Eagle Eye Cloud VMS - $5 Per Camera Per Month

A startup launched by the founder of Baracuda, a networking company worth more than a billion dollars, is taking aim at the video surveillance market. The new company, Eagle Eye Networks is releasing cloud based video management. Unlike many of the early expensive, consumer focused startups, Eagle Eye is targeting the enterprise market with plans starting at $5 per camera per month, a remarkably low price. In this note, we dig into their competitive positioning.

[UPDATE: See IPVM test results of Eagle Eye's Cloud VMS.]

History

For the leadership team at Eagle Eye, this is their second foray into video surveillance. Previously, they started Viaas, who offered a cloud based camera / hosted video service (see our 2010 test results). While it had some interesting technology, the product was awkwardly positioned between consumer and professional applications. It also lacked the huge market effort Dropcam has successfully used. While Viaas still struggles on, this group looked for a new approach.

Competitive Differentiators

The biggest thing Eagle Eye emphasizes is its ability to 'smart sync' from NVRs on sites to their cloud storage, allowing gradual transfer of video and scaling beyond the few cameras per site of traditional hosted offerings. Unlike many early VSaaS offerings, all Eagle Eye systems have appliances on site (they call them Bridges or CMVRs).

The most interesting aspect we see about Eagle Eye is their "Cloud Managed Video Recorders" that are NVRs deployed on site but fully managed in the cloud (ergo the name). Specifically, what is uncommon, is their pricing structure. For a minimal up front expense (estimated at a few hundred for a 16 camera system), the cost is just $5 per month per camera (the M10 plan). Their Cloud Managed Video Recorders keep all the storage on site, without any hosted video constraints on frame rate, resolution nor storage duration.

$5 Per Month Per Camera

For that price, you get full cloud video access and cloud management / upgrades, but without any hosted / centrally stored video.

Assuming 16 cameras, that is just under $1,000 per year (16 x $5 x 12 months). Compared to professional systems (Exacq, Milestone Husky, etc.), it's a fairly reasonable price (considering a comparable unit will be $3,000+ as well as future software update fees) plus it gives the cloud access/ management/ upgrade part that is not typically available.

Cloud Recording Plans

Eagle Eye also offers a number of hybrid cloud recording plans but those are limited to 720p recording and cost $15 per month for 30 days recording. While such a price is not extreme comparably, it will still be hard for many to justify as that comes to $3,000 per year for 16 cameras and yet no full HD option.

Limits of New VMS / NVRs

The big challenge for any new video management provider is that the professional VMS / NVR market is very mature and customers expect dozens of low level features (from PTZ controls to ways to export videos to 3rd party integrations to various search features) that are hard for new entrants to quickly match yet are frequently deal breakers.

We have not yet tested or looked at any of their traditional VMS features.

Dealer Only / No End User Sales

Eagle Eye is selling through dealers only and the pricing listed is MSRP. Dealers receive discounts, etc.

$5 of Interest

So what do you think?

UI Demo Video

Eagle Eye has added a demo video of their VMS web client interface:

The two most notable limitations evident from the demo is lack of multi-camera playback and multi-camera export (only 1 video, only .mp4). 

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