Security cameras are great at what they’re meant for: keeping an eye on your home or business. They’re great at detecting motion, then starting to film to let you know there is an intruder outside. Visual One wants to make cameras even smarter.
Visual One Improves Security Camera Function
Visual One works with security cameras to improve their function and offer more of what you really want to know. Sure, you use a nanny cam in your child’s room so that you can check in on them and make sure they’re playing as they should be. But what if you wanted to know if your child was actually climbing on the furniture?
That’s where Visual One improves camera function to give you what you’re looking for in particular. Mohammad Rafiee, founder of the company, came up with the idea when he wasn’t satisfied with a security camera monitoring his puppy while he was away.
“There were specific things I wanted to know were happening, like I wanted to check if the dog got picked up by the dog walker. The cameras’ motion detection is useless — she’s always moving,” Rafiee complained. “In fact, with a lot of these cameras, just a change in the lighting or wind can trigger the motion alert, so it’s completely impractical.”
I can vouch for that. I have had to change the sensitivity on my outdoor security camera. The flat outside our home is in the camera’s view, and on windy days, the camera was going off and providing me alerts every few minutes. I want to know if there is a person in my driveway, not if the flag is waving.
“My background is in machine learning. I was thinking about it and realized we’re at a stage where this problem is starting to become solvable,” explained Rafiee.
He wanted to do more than image recognition. While facial recognition is being done, as well as some objects, he wanted to provide more detailed recognition, such as pets or children interacting with certain objects but realized it’s easier said than done.
“It’s a very difficult problem. So we’re breaking it down to things we can solve right now, then building on that,” said Rafiee. “With deep learning techniques, we can identify different objects, and we build models on top of those to specify different interactions or specific objects being in specific locations.
“Like a car in the wrong spot or a dog getting on a couch. We can recognize that with high accuracy right now – we have a list of supported objects and models that we’re expanding.”
The following is a list of some of the specific situations Visual One can currently detect:
- Kid playing with the stove
- Toddler climbing on furniture
- Child holding a knife
- Baby left alone for too long
- Raccoon getting into garbage
- Elderly person taking medications
- Elderly person in bed for too long
- Car parked in the wrong spot
- Garage door left open
- Dog chewing on a shoe
- Cat scratching the furniture
Availability
If would be great if we could just install Visual One onto our current security camera, but that’s not possible, other than with Nest. For security reasons, third-party apps and services aren’t workable. But the company is loading Wyze cameras with the software to be bought off the shelf.
Rafiee recognizes that because of the extra $7 monthly fee, Visual One may not be for everyone. Perhaps a standard security camera is all you need. But if you are looking for something more, you may want to consider it now that it launched this week.
Are you looking for specific instances from your security camera? Tell us in the comments what you think of Visual One and the service it will be providing.
Image Credit: Depositphotos
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