Keeping thieves away from The Thief

Safety is paramount. With celebrity guests and many entrance points, ensuring privacy and security is key. Before meeting us at Ava, The Thief’s teams would physically go to the server room and manually fast forward through hours of video footage to search for an incident. With cameras covering the property’s entry points and loading docks, this took hours. 

When the pandemic hit, it hit hospitality hardest. The Thief, whose bookings are 70% foreign tourists, had to adapt. Fewer visitors meant the need for staff diminished. Slimming down, the hotel reduced its team of security to one individual. This person was in charge of all security, including managing the hotel’s outdated security system and increased risk of threats in an increasingly cyber era. The new head of security needed a plan—he needed to scale, to become lean and efficient. 

“Guests have asked about our security system. They want to feel safe leaving their valuables and bags at the front desk.” says Head of Security, Werner Sveen Larsen. “It’s for safety, first of all. If something happens, we can use the simple interface to quickly see the recording from one hour back or give access to the police for a look into the incident. Before, we had all recordings stored in our server room, with one computer to search, and it was a big operation to find something that had happened two days ago. The technological future of Ava is way ahead of the old system we had."

The Thief suffered from an outdated video security system and a reduced staff. It would take quick work to find a solution that could help create efficiencies without ignoring the hotel’s previous security system investment. With a little research, the Thief’s Head of Security was directed to an Ava partner who understood their needs and a clever way to address them. The answer was to leverage that investment while creating new value with the Ava open video security platform.

In partnership with Neowit, Ava helped the Thief’s security team install 10 new cameras, complete with Ava Aware. Ava Aware is the backbone of the solution; with the ability to help scale a complex security instance to an intelligent machine learning network in the cloud. The cameras are intelligent and cloud connected—allowing for a seamless user experience that can be accessed remotely. The old system was bulky, with a large NVR stored in a crowded storage room accessed through a single computer. Neowit helped make that a thing of the past: with Ava, security footage can be accessed and searched from any registered phone wherever the security operator is.