make video-based surveillance solutions more common in both homes and businesses.
• Mobile device access – Being able to use standard mobile devices including smartphones and tablets to access security and surveillance data – whether historical records or real-time activities – is something demanded by many residential and commercial buyers of security and surveillance solutions. The proliferation of mobile devices and active application developer communities makes offering mobile device integration much more feasible than several years ago.

We expect service providers and vendors of security and surveillance solutions to continue to offer innovative solutions that bundle together equipment, applications, mobile tools, connectivity, video, and customer support/monitoring services. We anticipate these service providers to make greater use of applications that model, predict and quickly notify monitoring facilities of possible security breaches. This movement toward integrated offerings and applications signals a change from M2M to IoT.

Share your thoughts about IoT in the security and surveillance sector. What do you like about your home or business security system? What more do you want?