Last year, IPVideo Corporation turned a lot of heads in the industry when it introduced it’s HALO IOT Smart Sensor. The device could be used as an all-in-one device to detect nicotine or THC vaping by students in schools, as well as smoke detection abnormal sound detection, chemical detection and air quality monitoring.
This week, the company officially debuted HALO 2.0, which expands the capabilities of the device to include such things as “spoken keyword alerting,” gunshot detection and “masking signature identification,” which enables the device to detect when someone is trying to spray perfume, cologne or some other type of aerosol in attempt to conceal vaping.
“HALO has gotten a lot of fame and awards based on its capabilities as a vape detector for detecting in areas of privacy… but there are quite a few other things that are in the current version, including advanced smoke detection, so it is able to determine is there is smoke in an area before a smoke detector would go off,” David Antar, President and CEO of IPVideo Corporation, explained in a webinar announcing the new version of HALO on Wednesday. “On top of that, it does all types of other detections, including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, propane, natural gas, and chemical detection – ammonia, alcohol and other products. It also has the ability to do temperature, humidity, air pressure, and light levels, which are important. It currently does audio analytics, which enables it to analyze louder noises, such as bullying or other things that might take place and alert you to things that may not be normal.”
Spoken Keyword Alerting
Among the new features in HALO 2.0 is spoken keyword alerting, which allows individuals to summon help by simply speaking a keyword phrase within earshot of the sensor. According to Frank Jacovino, VP of Product Development for IPVideo Corporation, this functionality significantly broadens the applications of the sensor beyond vaping detection in schools to a much wider variety of vertical market applications.
“With this release, HALO is able safeguard both the health and safety of not only our children in schools, but in any area – especially areas of privacy where true safety is a concern,” he said. “Now a student in their dorm room, a hotel housekeeper, patient under duress, student in a hazing incident, or your elderly parent living by themselves can alert security to an attack or emergency situation in real time by shouting a keyword like ‘HALO help.’ The alerts are automatically sent to security for immediate response. To help defuse situations, the alerts also trigger an audible message that an emergency has been declared and security has been notified.”
Additionally, Jacovino said that the audio of the incident is not recorded or sent to the cloud to ensure that privacy is maintained.
Gunshot Detection and Machine Learning
In conjunction with spoken keyword alerting, the company also announced that active shooter detection technology is now available with HALO. When a gunshot is detected, Jack Plunkett, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, said that HALO will instantly alert users to the locations of shots fired and simultaneous send alerts via SMS text messages, email or third-party alerts systems, such as video and access control management systems, to security personnel.
The company has also added machine learning capabilities to the HALO sensor that will enable it to learn normal audio levels within a facility and thus send alerts when normal thresholds are exceeded. “This can be used to catch indicators of possible violence,” explained Plunkett.
“On top of that, we also have the lowest false alarm rate in the industry. What we’re able to do… is create signatures and masking signatures, so by creating those signatures, we’re able to eliminate false alarms and we get such positive feedback from all of the customers that installed these (sensors),” Antar added.
All these additional features are included in the HALO 2.0 firmware at no additional charge.
“Right now, there’s 12 sensors in HALO and it’s catching over a million data points per day, which is pretty amazing. And then that information can be collected and generated into reports that can be beneficial to customers,” said Antar. “That may become part of an RMR model that we’re working to help make for our dealers developed around HALO, so we’re going to be working on announcing that in the not too distant future.”
Joel Griffin is the Editor-in-Chief of SecurityInfoWatch.com and a veteran security journalist. You can reach him at [email protected].
