Why Are Arecont Cameras So Difficult To Get Online?

Ever think, maybe it's your fault??? You're not Arecont certified, don't you think you should have disclosed that?

So you've successfully tested Avigilon, Axis, Bosch, Brickcom, Dahua, DvTel, DRS, FLIR, Hikvision, Geovision, Sony, Panasonic, Pelco, Lorex, Mobotix, Q-See, Sentry 360, and Vivotek cameras in the last year. Does that really make you qualified to use Arecont?

Oh dude, don't EVEN get me started on Arecont...

As background, I find that every year or so I need to completely wipe & reinstall my Windows PC if I want to retain out-of-the-box performance. For some vendors, even "out of the box" is so bad (with seemingly hundreds of "helpful" pieces of software already clogging the works) that you need to completely wipe & reinstall your brand new Windows PC just to experience adequate performance. While worthwhile, a full wipe and reinstallation costs about 3 hours.

For similar reasons, I prefer to install IT gear without vendor support software whenever it is possible. Even Network Attached Storage is generally accessible from the IP. Do you really need that Samsung hard drive installation wizard still absorbing memory and cycles for years after the one-shot use? Do you really need all seven of those Brother software routines just to access fundamental capabilities of your multi-function device? If yes, you'll pay forever in performance, but if you're careful in your installation choices, you'll reap performance benefits forever.

Perhaps these quirks explain my annoyance on discovering their "IP cameras" cannot be easily installed with standard IP tools, instead requiring custom software which you don't intend to use beyond the installation. Of course it can be (and quickly is) uninstalled after use, burning another few minutes of valuable time.

A vendor will probably suffer no down-side to enforcing installation and use of their own VMS, however briefly. Beyond a top-notch and competitively priced product, marketing and sales are all about scarce access to limited customer attention span, and actually the AV200 looks fairly attractive and functional (at least in comparison to my experience with ADT Matrix RASPLUS).

Unfortunately, in my case the positive benefits of that glimpse were more than offset by the discovery that I can't record the video without paying an additional $200/year licensing fees, above and beyond the more than $4,000 purchase price of the four 5MP IP cameras. True, it is poor research that fails to uncover such a fundamental fact, but this was completely unexpected. Imagine if groceries worked this way ("Sorry sir, you can't use the potty until you pay our additional 5% license fee"). On the other hand, I understand that this functionality is expanding into other sectors of the security industry. A few computer viruses also make your video - er I mean data - inaccessible but will release it to you for a very modest fee.

My negative experiences with Arecont's IP cameras more than 5 years ago have had two interesting outcomes. (1) I've never purchased another Arecont product, and (2) I've chosen to use an integrator on our three subsequent installations. A good integrator's professional knowledge and experience saves a great deal of time, and has probably spared me further costly mistakes. Since "noob" installation challenges and deliberate functionality barriers have kept at least one of the great unwashed masses out of the business, you might argue that manufacturers with similar products might be considered to be an installer's best friend!

The problem is, leaving unexploited niches within the competitive ecosystem can allow hungy upstarts to survive and bootstrap themselves into real competitive threats. It seems that many small four- to eight-camera systems have fairly straightforward needs, and for this segment of the market, new products featuring easy installation and straightforward use may have a real chance to cannibalize market share. Who should have a better understanding and be better positioned to provide new capability, than the incumbents? Yet this market segment seems to be going to the upstarts. It's plausible that as the upstarts continue to improve their "plug and play" installation and their ease of use, they will also further improve scalability and supportability within ever larger enterprises, further eroding incumbents' market share.

"VideoIQ ... require services (which they again install to autorun at startup) to be present in order to use their clients."

Our View client requires a Windows service to be running. View is used for the full setup of our devices, as well as basic event monitoring functions. It is a full-featured VMS (though, as some will point out, a VMS that is only intended to support our hardware, so take "full featured" in context).

We also have a camera discovery tool, which is not dependant on other services or software, it's a stand-alone app. So you can discover a VideoIQ device that is in the same broadcast domain as your PC, and you can also assign a temporary IP address to the device and access its web UI to do *basic* stuff (set new IP, upgrade firmware, view video).

However, discovering and addressing headless devices is a technology-wide problem. It's not just CCTV cameras, but printers, networked speakers and A/V equipment, etc all have quirky processes for getting online initially.