Siklu Wireless Video Surveillance Examined

By: Ethan Ace, Published on May 07, 2015

Wireless video surveillance has not been an easy market over the past few years. Ubiquiti drained money out of the market by making $200 wireless links a reality. And former 'leaders' like Firetide, have sold out.

However, one established wireless manufacturer, Siklu, is now entering the video surveillance market with a different approach.

In this note, we break down the features, pricing, core strengths and weaknesses of Siklu for video surveillance.

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Comments (16)

Avatar

Harrison Mitchell

05/07/15 12:20pm

Siklu claims to have "the best price/MB on the market (should be Mb)." I'm not sure how they reach that with a link costing $6,000 MSRP. That's $6 a Mb, compared to the Nanobeam AC at $.44/Mb.

I do like the small form factor for Gigabit capabilities though, glad to see the radios are getting smaller, just not sure about that price point.

Josh Penfold

05/07/15 05:59pm

We have sold a few of the Siklu links and the customers have been pretty happy with them. I see them as an enterprise or carrier grade product used in situations where a $200 radio just wouldnt be trusted. To be UBNT products are like Harbour Freight Tools. They work adequatly well, but when you want to get serious about what you are building, you get the Dewalts or Jet Tools. They cost 3 or 4x the price for maybe a 5-10% improvement, but that 5-10% is worth the premium.

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Josh Penfold | 05/07/15 07:11pm

"They cost 3 or 4x the price"

Isn't more like 20x the price of $200 radios or am I missing something?

I agree there is value in enterprise / carrier-grade products in certain situations, I just want to be clear about the price delta.

Bob Damrau

05/07/15 09:22pm

Looks like a fat pipe radio, short LOS hops for metro IP missions.

Anyone know the POE radio load specs?

Avatar

Danny Bensimhon

In reply to Bob Damrau | 05/16/15 08:08pm

Before starting my comments, I would like to disclose that i'm Siklu's product marketing manager.

Bob Damrau asked about the PoE spec: PoE in requiers minimum 30 Watts.

The PoE out port can deliver up to 13 Watts. If you use the PoE out feature, the PoE supplied to the unit will increase its consumotion as well

Danny

Bob Damrau

In reply to Danny Bensimhon | 05/17/15 12:09am

Thanks Danny.

So that's 48vdc 30w for the radio and 13w POE out available for another device (camera, etc) for a total power consumption of 43w.

Correct?

We haven't had a customer power project with your equipment yet, so it's good to have the info for our vendor library and solution portfolio on the front end.

Avatar

Danny Bensimhon

In reply to Bob Damrau | 05/19/15 11:24am

Hi Bob,

Basicly your corrent. We offer both DC PoE and AC PoE power supply units that support this feature. Our offered PoE power supply units are tested to support a total 100 meters of Ethernet cable from the feeding PoE power supply to the EH-600T ODU and to the served device (camera / Wi-Fi access point):Siklu EH-600T PoE out

Hope the above diagram clarifies it.

Danny.

Donald Peters

IPVMU Certified | 05/10/15 08:07pm

The 60 GHz band is considered millimeter wave vs. microwave and has several important characteristics to consider prior to installation. This band is considered "oxygen absorbing" and has a very high link loss with any precipitation, including light fog so the 5/9 (99.999%) seems questionable in real world deployments. Also, radios in the 60 / 70 / 80 GHz bands must typically be mounted to a building exterior wall or an elevated water tank. The beam adjustment on the elevation and azimuth usually fall within .25 of an inch so even a slight sway or twist from a tower or monopole will compromise the link. I’m not a big fan of the Ubiquiti gear but I would take that before deploying a millimeter wave link without the perfect set of prerequisites. There are just better ways to achieve a reliable link. Just my two cents.

Avatar

Danny Bensimhon

In reply to Donald Peters | 05/18/15 07:47am
Before starting my comments, I would like to disclose that I'm Siklu's product marketing manager.Yes, in V-band (60 GHz), there's oxygen attenuation. The oxygen molecules absorb these frequencies and produces attenuation. The oxygen attenuation depends on the exact frequency, height, temperature etc. Typical values vary from 12 dB/Km to 18 dB/km. Most 60 GHz P2P links are deployed for 200-500 meters lengths, so the actual attenuation is lower. This attenuation, combined with the very narrow beam widths, enables the high re-use factors at this band. On top of that, some systems enable the users to configure the operational frequency in correlation to the link length. So for longer links, your configure frequency with relatively lower attenuation, and for short length links, you configure frequencies with higher attenuation. This configuration further enhance frequency reuse efficiency to enable even larger scale dense links utilization. Most 60 GHz radio links vendors supply Link-Budget-Calculator tools (online / offline - depends on the vendor). Those tools take into consideration: the system model in use, the chosen frequency and polarization, tx power, receiver sensitivity link's length and location. Location is important because the advanced tools contains ITU-R rain models data base which enable to calculate link availability throughout the year. By aggregating all those inputs into simple to use tool, user can easily project system performance and correlate it with SLA.
Avatar

Danny Bensimhon

05/21/15 10:39am

Hi

I'm Danny, Siklu's product marketing manager.

Kindly note some small corrections to the above listed spec:

  • 60 GHz band (user selectable, 8 non-overlapping full capacity channels)
  • Integrated 35 dBi antenna, 2.5° beamwidth
  • Three GbE ports, one PoE in and one PoE out
  • Specified range up to 1,600' at 99.999% availability
  • Compact 5.9”x6.1”x3.54” size

Cheers,

Danny

Avatar

Luis Carmona

IPVMU Certified | 05/03/16 11:53am

Seems Arecont is throwing their hat in the partnership ring with Siklu.

Arecont Vision Technology Partner Program Expands Wirelessly with Siklu

It says in the article mentions the Arecont Megalab. Can someone from Siklu or Arecont disclose if that means they pushed the radios of their camera walls, and if so, how much consistent throughout was achieved at what data and frame rates?

Alex Doorduyn

In reply to Luis Carmona | 05/04/16 07:06pm

Disclaimer - I am Director of Business Development for Security at Siklu.

Arecont Vision’s MegaLab is open to integrators to test their design before they deploy it. As an Infrastructure Partner, we supplied our equipment to be available in MegaLab for this SI testing. To fully understand what can be expected with Arecont Vision cameras on Siklu’s radios, please reach out to me directly and I’ll be happy to talk to you about our successful installations with Arecont Vision. Similar to Arecont Vision, we are happy to supply loaner units for you, or anyone, to test in a real-life environment.

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Alex Doorduyn | 05/04/16 11:14pm

Alex, you did not answer Luis question at all. If you want to build credibility, answer what was a straightforward and fundamental technical query.

Again:

Can someone from Siklu or Arecont disclose if that means they pushed the radios of their camera walls, and if so, how much consistent throughout was achieved at what data and frame rates?

Avatar

Brian Karas

IPVM | 03/27/17 06:00pm

Update, Siklu has lowered their pricing, and the per link cost is now ~$3,000 instead of $6,000. I edited the post as well to reflect this.

Michael Miller

In reply to Brian Karas | 03/27/17 07:44pm

Brian the new pricing for the 500Mbps-1GB links or the 100-200Mps links?

Avatar

Brian Karas

IPVM | In reply to Michael Miller | 03/27/17 09:41pm

Here is more specific pricing I got from Siklu:

EH600TX - MSRP $3680 for 500Mbps, $4380 for 1Gbps link.

EH500TX - MSRP $2900 for 100Mbps (upgradable to 200Mbps).

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