Cisco Meraki Launches The Most Expensive HD Camera In Years

The race to the top is on! Take that Hikvision!

The only target demo I can see for this is: IT firms that don't work in surveillance whose clients say "I want cameras", clients who have zero clue and have taken the Cisco roofie. I am sure some are out there.

In a way I feel like it would be a great service to the IT administrators out there if this was a public article. If nothing else it will make them spit their coffee back into their Cisco coffee cup, throw their Cisco pen out the window, and rip their Cisco branded shirt off at the decision they almost made.

Didn't Cisco already try the "let's overcharge IT people who don't know what surveillance product should cost or what industry standard specifications are" strategy once already? I don't remember how it turned out. I assume well.

So everyone has focused so hard on how expensive this is, and it really is. It's priced crazily. And why they'd use a 5MP sensor for 720p video is beyond me.

But, two things:

Cisco is going to sell a bunch of these. Probably not millions, but thousands. Tens of thousands, even. And every single one sold is going to make the margin that a much higher number of Hikivision/Dahua/etc. low cost models make. Plus $300/year. With all the concern about the race to the bottom, this seems like a really shrewd move to show actual differentiation, with a built in target market: Cisco based IT departments.

Second, the cloud management is a great idea, in my opinion. Why we do not already have that from other manufacturers is baffling. I don't care about the cloud viewing/recording, as I'd still prefer a VMS or NVR. But from an end user management/integrator service perspective, cloud config, firmware management, and health monitoring seems very handy. I'm not sure how deep the Meraki camera management will go, but the ability to perform these tasks without having to be on site or use some type of remote access is smart.

I 100% guarantee you that if they release this product someone from my IT staff will ask me the following questions:

1. Why don't we use them?
2. Will I sit in on a meeting with them to discuss using them?
3. Where would I suggest they install the one hundred units they just bought?
4. How many I suggest they buy after the initial hundred they have bought?
5. Why did I not tell them before that Cisco makes cameras?
6. Since they were nice enough to buy them will I just manage them?

I didnt even think about government jobs. Yeah, I can imaging they will buy these. Given Cisco is such a valuable brand, the gov jobs just dont care what they spend per camera, they care about reliability and the Cisco Brand has traditionally offered that.

I cant imagine this will do well in the private sector though. Anyone with half a brain should know better than to buy a 720p camera for this much.

Am I understanding this right?

You will not be able to access recorded (and live) video if:

1. The cloud server is not working
2. The internet connection is down
3. The camera is not working

Also, does the video go directly to the browser on the LAN or thru the cloud? (I know it doesn't get recorded)

How is remote access handled?

Hi

Cisco hasn't much dent in the Surveillance sector and they won't make any with this offering. Re-read the Costco special post above. You think that people will not notice, the clear difference? Not professionals! No! The Layperson noticing that what they see at Costco is higher resolution than their Cisco stuff... Then you're asking a security professional to get this rather than an Axis or Canon or ... Hikvision? That wouldn't fly.

We tend to perceive those great corporations as almost deities not able to make any mistakes .. They do and repeatedly .. Notice how Microsoft never was able to present an alternative to the iPod or the iPhone and still today entirely out of the mobile phone space, same for Intel who's product arenot to be found in any cellphone or most tablets or Xerox after inventing the GUI completely missed out the PC space or IBM ..., or <place holder for big large companies making utterly stupid strategic mistakes >...

Cisco needs to either acquire a serious camera or VMS manufacturers. As their products stand now, no one will give a hoot about their Surveillance offering.. It could be much better for them to acquire Avigilon or something similar .. That would be scary.

As for the 5MP sensor vs 720p streaming, they could always add-in enhancement wand, ala Drop Cam.

Compared to the 1080p/3M, a 720p/5MP magic wand would seem nothing short of Merakiculous.

My experience "working" with Cisco types is mostly in federal government area where the IT people just want "it" done regardless of cost. Depending on the command, they don't have to go out and bid out the equipment if it's under a certain amount.

And security equipment gets bundled into their federal government IT maintenance contract and the customer doesn't have to shell out the maintenance money out of his budget.

@ JH, yes the Meraki camera specifications as marketed are easily out rivaled. Especially if the benchmark shootout of video is based on price+quality. Innovation is key element, what exactly are their intentions of that 5mp sensor? Are there any other hidden upgrades that were not broadcasted the involve future adaptations with the Meraki/Cisco products?

Onboard storage, engineering consolidated and simplified and what seems to be a unified deployment as we all will use the same dashboard for management. I am no SME however the design seems to fall into the DIYs realm **IT Not Required.

My knee jerk reaction to this concept is - Immediate Deployment and the reduction of training all those integrator technicians to master each and every nuance of each and every VMS/IPC GUI available. I know we are all different however look at the similarities between these simple CLIs...BASH, TERMINAL, COMMAND PROMPT, POWERSHELL. Soon IoT will have Cybersecurity at the push of an online audit button, if we are going to get there we have to embrace the simple applications that can be contained to a device before we disperse features that get embedded into VMS manufacturer as a derivative niche that will come at a cost to enable.

Found a couple videos on how the interface works:

We will see if Cisco has the free giveway of these to I.T. industry people, I have their, Merkai switch, firewall for free for just watching a webinar.  If they add this to the lineup I will get my greedy hands on one, and do a hands on review.  I would never buy one but I would take a free one.  I think they will sell a lot of these at this price point, we are all laughing, but these will sell to IT departments.  There are a lot if places where the IT department is in charge of cameras, and an all Cisco shop will just scoop these up and not bat an eye at the price.  After all IT departments have big budgets , and spending $100,000's of dollars on equipment is normal for them. 

Guys, I don't know exactly how Cisco sell in US, but in CIS MSRP is a partner price list nobody uses, even customers know the partner prices and use them to demand discounts. I was doing several projects (not groundbreaking or super value to Cisco) without gold partnership with Cisco. My client just demanded 60% discount on hardware, I've translated the demand of 70% (cause I want to resell and not just give) and Cisco said OK.

As for the Cisco security - yes their market shortens and this is obvious it is not good to buy all security stuff from one brand. 

I did a review for my IT Counterparts in Nov 2017 who were asked to share their feedback at Meraki User Forum.  I state these are MY OPINONS and do not reflect those of my employer.

Meraki Video Surveillance Comments

IP Camera/Edge Recording Platform

• Storage/Retention
  • The MV solution has limited capabilities due to only offering on-board SD Storage at this time. Published MV retention is about 20 days on SD Card using Motion Only Recording.
    • SD Card Lifecycle Management could be an operational challenge to manage in a large enterprise deployment similar to LARGE FINANCIAL ORG with 100K+ Cameras. The average lifecycle of SD Card is about 10K hours/400 days of video @ 24/7 Recording.
  • Typical banking requirements range from 30 – 120 days. LARGE FINANCIAL ORG Retail Banking requires a minimum of 90 days’ worth of video storage/retention. Adding features such as Cloud or NAS Storage as the Primary Storage to increase Video Retention would be recommended.
• Recording Options
  • The MV records on Motion Only Video which presents some operational challenges in banking. Many users even outside of financial require Continuous Recording as well as Motion Recording options. The premise is to record activity at lower frame rate/resolution with no motion is present in case motion algorithm did not detect motion in FoV.
    • A typical VMS will offer both Motion and Continuous Recording Options that are configurable on a per camera basis using schedules.
    • Example would be with no active motion the camera would record at 1fps @ selected resolution and upon motion detection would then record at @10fps. Pre/Post Motion times are user definable.
• Sensor Resolution
  • MV Camera is fixed at 720P even though the CMOS Sensor is 2560x1920 (5MP). 720P video is considered to be below the industry standard of a minimum resolution and does not provide sufficient resolution for IP Cameras.
  • LARGE FINANCIAL ORG Retail Banking requires a minimum resolution of 1080P (1920x1080/2MP).
• • The camera needs to be a create and record individual streams as defined by operator, example is one camera for every two teller stations but each teller has its own “virtual camera” using a single camera/sensor  Multi-Streaming/Camera Virtualization

• Codecs
  • MV does not appear to employ the use of Smart Codecs to reduce Storage/Retention (and bandwidth in none edge based recording)
    • It is suggested to using H.265 and or SmartCodecs to reduce the amount of Storage needed to meet minimum Storage/Retention Requirements.
    • Using SmartCodecs will also allow for increased MV Camera Resolutions beyond published limitations.
• Form Factor/Lens Options
  • The current MV offerings is just two form factors with limited lens options do not need to needs of a supplier to find products that are flexible and can be used in a wide variety of applications.
    • As an example LARGE FINANCIAL ORG Banking has needs for multiple form factors
      • Mini-dome w/2.8mm – 20mm Lens Remote Focus/Zoom
      • Box Camera w/multiple lens options
      • ATM/Covert Camera (ultra-small form factor) w/fixed 2.8mm lens

Data Integrations

• The MV Platform does not appear to have any data integrations available to allow for the indexing of metadata to an associated camera to be used for searching of video files by metadata.
• POS/ATM/Teller Transaction Data Systems
  • LARGE FINANCIAL ORG Retail Banking has a requirement to capture ALL Transactional Metadata and index to Video files for searching based upon transaction data queries. Those captured fields allow a user to search in quick and efficient manner to locate the event they are looking for by not searching through video in a linear fashion.
• Intrusion Panel Integration
• Banking requires CCTV/Intrusion Alarm (DMP) Integration for Alarm Video Verification in Central Station. This feature allows our SC Analysts to visually verify a Hold Up/Intrusion Alarm in real time using Live Video feeds from the Brach to allow for quicker dispatching of authorities upon verified alarms.  

• PACS Integration
  • LARGE FINANCIAL ORG Facilities w/Physical Access Control Systems (PACS) and CCTV typically have Video Integration to capture and index PACS Data as for reporting and well as Live Monitoring for PACS Alarm Conditions
    •  LARGE FINANCIAL ORG Corporate Security requires CCTV and PACS Integration for all facilities meeting a certain risk level. This allows CS to monitor alarms/events in real time for things such as Door Forced/Held, Anti-Pass Back Violation etc.

Pros

• Cloud Managed
  • Configuration/Patch Management
  • Secure Tunneling
  • Web Interface (no FAT Client)
  • User Access Management
  • Health Alerting Dashboard
• Plug N Play
  • Auto Discovery of devices in Dashboard