The year 2020 will represent a landmark for the video surveillance industry, with global sales of goods including cameras, recorders, video management software (VMS) and accessories projected to surpass $20 billion for the first time, according to IHS Markit, Technology division, now a part of Informa Tech.

Significantly, the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China—currently embroiled in a heated trade dispute—are also the two largest players in the video surveillance market. China accounts for approximately 45 percent global sales revenue, ahead of the United States, which is in second place.

Despite the ongoing trade dispute, and industry-specific tariffs and sanctions, the worldwide video surveillance market is forecast to grow by almost 10 percent annually in 2020, with some regional markets, like India and Southeast Asia, expanding even more rapidly.

Flashpoint topics for 2020

IHS Markit has identified seven topics that will be important flashpoints for debate and discussion in 2020, such as the point that installed cameras worldwide will approach the 1 billion mark in 2020, and the significance that this might have. The paper also looks at potentially significant shifts that are set to shake up video surveillance manufacturing. For example, 5G promises turbocharged video for the security industry, and the uncomfortable truth of deepfake video surveillance. The report also covers hot discussion topics, including the transformation from IoT to AIoT, the merging artificial intelligence with the internet of things; analytics at the edge; and moving the cloud on premise.

Gunnebo has announced a partnership with Loomis U.S, where the CIT company will bring a highly-integrated cash deposit smart safe to retailers in the U.S.

The seamless integration of Gunnebo’s smart cash deposit technology to Loomis’ core systems will enable retailers to expand and deliver superior customer service, while driving security, process improvements and cost efficiencies across retail operations.

“We are delighted to partner with Loomis, a well-known specialist in creating efficient cash flow and handling of cash,” said Stefan Syrén, President and CEO of Gunnebo. “Together, we are leveraging the experience of two industry leaders to provide existing and new retail customers a collaboration of the highest service levels combined with a world-class smart deposit solution.”

The solution, named Titan Z smart safe, provides secure, reliable, and efficient cash processing for undercounter use in retail operations.

Vice President of SafePoint for Loomis Moises Gonzalez said, “With Gunnebo as our partner, we are able to expand our current portfolio of cash automation solutions and provide a compact, high-performance cash-handling option to retailers with low cash volumes.”

Anixter Int’l said it will be acquired by Wesco Int’l for $4.5 billion, creating an electrical and data communications wholesale distribution company with $17 billion in annual revenues.

The agreement has been approved by the boards of both companies. The transaction is subject to Anixter stockholder approval, as well as regulatory approval in the United States, Canada and certain other foreign jurisdictions, and customary closing conditions. The companies anticipate completing the transaction during the second or third quarter of 2020.

The agreement concludes a bidding war between Wesco (NYSE: WCC) and an affiliate of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R). Anixter’s initial agreement in October to be acquired by the private equity firm for $81 a share in cash was terminated after CD&R waived its matching rights under the agreement.

Under terms of the merger agreement announced Monday, Wesco will pay the equivalent of $100 for each Anixter share outstanding, including $70 in cash, 0.2397 shares of Wesco common stock and preferred stock consideration valued at $15.89 for each Anixter share.

“The transformational combination of Wesco and Anixter will create a premier electrical and data communications distribution and supply chain services company. With increased scale and complementary capabilities, we will be ideally positioned to digitize our business, expand our extensive services portfolio and supply chain offerings, and deliver solutions to our customers whenever and wherever they need them around the globe,” states John Engel, Wesco’s chairman, president, and CEO.

After the deal closes, Wesco shareholders will own 84% of the combined company and Anixter shareholders 16%. Anixter President and CEO Bill Galvin states that joining with Wesco will allow the combined company to build on complementary capabilities and create new ways to serve customers and partners.

“This is the result of a very thorough process to determine the value of our company. It’s also a recognition of the enormous value created by our talented people, Anixter’s deep industry relationships, innovative technology solutions, and global reach,” Galvin says.

The latest research shows that the global barrier systems market size is expected to reach USD 24.5 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 9.8% from 2020 to 2025.

Information from Grand View Research, Inc. finds that the growth can be attributed to their increasing use in commercial, residential, and high-end security applications. Moreover, these solutions enable access to vehicles and pedestrians at crossing points to avoid accidents, thereby increasing their adoption.

Numerous vendors offer high-security barrier solutions, which are used in vehicle access control systems to protect critical infrastructure and stop projectile impacts. Furthermore, barrier systems include trigger loops and timers to help reduce traffic congestion. The monitoring and access control solutions ensure that property and assets are protected from thieves.

Increasing consumer preference for residential safety and security is anticipated to contribute to barrier system market growth. Governments across the globe are taking initiatives for infrastructure development, which is further expected to favour market growth over the forecast period. Surge in incidents of security breach are fuelling the need for safety and security, which in turn is driving product adoption in end-use industries.

Rapid industrialisation and increasing construction activities across the globe are expected to propel market growth over the forecast period. In addition, increasing terrorism, illegal events, and fraudulent activities have led to a rise in the adoption of barrier systems. These solutions are also widely adopted in data centres and financial institutions to avoid intrusion, property damage, and data theft, among others.

The information shows that the perimeter security and alarms segment is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period based on access control device. The analsysts attribute this to increased demand for video surveillance solutions and intrusion detection systems in smart city infrastructures.

In terms of product type, the bollards segment is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period owing to increased adoption of removable bollards in monitoring and controlling traffic flow.

Companies cited by the research as being key market players include Betafence; Delta Scientific; Hill & Smith; Lindsay; Senstar; Tata Steel; and Valmont.

FLIR Systems has made a strategic investment in Providence Photonics, developers of advanced software used to quantify invisible gas emissions using Flir Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) cameras.

Providence Photonics specializes in the development and utilization of advanced technology in the field of optical gas imaging while tackling some of the industry’s most challenging environmental and safety problems. Using patented technology, advanced computer vision techniques, and state-of-the-art infrared imagers, they create solutions for several applications, including leak quantification, leak survey validation, autonomous remote leak detection, and flare combustion efficiency monitoring.

As part of the strategic investment, FLIR will gain exclusive access to certain elements of Providence Photonics’ intellectual property, while helping to expand FLIR Systems’ set of offerings to its oil and gas industry customers. The companies will work to deploy Providence Photonics’ quantification algorithms in current and future FLIR OGI cameras and digital services.

“Our investment in Providence Photonics represents another example of our evolution from solely being a leading sensor company to one that adds decision support to create intelligent sensing solutions,” said Frank Pennisi, President of the Industrial Business Unit at FLIR. “This investment enables to us to better serve our existing Oil and Gas industry customers who rely on our optical gas imaging technology to improve efficiency and safety, while ensuring compliance with methane mitigation regulations.”

There are considerable grounds for optimism when the pro AV industry converges once again on Amsterdam in February. Here is an overview of some of the technologies driving market growth.
Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) has long been the go-to event for discovering the latest market and technology trends in the professional audiovisual (AV) industry – and ISE 2020 will be no different. Visitors can expect to sense enormous confidence in the halls, not least because AVIXA’s 2019 AV Industry Outlook and Trends Analysis (IOTA) Global Summary saw the organisation raise its growth forecast, reflecting, it said, strong economies and demand for new products and services. From €224billion in 2019, AVIXA now believes 2024 will see worldwide revenues for the industry reach €296 billion – outpacing global GDP growth.
CEDIA’s research gives similar grounds for optimism. The UK alone, for example, represents a market valued at around €779 million, with home cinema installs rising 9% and 80% of participants in a CEDIA survey expressing confidence that their revenues would rise over the coming year.
It’s widely agreed that the success of both the commercial and residential sectors is a function of two key drivers: the proven value that AV solutions deliver, and the AV industry’s continuing embrace of new technologies. In the commercial world, AV is evolving from being ‘nice-to-have’ into a highly strategic asset.

Growing importance of AI
A recurring theme throughout the event is likely to be the growing importance of AI and machine learning. In smart homes, for example, ISE visitors can expect to see growing evidence of manufacturers embracing the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant – both enabled by AI – responding to consumer desire for a more integrated ‘one ring to rule them all’ unified environment. That’s becoming increasingly important as growing numbers of home devices and appliances become IoT-enabled. ISE 2020 will reflect this shift in the connected homes market.
On the commercial side, AI – especially in conjunction with sensors such as embedded cameras – is rapidly finding a place in digital signage (a market forecast by AVIXA to be worth $45 billion by 2024 – roughly 35% larger than 2019) as retailers especially look to try to create more personalised, more engaging, more relevant consumer experiences. In fact, researchers expect the pro AV industry to see greater adoption of AI in any market where customer experience is important, such as hospitality and healthcare. Hospitality companies will spend vast sums on AV in the coming years in order to meet and exceed the expectations of a travelling public deeply rooted in technology.
AI is also believed to have the potential to transform unified communications and collaboration – and is already finding its way into AV solutions designed for education, where research indicates that almost nine out of ten pupils and students are now leveraging the benefits of AV technology for learning. Whatever the vertical market, ISE visitors can expect to see plenty of evidence of AI – including XR (extended reality) – being embedded across a number of platforms.

LED proliferation
AI is very much a ‘behind the scenes’ technology. One of the most visible manifestations of change in the industry is the rapid rise in popularity of LED as the screen technology of choice. Not only does it bring unique advantages in the creative deployment of displays such as videowalls, but also, as its price declines, it is starting to displace single LCD screens. ISE 2020 is likely to provide further evidence of LED’s proliferation – and in the residential systems market too as ‘multi-screen’ becomes the new trend for home theatre installs.
A recurring question, however, is how long LED will enjoy its current place in the sun. OLED technology has numerous theoretical advantages in terms of image quality, installability and the opportunity for highly creative deployments. It’s still, however, not without its challenges – notably in the area of price – and ISE 2020 will provide an opportunity to assess the progress it’s making toward prime time.
A perhaps surprising fact is that, in the face of stiff competition from flat panel displays, the projector market remains remarkably vibrant as it reinvents itself. Having largely eliminated the reasons not to buy – predominantly cost of ownership – with solid state illumination, new generations of projector are becoming increasingly application-specific. The success of projection isn’t limited to the commercial market: PMA Research reports that worldwide sales of 1080p consumer projectors have risen by nearly 30% year-on-year.
It’s not all about images on screens, however. So called ‘object-based audio’ has taken the sound world by storm with its ability to deliver wholly immersive sound stages. Advances in the ‘placing’ of sound are being matched by increasingly sophisticated DSPs that can ‘tune’ an installation to create the optimum match with the acoustics of the room. Together, they’re creating some jaw-dropping aural experiences – and those will be demonstrated at ISE. Audio is no less affected by the progressive ‘IT-ification’ of the AV industry, and visitors can expect to see numerous new audio-over-IP products – not to mention a plethora of AV-over-IP platforms.
Those platforms – distributing video, audio, control signals and more over IP networks – are becoming increasingly commonplace, and ISE 2020 visitors can expect to find more as the worlds of AV and IT progressively converge, bringing new levels of flexibility, interoperability and scalability – not to mention security. Concerns about loss of image and sound quality have all but been eradicated.
What’s exciting about ISE, however – and ISE 2020 will be no different – is not just finding out about the latest developments in today’s AV technology. Where the excitement really comes in is when you get taken by surprise by something that you didn’t expect. To find out what those surprises are, there’s no substitute for being in Amsterdam in February.

ISE 2020 FAQs
What is Integrated Systems Europe?
ISE is the leading trade show for the professional AV systems integration industry. Held annually since 2004, it has grown to become the world’s biggest pro AV show.

Who owns ISE?
ISE is jointly owned by two professional associations: AVIXA, the Audiovisual and Integrated Experiences Association; and CEDIA, the Custom Electronics Design and Integration Association. Broadly speaking, these two bodies are concerned with the commercial and residential markets respectively. Each organises an extensive professional development programme at ISE, ranging from free 20-minute talks to all-day conferences.

Where is ISE held?
The RAI Amsterdam has been the regular home of ISE since 2007. Because of the show’s continued expansion, it will relocate in 2021 to the Fira de Barcelona.

How is the show floor organised?
ISE 2020 will occupy all 15 halls at the RAI. The show floor is divided between generic space and six Technology Zones: Audio and Live Events; Digital Signage and DooH (digital out of home); Education Technology; Residential; Smart Building; and Unified Communications.

When does ISE take place?
ISE 2020 is a four-day exhibition, running from Tuesday 11 to Friday 14 February. The professional development programme, which includes conferences and free presentations run by ISE and its partners as well as AVIXA and CEDIA, begins on Monday 10 February.

The security solutions market was valued by Marketsandmarkets at USD 257.9 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 397.6 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 9.0% during the forecast period.

The research company says that key factors contributing to the growth of the security solutions market include growing crime rates and terrorist activities globally, increasing consumer awareness and security concerns and willingness to pay for security systems, rapid development in wireless technologies for fire detection, and escalating demand for do-it-yourself and spy cameras.

The security solutions product market for fire protection systems is expected to hold the largest share in 2019 says the company’s recent report. Enterprises across the world have increased their spending on fire protection measures to protect their infrastructures as well as to reduce risks to human lives. New intelligent sensors have networking capabilities, in which a group of sensors and detectors can communicate easily through control units, leading to increased efficiency in fire protection systems.

The market for security services is expected to hold a larger size of the market during the forecast period. Products such as video surveillance systems, access control systems, and fire protection systems are implemented for various application areas such as commercial, residential, government, transportation, retail, and banking and finance industries. For the smooth and continuous working of all security products, various services such as maintenance and integration services are required. Security systems are useful only when they are properly engineered, designed, installed, serviced, and maintained.

The highest CAGR on a geographical basis for the market during the forecast period lies with the APAC region, as many governments have laid down the safety norms for various sectors; the execution of these policies would create a significant demand for security systems in the future. Furthermore, the technological and economic advancements in the APAC region are expected to drive the overall demand for security solutions market.

ADT, Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Bosch, Hikvision, Dahua, Axis, Secom, UTC, Assa Abloy are just a few of those cited as being amongst the major players this latest report on the security solutions market.

The increasing number of consumers preferring a more effective and convenient way to secure their property has caused the rapid growth of the global smart home security market. According to PreciseSecurity.com research, the expanding trend will continue in the following years, with the worldwide shipment of home monitoring and security devices reaching more than 307 million units by 2023.

The global smart home devices market reached nearly 815 million units’ shipments this year. According to 2019 data, it is forecast to grow at a five-year CARG of 14.4% and reach 1.34 billion items in 2023.

The most significant part of that amount or 339.8 million units are coming from the video entertainment category alone. However, the surveys confirm that home monitoring and security devices are the sections expected to grow the most between 2019 and 2023.

In 2018, this segment of the market recorded 97.7 million sold units. During the next twelve months, the same part of the market reached 156.6 million purchased units. The recent surveys indicate that home monitoring and security equipment like smart locks, surveillance cameras, and video doorbells will account for 22.1% of the global smart home devices shipments in 2023 with a CAGR of 18.4%.

Smart Video Doorbells Expected to Reach $1.4 Billion in Spending by 2023

The statistics show that video doorbells are one of the most common purchasing decisions among smart home shoppers worldwide. This relatively young segment of the smart home market is forecast to reach $1.4 billion in spending globally by 2023.

Recent surveys show that video doorbells are most wanted smart home devices in U.S. broadband households as of 2019. Nearly 4 million video doorbells were sold in the United States during this year, with a forecast to reach 5.6 million units by 2023. Other ordinary items among U.S. smart home shoppers were smart speakers with voice assistants, smart light bulbs, and smart smoke detectors.

Genetec, a leading technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence, has released new research that reveals as many as 68.4%­ — or almost 7 out of 10 — cameras are currently running out of date firmware.

Installing the latest firmware isn’t just about receiving new features, it also ensures that your devices are up to date with the latest cybersecurity measures.

“Our primary research data points to the fact that more than half of the cameras with out-of-date firmware (53.9%) contain known cybersecurity vulnerabilities. By extrapolating this to an average security network, nearly 4 out of every 10 cameras are vulnerable to a cyber-attack,” says Mathieu Chevalier, lead security architect at Genetec.

The research conducted by Genetec also showed that nearly 1 in 4 organizations (23%) fail to use unique passwords, relying instead on the same password across all cameras from the same manufacturer, leaving an easy point of entry for hackers once only one camera has been compromised.

Research was conducted on a sample of 44,763 cameras connected to systems that are part of the Genetec opt-in product improvement program.

Despite many new surveillance cameras now requiring installers and end users to enter a new password or admin credentials upon installation, there are customers out there older equipment that never updated their passwords, which could potentially compromise other critical data and systems that reside on their network, according to the company.

“Unfortunately, our research shows that the ‘set it and forget it’ mentality remains prevalent putting an entire organization’s security and people’s privacy at risk. All it takes is one camera with obsolete firmware or a default password to create a foothold for an attacker to compromise the whole network,” adds Chevalier. “It is critical that organizations should be as proactive in the update of their physical security systems as they are in updating their IT networks.”

Avigilon Corp., a Motorola Solutions company, announces the latest version of its video management software (VMS) now incorporates facial recognition technology.

The new “appearance alerts” capability of Avigilon Control Center (ACC) 7.4 will help commercial organizations, such as educational institutions and hospitals, accelerate response times by identifying people of interest in enterprise settings, according to the announcement.

For example, the technology can alert the security team at a local high school when a banned or flagged individual has entered the campus.

People of interest are identified based on a secure, controlled watch list created and maintained by authorized users at the commercial organization.

If a potential match is found, the user is alerted within the ACC software, and security personnel can then determine whether further investigation or action is necessary.

“Our latest ACC software delivers substantial benefits to our commercial customers by offering facial recognition technology in a secure and controlled manner,” states John Kedzierski, senior vice president, video security solutions, Motorola Solutions. “The appearance alerts capability enables our customers to move from a reactive approach — staring at a wall of video feeds where critical information can be easily missed — to a proactive approach that brings important information directly to authorized users so they can make better-informed decisions.”

ACC’s new facial recognition capabilities reflect Motorola Solutions’ commitment to the responsible use of artificial intelligence as well as individual privacy rights, the announcement states. The company states that data stewardship is integral to these new capabilities, including building compliance controls into its products to support this.

For example, user authentication is required for these capabilities, audit logs of user actions are generated, data retention periods for the watch list can be specified within the application, and records can be expunged or deleted on demand as well as verified through auditing and reporting.

Data is locally hosted, owned and controlled by the business or school. The data used to train machine learning algorithms is also thoroughly evaluated, ensuring sufficient quantity, quality and diversity to ensure high accuracy and consistent performance, according to the company.