Associate Editor, Heather Klotz wrote the article, titled “Lextech Labs’ iRa Pro Makes Mobile Video a Reality.”
See the full article below.
When I flew to Las Vegas to attend the Milestone Integration Platform Symposium (MIPS 2009), I never expected to be looking at live camera feeds from the Chicago suburbs I’d just left. But during a demonstration of iRa Pro, Lextech Labs’ new mobile surveillance application that allows users to access and control security cameras on an iPhone or iPod touch, the iPhone in my hand was showing me live video of cars moving along Ogden Ave. in Lisle, Ill., a road I drive on all the time. Better yet, I could use the finger controls of the iPhone and remotely use the pan, tilt and zoom controls on the cameras to see anything I wanted to see.
The application allows users to define multiple camera groups containing as many video feeds as desired, and painlessly switch between them when managing multiple facilities or areas. As you jump from camera to camera quickly, you can snap photos at any point and save them or e-mail them.
Having access to the camera feeds in a mobile format is something that’s critical for first responders, a group of security professionals Lextech Labs specifically had in mind while developing the software.
“We see mobile security Professionals as the third and newest kind of video security user, in addition to the dispatchers or security directors who are in the booth or the group of IT directors or executives who area accessing deeper, management-related information,” Alex Bratton, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Lextech Labs, said. “Our goal was to extend the security world into this brand new group of users and with true mobility, get the information in the hands of people who need it.”
The technology has been in development for about three years, but it was missing the platform to bring it to life. When Apple announced the iPhone in January 2007, Bratton knew he’d just heard about the platform he’d been looking for to give first responders live video.
“When the iPhone was introduced, we knew we had our Platform because of the combination of the cell phone networks, and the WiFi that goes with it,” Bratton said. “As soon as the SDK was released, we dove in and started working. Overnight, we had people from the industry contacting us because we had finally broken through the usability and portability barrier.”
Since then, Lextech Labs, which focuses on mobility solutions for the surveillance industry and real time video, has “been on a rocketride” according to Bratton, as support for the mobile video technology software has swelled. At MIPS 2009, Milestone, CoPenhagen, Denmark, announced the integration of iRa Pro with the Milestone XProtect Enterprise seryer and JVC, Wayne, N.J., announced integration with its network video recorders.
For dealers and integrators, this software presents an opportunity to add return on investment for many potential clients. As Bratton pointed out, “Our goal is to help integrators grow their business by serving their users even better and offering them more. This one addition can double the value of a system and get video into the hands of a new breed of user who is craving that capability.”
