It has never ceased to amaze me that we in law enforcement so often dismiss out of hand information available from other segments from the public safety community or, sometimes even more quickly, from commercial security entities. Why do we do that? Because they are “just security.” Interestingly enough, if you’ve ever attended the Secured Cities Conference, you’ve seen just how integrated, at the municipal level, all of the public safety disciplines are to include security services for various medical, campus, transit and other private entities. One product that was developed with commercial and residential security in mind is the NETGEAR Arlo GO mobile HD security camera.
Closed Circuit TV – or CCTC for short – is nothing new. Private corporations, jails and prisons have been using CCTV systems to surveil and monitor sensitive or high risk areas for decades. The “closed circuit” part started to go by the wayside when wireless connectivity become miniaturized enough and supported enough bandwidth so that the cameras could become wireless. Still, they needed to be connected somehow and needed decent power supplies, so wires were still all too often involved.
With the NETGEAR Arlo GO, a totally wireless system has been introduced. Even better, no Bluetooth connectivity is required either. The small camera has greater flexibility of placement and mounting thanks to the lack of wiring and for transmitting its captured imagery it uses the well-proven AT&T 3G and 4G LTE cellular systems.
Contemplate for a moment the increase in flexibility that you acquire when you are designing a video monitoring system free of power wires or connection wires. Instead of having to run wires to corners of parking lots potentially hundreds of yards from the nearest power source. The same challenge would normally exist with wired or even Bluetooth or wi-fi connectivity at such distances. The freedom of placement created by using the AT&T network truly allows for some creative video system design and monitoring.
As part of our editorial preparation for this article, I received one of these cameras for test and evaluation. As I’m not an AT&T customer, I didn’t have an account set up to use the camera and test the transmit quality. That said, I DID have the ability to do one of my favorite things: abuse the crap out of it and see if it held up. After all, if it’s going to be used in remote areas, it’s most likely going to be exposed to rain or other precipitation as well as temperatures outside of what we humans consider comfortable.
To start I mounted the camera on one end of my deck where it was fully exposed to the sun during the day and any precipitation that may fall. I left it mounted for two weeks and enjoyed the fact that my area experienced two decent thunderstorms in that time accompanied by high winds which caused falling branches. To the best of my knowledge, nothing actually hit the camera (nothing hard, just water). At the end of the two weeks it was still powered up and appeared functional.
As with all video camera surveillance systems, in addition to the connectivity you also need a storage method for all the video you’ll capture – unless you have someone dedicated to watching the view 24/7/365. With the Arlo GO you get a rolling seven days of free cloud storage and an app for your phone. With the Arlo GO’s motion sensor functionality, you can get an alert on your phone or other smart device if something comes into the camera’s view. Additionally, you can access that camera view live (or as close to it as data transmission lag permits) from any browser or monitoring app available.
“Arlo Go is the latest example of how we develop products with a clear focus on our customers’ needs,” said Pat Collins, senior vice president of Arlo products at NETGEAR. “With no cords and no wires and now the ability to easily connect nearly anywhere, Arlo Go provides Businesses, Municipalities and Consumers with an unprecedented ability to monitor and protect their properties, communities and assets.”
If you’re looking for an option to creating, upgrading or expanding your surveillance system, give the NETGEAR Arlo GO a look… it’ll be looking back.
