This morning I was having a look at some POE demo kit we had available. The company in question is Netgenium, and along with CCTV and audio (PA) equipment they provide LED lighting solutions too.
LED technology has dramatically revolutionised the lighting industry in the past few years. In contrast POE has been around for over a decade – but it continues to innovate in the fields of CCTV and access control. It’s also very exciting to think you can now potentially utilise IP to deliver high quality audio (we’re talking 44k here) for use in medium / large-scale commercial systems.
Include the convenience of POE (minimising the requirement of PSU boxes at every endpoint) and you potentially have something very special indeed.
So here we’ve got a couple of interesting products: a 4-door IP-based POE lock controller, a network-ready audio gateway unit (breathing new life into your existing analog PA system), a high-voltage mains controller and an attractive range of standalone IP speakers and lighting devices.
All can be fully configured and controlled from either a browser-based or server-side software solution which – as a bonus – has a nicely designed and responsive GUI.
The question is: is this enough to bring a typical site’s individual security requirements together into one single state-of-the-art modular and scalable digital solution?
To answer this I always start with a set of simple and fun domestic challenges… can I switch on a lava-lamp from my iPhone? Open the front door by tapping my bank card discreetly on a reader pad? Broadcast complex dinner plans to the lounge TV speakers?
Well I’ve still got a lot of testing to go, but I think I can confidently say yes to all three. OK so maybe there’ll be some issues controlling the toaster, but every new technology has its limitations… 😉
