Optex Partners With CHeKT to Enhance Visual Verification Technology
Optex will co-sell its existing and new products with the CHeKT Bridge in North America through its current distribution channels.
“With CHeKT’s innovation, Optex has found technology that instantly amplifies the value of our sensors and creates truly proactive security systems,” says Mac Kokobo, president and CEO of Optex Americas.
RANCHO DOMINGUEZ, Calif. — CHeKT, a provider of a visual-monitoring platform for alarm monitoring centers, announces a partnership with Optex, a leading supplier of outdoor sensors for intrusion security.
The collaboration will significantly advance the protection capabilities of security integrators, according to the announcement. The solution relies on the CHeKT Bridge, the first product brought to market by CHeKT.
Following years of development, the Bridge premiered in ISC West in 2018. The vision of CHeKT is to allow an integrator to provide visual monitoring services at prices that compete with a traditional intrusion alarm, states CHeKT President Wes Usie.
“In today’s culture, when an integrator installs an alarm system and a video surveillance system at a location, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t provide that client with visual monitoring services,” Usie says.
Optex will co-sell its existing and new products with the Bridge in North America through its current distribution channels. Pricing of the device was not disclosed, but the companies expect to offer the Bridge at a cost that allows integrators to remain competitive with existing alarm systems and provide a much higher level of service to the end user.
“There’s a recognized need in our industry for this exact technology,” says Mac Kokobo, president and CEO of Optex Americas. “With CHeKT’s innovation, Optex has found technology that instantly amplifies the value of our sensors and creates truly proactive security systems.”
The CHeKT Bridge pairs on-site cameras with sensors, on new or existing security panels. The platform agnostic Bridge manages cameras locally allowing an operator to access video instantly, without firewalls and login credentials.
When a sensor of any kind goes into an alarm state, the alarm panel communicates the signal to the monitoring center. Simultaneously, the bridge sends the applicable video to the Cloud for viewing by the operator processing the alarm, enabling visual verification of the situation and premises within five seconds, the company claims.
The technology allows central stations to provide a much higher level of service without increasing signal traffic or increasing the time an operator spends processing an alarm signal, according to the company. The operator can forward the clip, via SMS text, to the emergency contacts when additional verification is necessary, and to the police responding to the alarm.
Both companies recognize that a visual monitoring solution must be affordable, scalable and adaptable, according to the announcement.
The alarm industry is changing rapidly and installing security contractors must decide if they will adopt innovative technologies to meet escalating consumer demands, police response requirements and false alarm ordinances, states John Milliron, CHeKT’s vice president of sales.
“Ring, Nest and others have started a disruption that integrators may not yet have a strategy to address,’ Milliron says. “The CHeKT visual verification solution provides an adoptable smart integration of any alarm system and ONVIF video system, existing or new, providing a CS operator a view of what caused an alarm to occur in just seconds. Together, we intend to reset the alarm industry’s best practices.”
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