Avigilon Cuts SL Camera Pricing, Adds Lower Cost Models

By: IPVM Team, Published on Jan 31, 2017

Just months after starting to ship the SL series, Avigilon is cutting prices. This is the second time in less than a year they have cut prices (recall Avigilon Quietly Slashes H3 Camera Pricing 30-50%)

At the same time, they are adding many more low-cost SL camera models.

Are these moves enough to make the SL cameras less disappointing than the initial offering? This report looks at the new SL lineup and pricing, and how Avigilon now competes compared to alternatives.

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Comments (26)

Undisclosed Integrator #1

01/31/17 02:52pm

This just confirms that regardless of your patents or cool searching ability-- video is a race to the bottom. Buckle up.

Undisclosed Integrator #2

01/31/17 03:20pm

Breaking News : Avigilon adds a new indoor-only 1.3 MP dome for $360 US. Look out, Security Industry, things are gonna start getting craaaaazy!

Ethan Ace

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #2 | 01/31/17 04:02pm

It might not be the most earth shattering release, but $360 MSRP is quite low for a remote zoom model, at least from non-Hik/Dahua brands. Keep in mind dealer cost is going to be significantly lower than that.

This is more in line with Hikvision Value Plus or Hanwha Wisenet Q, sub $300 pricing.

By contrast, the lowest cost Axis remote zoom model is $500+ (P3354).

Undisclosed Integrator #1

In reply to Ethan Ace | 01/31/17 04:09pm

MSRP doesn't mean a lot when it is still 50% higher than Hikua. I really don't see these prices moving much of the market. The mid/lower end of the market is cut throat right now, and at the higher end where Avigilon plays best this really isn't going to get enterprise customers to buy more cameras. They will just save a little extra on the camera project.

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 01/31/17 04:12pm

MSRP doesn't mean a lot when it is still 50% higher than Hikua.

#1, can you clarify? What is 'it'? Are you saying the MSRP of Avigilon is 50% higher than the MSRP of Hikua or the MSRP of Avigilon is 50% higher than the street price of Hikua?

Avigilon went from their 'cheapest' varifocal camera having an MSRP of $560 now to an MSRP of $360. That's a big move to make them more competitive for price sensitive buyers.

Undisclosed Integrator #1

In reply to John Honovich | 01/31/17 04:24pm

The dealer cost is still 50% higher than Hikua.

Michael Miller

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 01/31/17 04:38pm

So we are comparing apples to apples. Which remote zoom and focus Hikvision camera is 50% lower than these Avigilon SL cameras?

The new pricing will definitely help sell more Avigilon cameras. People that are selling Hikvision with Avigilon will be looking to use the SL line over Hik with Avigilon.

Undisclosed Integrator #1

In reply to Michael Miller | 01/31/17 05:42pm

As an Avigilon dealer I don't agree with your statement. Lowering these prices are not going to make me sell more Avigilon. The problem is the market is very clearly segmented. At the lower end it's cut throat. At the high end we were already selling end to end Avigilon. Just because the low end Avigilon moved closer to the price of the Asian competitors doesn't make Avigilon's pricing in that market competitive. Unless something is specified Avigilon I wouldn't want to lead with it into a project for the camera hardware because the potential to lose on pricing is still high. I think by blanket saying that Avigilon dealers are going to sell more is ignoring psychology and behavior of integrator when they are quoting. Dahua/Honeywell are the ones 50% cheaper on the dealer side. And no this is not apples to apples because we are comparing 2.0mp Honeyhua to 1.3 Avig which makes it even worse.

Michael Miller

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 01/31/17 07:07pm

I disagree but maybe that is because we stopped selling "cameras" a couple years ago. I love selling Avigilon vs Dahua and Honeywell as there is a lot more to a solution than just the image coming from the camera.

Jon Dillabaugh

Pro Focus LLC
01/31/17 10:32pm

If we were an Avigilon dealer, I would think this would be great news. The delta between Avigilon and Hik/Dahua is evaporating. I don't think you will ever see a day when Avigilon will compete dollar for dollar, spec for spec, but closing the gap has got to make it easier to compete against the Asian brands.

I am unsure of a better end to end solution than Avigilon. The only reason why not to sell Avigilon end to end is cost. To use multi-site, analytics, or any of their great advantages, you basically are pushed into their Enterprise licensing, which is considerably more cost than other VMSs that lack these advanced features, but do Ok with simple recording and playback. It's hard to justify a 400% premium in camera licenses.

I know that plenty of people do well selling Avigilon end to end. I just don't think my market (NW Ohio/SE Michigan) supports projects of that scale very often. I could be wrong though.

Michael Miller

In reply to Jon Dillabaugh | 01/31/17 10:59pm

To use multi-site, analytics, or any of their great advantages, you basically are pushed into their Enterprise licensing.

You can do multi-site locations, analytics, pixel search, analytics search, thumb-nail search with Standard version.

Jon Dillabaugh

Pro Focus LLC
In reply to Michael Miller | 01/31/17 11:00pm

I was misinformed then. I apologize.

Undisclosed #4

In reply to Jon Dillabaugh | 01/31/17 11:55pm

Your territory is similar to ours. We have been doing quite well with Avigilon end to end on the enterprise side.

Undisclosed Integrator #1

01/31/17 10:51pm

To be perfectly honest, Honeywell's end to end is better when you go further up the food chain as Avigilon does not have a fire interface or compliance reporting integration, radar, etc. This is the reason that Lenel / Honeywell have the top top of the food chain locked up because Avigilon lacks a lot of these things. That being said, Lenel video sucks, but I wouldn't say Avigilon end to end is better than everyone simply because they have a good VMS product. Is it good end to end in the video segment? Sure, but what about when you start tying in all the systems at a plant or a global site. From that lens, Avigilon really starts to become a one trick pony.

I think the issue is a lot of integrators are probably locked into selling one big name brand, but if you have access to a few lines and the pricing you know pretty quick every every product does or does not fit. Avigilon's best fits are large customers that are not Fortune 500 and want integration but won't use the full feature set of something like Lenel or Honeywell I would expand this bubble to include school districts if you are lucky enough to get Avigilon sole spec. I don't think you could ever run a Fortune 500 organization off of Avigilon access control and our sites that push 1-2k sort of top where the product is usable and I don't see utilities wanting to throw out their onguard or pro-watch to get Avigilon to meet NERC/FERC compliance.

Michael Miller

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 02/05/17 03:44pm

Avigilon's best fits are large customers that are not Fortune 500 and want integration but won't use the full feature set of something like Lenel or Honeywell I would expand this bubble to include school districts if you are lucky enough to get Avigilon sole spec.

Funny you say that as we have taken over multiple schools running both Lenel (800 cameras) and Honeywell (100+ cameras). Customers complained that both Lenel and Honeywell were unreliable and very confusing to use. The IT staff would field calls everytime someone needed to review or export video. It's always fun to follow up with these customers 6 months after the take over to hear that all the user complaints went away and IT has not had to help anyone review video or export video since the takeover. Also, neither of these customers mentioned or requested anything about integrating into any 3rd party systems. They were more interested in a system that was reliable, easy to use and fast.

Undisclosed Integrator #1

In reply to Michael Miller | 02/05/17 10:40pm

Your comment is referencing Avigilon video versus the full integrated solutions from the manufacturers, and you are referencing schools which does not directly address my comment.

It's a lot different when you get to the Fortune 500 level or highly regulated industries where customers are looking to use a larger swath of the feature set. Like I said, I don't see Avigilon with hardly any presence in the utility (nerc/ferc reg segment) nor military segment nor in the larger gaming segment. You could probably run the entire school district on Hikvision NVRS and have a happy customer.

The problem with any software system is that as you add out more features the software inherently becomes more clunky and bloated. In most school districts we see each school being responsible for retrieving their own video and the people responsible have the duties of managing the system along with being a teacher/coach/principal/administrator. With our larger customers we are dealing directly with IT and Compliance with dedicated users that users whose main job is to interact and run the system daily. Not to mention the standards bar for usable interfaces is not super high considering how clunky a lot of the legacy systems are that run some of the worlds largest companies.

I'm not saying Avigilon is a bad video product, but the access control and full package of their offering doesn't have all the features needed to address a lot of the markets. One F500 plant we are currently doing is 1mm sqft plant plus 500k sqft ancillary buildings on campus and the only acceptable options to the global architects and client were Honeywell, UTC, and Bosch because the campus needed to be full end to end, intrusion, fire alarm, video, access. Avigilon couldn't even pass the first hurdle to get in the door.

Michael Miller

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 02/06/17 12:18am

Not sure when the last time you used Avigilon's ACM but they have full integration into Bosch intrusion panels. You can trigger alarm events in ACC, Arm/Disarm, bypass and monitor all input points in ACM. So you can do intrusion, fire alarm, video and access with Avigilon.

Undisclosed Integrator #1

In reply to Michael Miller | 02/06/17 02:06am

Integrating a Bosch intrusion panel is not integrating fire alarm, nor in the way Prowatch integrates to Onyx or Edwards into Onguard. I think suggesting it is equivalent is really underestimating what some of these facilities require and expect. Not to mention depending on how they are doing their fire command center / monitoring if they are running their own UL control center on site you are not going to meet UL requirements.

As I said earlier Avigilon is great for large commercial that is not your fortune500.

Undisclosed #3

01/31/17 11:22pm

How does the MSRP compare to similarly spec'd Axis cams now?

Ethan Ace

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed #3 | 01/31/17 11:23pm

H4 SL MSRP is significantly lower than Axis street price, so it compares favorably. See my comment above.

Undisclosed #3

In reply to Ethan Ace | 01/31/17 11:34pm

Thanks.

Do dealers still get a 30-40% discount on the new MSRP? If so, that is a significant reduction in margins on the camera.

Ethan Ace

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed #3 | 01/31/17 11:35pm

To my knowledge, dealer pricing structure hasn't changed, so discount levels would be the same.

Undisclosed #3

02/01/17 01:18am

If buying a 1-3MP dome, why would anyone buy the H4A line and not the H4SL line?

Michael Miller

In reply to Undisclosed #3 | 02/01/17 01:23am

H4A Has Analytics and SL line does not. Also you have more lens options with the H4A vs SL line.

Louis Cloete

02/05/17 03:56am

We sell both Dahua and Avigilon. There is huge benefit and an ROI value on the RMA process with Avigilon. When cameras fail the price difference suddenly becomes irrelevant.

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Louis Cloete | 02/05/17 12:15pm

We sell both Dahua and Avigilon. There is huge benefit and an ROI value on the RMA process with Avigilon

Louis, thanks. How does the RMA process differ between Avigilon and Dahua?

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