Video analytics is no longer limited to the exclusive reach of large companies with big budgets. This technology has become a valuable tool that can transform any type of business into an effective and adaptable entity. This can be seen in some of the industries that are interested in what video analytics has to offer.
From health clinics to retail stores, from bank branches to sports stadiums, businesses can see the benefits of video analytics firsthand. Your business may be in a similar position and have heard about the benefits of video analytics. Even if you’re not fully familiar with the ins and outs of the technology, you’ll quickly see the benefits by implementing video analytics into your company’s structure.
To put it simply, video analytics is a technology that automatically analyzes video to look for events that are defined in the system. This technology is much more complex than installing surveillance cameras and involves software that can analyze what is recorded through the lens. One of the most common and basic functions of video analytics is motion detection; basically, the way this function works is that when a person/animal or other moves in front of a network camera, the system starts to detect it. However, due to the advancement of technology in the last few years, the use cases of video analytics have multiplied rapidly.
The use cases for this technology vary depending on the type of business. For example, if an organization wants to use video analytics for security reasons, it can use a pattern recognition system to identify the presence of any suspicious objects. Perhaps the most important issue for another business is safety, so in this case a flame and smoke detection system is used. With this, the system can detect any flame or smoke in 20 seconds or less and send an early warning even to conventional smoke detectors. Each of these uses advanced algorithms embedded in video analytics systems and provides businesses with more capabilities than before.
Perhaps the most well-known use case for video analytics—the one you’re probably most interested in—is the ability it provides businesses to increase their business intelligence. Networked cameras that use video analytics technology can provide companies with a wealth of information about how a business is doing, what customers are doing, and more. Video analytics can be used as an advanced people counting system to determine how many people have entered a store and what they are doing there. The technology can be used at the level of a heat map, which can be used to search and locate customers in a store environment and provide detailed information about how the store’s merchandise is arranged, thereby maximizing the likelihood of selling products. Video analytics can also be used to analyze people’s behavior, and in addition to searching for customers in a store, they can also examine their behavior. This feature provides a lot of information about why customers buy or not buy certain products.
All this information can be used to make the business better. For example, information collected from customer behavior can be used to design new marketing strategies. This is where a company can use the information obtained from video analytics and operate flawlessly.
To some extent, all of these capabilities are becoming more established, and the reason for this is that video analytics technology has become more reliable than in the past. Compared to the past, fewer false alarms are reported and the technology has brought more useful use cases. With the help of existing developments such as edge computing, many calculations and analyses can be performed on the network camera itself, reducing the need for additional bandwidth. And since most of this process is automated, it can be said that employees spend less time viewing videos and analyzing them.
Whether it’s for greater business intelligence, improved security, or better safety, video analytics has proven to be a valuable technology that can be applied across almost every industry. Even if you have little knowledge about how the technology works, with the right experts and a good video analytics provider, you’re ready to take on the challenges and reap the benefits. These advancements are real and can give you a competitive edge, where even the smallest advantage can make a huge difference.
Taken from a&s magazine