Technological trends in the Adriatic market

All respondents surveyed for our Adriatic market report were in agreement that artificial intelligence (AI) was the most important technological trend of today, with cameras with embedded video analytics the most sought after on the market. 

When it comes AI, the market in 2018 has shown huge interest in Hikvision's equipment, particularly in the case of two new product lines: DeepinView camera series and DeepinMind recorders that offer features such as face recognition and identification of characteristic features, vehicle type and color, people standing in lines, human behavior and unauthorized parking.
 
“Artificial intelligence is growing in the technological sense, both globally and in our region. The demand for these products is growing and the range of their users expanding, and now this is not only the case with security agencies and institutions, but also with the real estate sector, public and private companies and retail chains,” said Elis Hrkalović, Dahua’s business development manager for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Edge video analytics

“Most of our sales, both in the Adriatic region and in other countries, are based on highly sophisticated solutions which include cameras with integrated video analytics and solutions with artificial intelligence” said Andrej Čuraković, Regional Sales Director for the Balkans and Central Europe at Avigilon.
 
Stjepan Šurmanović, South East Europe Key Account Manager at Axis Communications agrees, saying that “as the world leader in the edge video analytics, we have made the market aware of the importance and advantages of such a solution … and partners are increasingly looking for video analytics on the camera itself.”

High-quality cameras and high resolution

In addition to advanced functionality, resolution still drives the video surveillance market. “Camera resolution is constantly going up together with growing demands and use cases even beyond security, but other security features must follow this increase. In order to have reliable analytics you need to have more processing power and good picture quality — in one word, a good camera,” claims Aleksandar Dobnikar, BDM & Sales at SONY Video Security Solutions for BT/SSY-EU
 
Kristijan Fabina, Regional Sales Manager Adriatics, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Cambium Networks, said the firm saw “progress made by megapixel and HD CCTV cameras in the video surveillance segment. Perimeter, border crossing and city security are just some of the growing trends for Cambium.”

Integration

One of the most important technological trends was the integration of all security systems and the potential for connecting with other systems in order to give the customer a single system for easy management of several subsystems, said Đorđe Bačić, Business Development Manager for Balkans at VIVOTEK. 

Modular and open architecture

Milestone’s XProtect software supports IP cameras, encoders and digital video recorders (DVRs) of more than 150 manufacturers, making it the best integrated software on the market.
 
“The products that were sold the most in 2018 were Milestone XProtect Corporate, Expert and Professional + and we saw an increase also in the use of our Add-on products Milestone LPR, Access and Transact which give the customers possibility to go beyond pure security. Using Milestone Federated Architecture (MFA) or Milestone Interconnect, XProtect Corporate can address large-scale VMS projects that are distributed across large geographical areas or across independent systems with different owners,” Borislava Kenarova, Sales Manager for Central Eastern Europe at Milestone, told us.

Point-to-multipoint and PoE switches

When it comes to communication solutions, the fact that the market is increasingly turning to IP has also brought about the rapid rise of the use of IP communication devices with a high level of cybersecurity. “The most sold equipment today are definitely the managed PoE switches. The choice of PoE naturally causes a remarkable plant engineering simplification,” said Marco Grasselli, Regional Manager for South-Eastern Europe at ComNet
 
For Kristijan Fabina at Cambium Networks, "the strongest growth is recorded for wireless solutions for broadband access in point-to-multipoint configuration for various applications in the telecommunications sector and video surveillance projects.”
 
Additionally, the identified trends also involve connections established between private and business users in urban and rural areas with internet access, video surveillance projects for small and medium-sized businesses, private users and their property. Clearly, one of the new trends are the LoRA/Sigfox/NB-IoT solutions which will provide connectivity for millions of sensors in various smart and safe city projects.