Skate to where the puck is going

George Martinez, July 8 2021
3 mins

Why I’m fired up about a 10-year warranty on video security cameras

Wayne Gretzky was made famous for being one of the greatest at one of the fastest sports in the world. I grew up playing Ice Hockey and internalizing the concept of thinking multiple steps ahead.  This translates easily from the ice to business. Anyone can build a product in line with the industry, but a great business creates something that will still be at its best when the industry changes. I joined the team of innovators at Ava Security because designing hardware and software aimed at future needs is central to their philosophy. I know this because we’ve worked together at multiple companies, and you might say we’ve always overbuilt the hardware.

I’m extremely proud that we continue to overbuild our products. Instead of building towards the necessity of today, we’re building towards what can be added and utilized in the future. This means that future video analytics improvements are just a software update away, and you can be sure the video security camera will survive long enough to see them.  By focusing on getting the hardware right the first time, we’re creating a solid foundation.  Everything else can be added to that foundation via future software enhancements.  At Ava, we’ve designed security cameras with incredible durability, quality, value, and ultimately the best customer experience in mind.

We have such faith in the durability of our video security cameras that we’re happy to offer a 10-year warranty.  This means that all of those software improvements and advanced replacements are available to every customer with an active service contract.  So when we add new audio analytics to the camera, you can experience that improvement along with every newly built camera. 

One of Ava’s earliest product marketing videos around our surveillance cameras always sticks out in my mind; our designers decided to drive a truck over our camera just to prove a point. This is not your ordinary security camera. It’s built for longevity.

Making investments required for such toughness is an exception in the video security industry. There are many instances where you need a security camera that can take a beating, literal or just in a harsh environment.  For example, we have photos of an Ava Dome Camera that was beaten with a pole during the civil unrest in Portland last year. While non-Ava cameras in the same area were smashed and rendered useless, our cameras took some serious hits but kept recording and generating analytics. Imagine the potential value of those video security streams to their owner.

Cracked camera

To get technical for a moment (engineering is what I do), here’s some of what makes our Dome and 360 security cameras so durable: the camera’s dome cover is made of polycarbonate (a plastic known for its incredible strength) with both anti-reflective and hardening coating on the outside. The enclosure also protects against water, even powerful jets of water. Plus, the dome is a strong geometrical shape. If exposed to extreme impact, it may deform slightly, but a brittle failure is unlikely.

Durability plus perspective

The true value of the 10-year warranty goes beyond durability for its own sake. To us, building for the future is a perspective. It’s about viewing the hardware as part of a bigger platform. All too often, I’ve seen hardware that falls apart in a couple of years because a team is so focused on the software and overlooks the real value of the hardware to the larger, integrated system. This causes them to miss what makes a product last and what future innovations may stress their products years down the road.  This leads to buyers re-purchasing low-quality replacement hardware because they feel locked into the software; it’s a failure on the part of the supplier to invest in their customers’ experience. And future.

We want integrators, security operators, and companies to have the best experience, both today… and tomorrow.

Finally, when you think about purchasing video surveillance equipment, there’s another, more subtle aspect of the future to keep in mind. At some point, you may want additional features. You shouldn’t have to turn off features or functionality to do so.  This has always been a clear sign that a product was repurposed from what it was originally intended for and showed a clear lack of vision on the manufacturer’s side. With the Ava cloud video security cameras, you don’t lose any functionality when adding new features because we envisioned just that upgrade during product design. 

Puck blog thumb

This means that additional sound detection, edge-based video analytics, webhook integrations, and security improvements will always be part of your firmware upgrades. No complex charts or graphs are required to figure out how to do audio and video analytics on one camera.

Ice hockey and video security may seem like an odd comparison, but Gretzky had it right. To achieve exceptional results, whether you’re an athlete, a video surveillance company, a security integrator, or operator, you’ll want to skate to where the puck is going, not just to where it is today.  Because by the time you arrive, you’ll be too far behind.