iPhone surveillance app iRa gets ready for larger installations

The Apple App Store is a seamless location – owners of Apple products like the iPhone and the iPod Touch can quickly log-in, grab an application. The applications range from programs that are games (like ParkingLot, where the user tries to park cars compactly in a lot using as few moves as possible) to Lextech’s iRa for viewing web-connected video surveillance cameras.

The only problem with the App Store is that was designed around a one-user, one-device model. It’s a model that works well for the consumer public, but not so well for business applications, where companies typically buy multiple licenses and seek volume discounts.

Hence the release of iRa C3 today from Lextech Labs. With the launch of iRa C3, we’re seeing mobile surveillance move from being an app store item that is difficult to scale to a model. The older model from Lextech was this: A user could purchase the iRa Direct iPhone application ($500) and connect directly to select IP cameras with MPEG streams or they could purchase the iRa Pro app ($900) which allowed direct connections to cameras as well as to NVR/VMS systems like Milestone, OnSSI and JVC. But the challenge of that model is that if a security or public safety organization needed to another instance of the application running, they’d have to fork out another $500 or $900 and configure another user’s device.

Now, with the introduction of 3C, Lextech is taking its iRa iPhone mobile video surveillance viewer application into a more enterprise setting. The company can now sells the service through the reseller channel, and end-users can look at deploying the iPhone surveillance application functionality beyond a single-user/single-configuration.

The core of the C3 offering is that Lextech offers a managed service over the web where iRa configurations and rights can be set online through the iRa portal. Instead of purchasing an application 20 times for 20 different police officers, security officers or staff members and then having to configure 20 different installations, the company allows all instances to be grouped and administered jointly, all from a web-connected computer. Instead of individually connecting an Axis camera or a JVC NVR, for example, to 20 different iPhones, the end-user’s administrator can now configure that camera and apply it to the group. Users can be assigned privileges remotely (e.g., rights to select cameras for some users, or giving only select users PTZ control rights); it allows management of the technology to happen centrally.

According to Lextech Labs’ President and CEO Alex Bratton, centralizing the management “allows a less technical user to use the application.”

He also points to the simplicity of a system that allows for “one-touch” camera controls. Many camera and NVR interfaces, even the “client interfaces”, he explains, are too complicated for some users. His company’s technology expands the user base of video surveillance systems.

“Maybe you want to give parking lot video access to the maintenance crew so they can see if it’s time to plow the parking lot,” explained Bratton.

As much as the iRa C3 phone application simplifies camera usage by turning controls into simple finger touches, the managed services web-based interface for administering multiple C3 installs is also a simple tool. It’s able to run on Macintosh computer browsers and PC-based browsers, and simplifies the administration of users rights, groups and video streams.

Beyond the simplicity of application, one of the highlights of the system is that the administrator can automatically turn on functions for dynamic bandwidth responses. If the viewer’s device has lower bandwidth, the system can automatically drop the video stream’s frame rate and/or resolution to predefined ratios to accommodate for slower connections.

And by adding functions like bandwidth management and centralized users rights control, it sounds like the iRa solution for mobile surveillance viewing is maturing into an enterprise level surveillance system add-on.

About Lextech Labs’ iRa C3
Pricing:
Lextech Labs’ iRa C3 is sold as a managed service. The application is free but purchases monthly service or annual, pre-paid service. Quantity discounts available. The Direct and Pro versions are still available on the Apple App Store (within iTunes).
How it’s sold:
Lextech is working to establish relationships with integrators and dealers to resell the technology, but clients can also contact iRa directly. Resellers work on an RMR model.
What it works with:
MPEG streams, such those from Milestone servers, OnSSI systems, JVC’s NVRs, Axis cameras and any other camera that can provide an MPEG stream; however the firm prefers those cameras who streams which can be regulated dynamically to account for bandwidth issues (3G isn’t everywhere yet!).