Trigger Alarms With Line Crossing and Loitering, and Set Custom Alarm Response Schedules

Today, we’re excited to launch three new features that will let you specify the kinds of human activity that trigger alarms, as well as allow you to change your alarm response settings during certain hours.

Person and Vehicle Line Crossing as an Alarm Trigger

With Verkada, you can use cameras as smart motion sensors that will trigger an alarm if a person is detected while the site is armed. Now, it’s possible to trigger an alarm if a person or vehicle crosses a predetermined digital line, as opposed to simply appearing anywhere in the camera’s field of view or within a “region of interest”.* You can also specify the direction of travel that should trigger the alarm. This lets you be more precise about what kind of activity should constitute an alarm. It also helps screen out activity that should not raise an alarm, like someone passing through your parking lot but not approaching your building.

Loitering as an Alarm Trigger

Another option is to trigger an alarm if someone is loitering on your property.* If a person is just passing by, nothing will happen. But if they’re continuously detected on a camera for a user-specified period of time, that will trigger an alarm. This is a great feature for banks, for example, who would expect some after-hours use of ATMs but want to be notified if a person appears to be sleeping in the ATM vestibule. 

If loitering is detected, monitoring agents can review the video to see if the person actually appears to be a threat and will escalate the event if needed. If you want to encourage the person to leave your property, you could have agents talk down to them, play a pre-recorded message, or turn on a siren.

Different Alarm Responses at Different Times

Customers historically set alarm verification rules and responses at the site level, which are applied to that site any time the system is armed. But that means all alarms are treated the same, regardless of what time the alarm occurs.

Now, we’re giving customers the ability to set different verification rules and alarm responses for different days or times, all within the same site. For example, if an unknown person is detected outside your building within an hour of closing time, you might choose to simply get notified. But if someone is detected outside your building in the middle of the night, it should raise an alarm. When it comes to alarm responses, you could choose only to call the police at certain times or play different pre-recorded messages depending on the day.

All of these new features will be turned on in Command for Alarms customers beginning August 24.

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*Line crossing and loitering alarm triggers are only available on Verkada camera models that end in “2”.