12 minute read
50 years and counting
INSTALLER INTERVIEW
A lifetime in security
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This year, Nigel Greenberg of Solo Security commences 50 years in the industry. PSI caught up with him to find out about the early days and how things have changed
If you started a security company in 2021 it wouldn’t be until 2071 that you would be able to claim 50 years in the business. That puts into perspective the longevity of the career and the experience of Nigel Greenberg of Solo Security in Liverpool who this year commences on his Golden Anniversary year in the industry.
PSI caught up with Nigel to find out about how he started in the sector and to discuss a lifetime in security and began by asking him how he first got into the security installation business:
“I trained as a radio and audio engineer and was a co-owner of the recording studio at Liverpool's World famous Cavern Club (where the Beatles started) from 1964 – 1966,” remembers Nigel. “I then spent a number of years living and working in the recording industry in Israel, returning to England in early 1972. I took a job selling commercial security products to industry on the strength of having lived and worked in the most security conscious country in the world, however, it soon became apparent to me that there was a market for domestic security systems that none of the big alarm companies were targeting.”
In those early days there wasn’t a host of systems manufacturers with ranges of security systems and technologies to choose from, it was very much a case of “if you need something, make it yourself” as Nigel recalls.
“I designed a domestic alarm system from scratch and started installing them in friends’ and contacts’ homes in April 1972. Detection devices were flush mounted magnetic contacts and under carpet pressure mats which were positioned in front of the display cabinet in the lounge where the family silver was displayed. Slim pressure mats were also positioned under the carpet on the stairs. The first movement detectors were ultrasonic units which detected all movement and were a constant source of false alarms until PIRs came along.
“We eventually progressed to commercially manufactured panels by such firms as A & G, K J Bentley, Grahame Lowe and Geoff Gardiner. All of these firms seemed to be concentrated in the Chadderton area of Manchester. We would purchase plastic bell boxes and have our own logos printed on self- adhesive vinyl stickers to stick on to them.
“Who remembers tube and wire frames on windows and lace wire under hardboard to protect doors? What about window foil on shop windows? We had mortice locks with shunt switches on front doors before the advent of timed entry exit circuits on control panels.
“For those of us brave enough to embrace police calling systems, we first had to apply to be listed with our local Force on their register of approved firms. We had to be approved by the Force’s Chief Crime Prevention Officer (remember them?) before acceptance. Once accepted, we then would apply to the GPO (General Post Office) the forerunners to British Telecom for them to install a block terminal to the client’s telephone line for us to connect to. We used speech diallers to dial 999 and relay the message to the Police Control Room.
“Being approved by one of the alarms inspectorates then became the ultimate criteria as to who could install police calling alarms. NSCIA became NACOSS then, finally NSI. The smaller Inspectorates like AISC all eventually merged into SSAIB and that is where we are today.”
If you have been in any industry for 50 years you will have seen systems evolve right in front of your eyes and you’ll have fitted many of the developments as they came on board. So what innovations does Nigel consider to have had the biggest impact on the security industry? “I designed a domestic alarm system from scratch and started installing them in friends’ and contacts’ homes in April 1972. Detection devices were flush mounted magnetic contacts and under carpet pressure mats”
INSTALLER INTERVIEW
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“The biggest technology advances over the last 50 years have been wireless technology and GSM entry phones,” he says. “All of the tricks of the trade we learned over the years in concealing alarm cables are no longer needed. No longer do we have to go in and ‘first fix’ our cables in new build properties only to return to complete the installation and find that another contractor has damaged our cables. With wireless alarms we can be the last contractor on site.
“With GSM technology, we can now install video entry phone systems in a block of 100 apartments in one day without needing to enter any of the residences. This feature has been an enormous boon during the Coronavirus lockdown.”
It’s not just been the technology that’s changed over the years, the customer has also become more-tech savvy, and in some cases more demanding, so how does Nigel think the expectations of customers has changed with time?
“Customers are now much more eager to embrace advances in technology,” says Nigel. “A good proportion of clients now ask if the alarm system we propose to fit can be used with an app. Those clients who go for a CCTV system insist that they can view camera images remotely.
“High end domestic clients are increasingly asking about remote monitoring of their site by an RVRC (Remote Video Receiving Centre) where, when camera activations are detected, the images are viewed by the RVRC and audio warnings can be issued on site. They say it’s like having a 24-hour security guard on site for a fraction of the cost.”
Anyone who has spent a good number of years in the same market will have seen changes, especially in a sector that didn’t really exist when they started in the business. But with 50 years under his belt, is there anything Nigel of today would tell the Nigel of 50 years ago?
“I wish that I had had the knowledge then that I have now 50 years on,” he says. “If only I had offered to manage The Beatles before Brian Epstein did. After all, I was in the right place at the right time!”
Which would have resulted in Nigel not going into the security business at all!
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CLOUD
Chris Carter-Brennan of Conxtd
All together now
Alarm installations can involve technologies from multiple vendors so how can you simplify how the data from these systems is managed? We catch up with Chris Carter-Brennan, Founder and CEO at Conxtd, about the benefits of Cloud based management systems
When WebwayOne was sold to CSL Dualcom in June 2018, Chris CarterBrennan and his team started building Conxtd, a cloud-based automation and business intelligence system for installers and ARCs. The initial handover period with CSL has come to an end so he is now working full time on the new platform. PSI caught up to him to talk about the technology and the role Cloud has to play in the security industry in helping to simplify alarms and bring multiple vendor systems together.
What is a Cloud-based alarm management system and what does it do? This is probably best explained with a customer example. We worked with one of JCI's large retail clients (with about 600 UK sites) who were trying to provide reports on data like open/close, which sounds simple, but is actually very complex. This type of retailer has High Street stores, out of town stores, plus remote stock rooms, with each of those store types having different operating profiles for being open and closed, different times and scenarios going on. Therefore it's actually a very challenging task to produce what initially sounds like a simple "did it open/close on time?" kind of report, especially when you throw in Bank Holidays and unexpected events like Covid.
So that's what Conxtd does, we build reports and dashboards and tools like that which the ARC and the installer can resell to their clients and produce all those reports automatically. This particular retail customer is receiving several hundred emails a day which need to be sorted and undergo manual analysis of that data into spreadsheets for the customer to then try and disseminate that to their team. You can imagine the nightmares going on inside that retailer with all of the adds, moves, personnel changes etc so it meant that the data just wasn't getting processed fast enough.
The installer was able to offer Conxtd to the client and they now use it for their loss prevention team to receive reports automatically and in real-time. And because we are utilising the Cloud, we can deliver these reports automatically from one to hundreds or even thousands of sites.
And so that's the benefit of using the Cloud here, people can get information on their phones wherever they are? Yes, it will just take all the time-consuming effort out of the process. As we know, security is a very real time thing - you can't be analysing the information days and days later and then questioning the data, Cloud allows you to do work in real time and allows you to collaborate in a much better way.
How difficult is it for installers to set this type of system up? There are two aspects to consider. Firstly there's no software to download, it's all through the browser on your laptop/PC or you can download the app onto your phone just like you would any other app. Obviously there is a set up and authorisation phase so we can't consume the data without the right Terms and Conditions being signed off and authority being given to enable us to bring the data into our platform following GDPR.
After that we can talk to the installer and their end user to find out how they would like the system to be setup. For example you can group the sites in certain ways and have different levels of users, you can also upload custom data because some retailers will name their sites or reference them in a specific way and the ARC will give a chip number, so all of that information can go into the system. Once we're through that phase, the system is up and running.
We do a lot of that customisation phase in collaboration with the installer and the end user to make it ideal for the whole supply chain.
You recently announced a partnership with Tether. What does that involve? Tether Technologies is one of our video surveillance as a service (VSaaS) partners, along with Eagle Eye and Videoloft. Essentially, if an installer is reselling VSaaS then the
customer and installer have a login to that system online and they can ingest all the video and store it in the Cloud and get all sorts of benefits from that solution. What the installer can then do is come on to Conxtd and after subscribing, set up a site and in the Cloud we can connect our platform to the Tether platform.
So what that means is, if the installer is out there and he's reselling an alarm connection, we will bring the alarms into our platform and when we get those alarms, we can apply logic to them. In other words let's say we receive an intruder alarm that will trigger some logic in our system, which will talk to the Tether platform and show any motion detection video, all in the one solution for visual verification. The real benefit there is on-site the installer the engineer just needs to fit the VSaaS and fit the signalling device, there is no special wiring on site, or any special software required, just follow the manufacturer's instructions and then we bind all that data together in the Cloud and the work is done.
This means that the end user, the installer and the ARC can have one app; one piece of software that brings all of the application into one unified place so that you don't need to have two apps running two different processes.
How much of a driving force behind Cloud technology is the use of smartphones? We see Cloud adoption in the security industry in two phases. If you look at the first phase, which is where we are now, you've got manufacturers that used to make intruder panels and keypads now building an app to go with those products. They resell those products through distribution and installers and then the ARC monitors them. This means that there are four kinds of people involved in that supply chain; the manufacturer, the ARC, the installer and the end user. The current apps that are out there on the market are, based around those manufacturers, so we would describe them as being vertical - they're great for the end user and they're good for the installer, because they help them manage that particular piece of hardware.
The second phase of this is for platforms, like ours to be a horizontal solution aimed at installers and ARCs who want to manage multiple vendors and bring that traffic all together. We all know that a manufacturer can build a panel and a PIR camera etc and that will be fantastic for certain situations, but in other situations which could be a warehouse, SME or a small manufacturing plant there will be a need for the alarm panel, but they might also want a VSaaS provider separately and that's where we step in and, along with the panels and comms, also allow services like VSaaS and smart locks to all be managed in one place. The main benefit of this is for monitored and non-monitored systems in that ARCs can sell a software solution in addition to a monitoring solution for those aspects that are self-managed by the installer and end user.
The main driver for Cloud is currently user experience while the second driver is going to be all about the system infrastructure being in the cloud and helping people to manage multiple vendor products. “The end user, the installer and the ARC can have one app; one piece of software that brings all of the application into one unified place so that you don't need to have two apps running two different processes”
