Voipmodo

I hope the new Axis models causes Mobotix to step up their game in terms of product launches and pricing. The Q24 is a great camera, but for 3 megapixel needs to be at 499-599 msrp price point. With so many new options coming and the pace at which chips and imagers are dropping its time for a more competitive price. I am working with some guys in our local tech community and have been playing around with rasberri pi and arduino chips and you can do some pretty cool things now with video and access control open source. The last project was a multi door access control system with wireless Zigby communication, prox readers, and web interface for command and control.

All items accounted for- Thanks

I have currently (3) three Mobotix Q24M-SEC-N11 IP 360 Degree Cameras for sale. Cameras are sightly used as were installed for customer and then they went out of business shortly later, great condition no marks, scratches etc. and include the In Ceiling Mounting Bracket (MX-OPT-IC) $148 Value for each. Will also throw in a 1 Port Powersdine POE Injector with each camera. The N11 is 1.3 Megapixel B/W IR Sensitive White Finish Units are reset to factory condition with latest Firmware and default password. $660 each or $1860 for the lot. Note: Units do not include the original mounting bracket, just the in ceiling mounts. 30 day warranty

We installed Mobotix Q24 N11 Cameras in a small bar/nightclub and the results were pretty good. In addition we used a D12 at the entrance with 1 wide angle lens to capture the person entering, and the 2nd lens with a telephoto trained to a podium that was used to record ID's. There are many cameras that will work in a club setup it all depends on what your needs are and your budget.

Online retailers not being authorized may have been true several years ago, but is not the case now as many are now authorized sources, or are being run by security companies looking for more revenue ( I know a few local dealers who are launching their own stores online as well) . We have an online store and though we dont carry the brands mentioned in the current post, we are authorized for many and certified by several brands. In most cases being an authorized reseller means complying with a vendors price fixing setups. We carry several brands that we refuse to join their partner programs as they try to inflate pricing. Its not so much what we want to do , but the fact that MSRP MAP pricing is illegal and not enforceable now in several states so is not competitive to participate and most never can monitor and maintain compliance. Even companies online that are not "authorized" are mostly selling from authorized distributors and are a way for these distributors to sell to end users by providing the products, websites, and marketing. We know of several brands that are exploring selling direct online themselves, and a few who are selling already on Amazon under third party names or selling to amazon directly undercutting the channels. We have had to overcome a lot of stigma in the Security Market being an online retailer, but things are slowly changing and have now one National Awards from Vendors who 2 years ago swore their products should not be sold online. I may be wrong, but now is the age of the customer, they have the power to find and research the products they want, can shop competitive pricing, and sales is now about relationship building, support, and realizing protected sales channels are a thing of the past.

The s14 will have the hemispheric len's at launch and the other lens options are set for Fall. Launch is set for next week, and distribution should have stock anytime now. The S14d will have the two attached lens options, and the S14M will have the single on board lens which is designed for custom applications and hidden mounting. Final MSRP on the S14M is $1098 and the S14D main unit is $948 and the lens modules are $448 each If any installers are not already a Mobotix Partner and wants to know more info, feel free to send me a PM and we will be glad to help with any questions, or put you in touch with a BDM for your area.

There are S14 units that are out in the wild for demo units with some of the Mobotix Sales reps. We have been told that the S14 should be out sometime in June. We have the S24 currently listed as preorder as normally stocks are limited on release. Pricing is currently set at $1499msrp and street pricemay change slightly at launch. The best way to think of the S14 is a revamped M12 devkit, with a main controller unit and interchangeable lens options. There will be two versions of the lens portion, one for L11 or hemispheric, and one for the standard lens 22mm - 135mm. There will be a couple of mounts available "to build" a custom lens choice camera or you can mount the components in your own custom solution. Based on conversation with mobotix, this framework will be the basis for the revised M12 coming out at the end of the year, with it being essentially a custom housing around the S14 components. This setup makes alot of sense from a strictly Manufacturing and logistics point of view where you are not carrying inventory on cameras that do not sell often with varying lens built in, but are custom configured. This should help future proof some components as well, as new tech comes out, you only need to replace sensors/boards and the lens can stay the same. Biggest thing we are waiting for from Mobotix is the Partner Program. Its either going to be a plus for resellers, or its going to encourage more grey market sales and end up penalizing partners who play by the rules.

The brickcom cb-100ae street price is in the $130-150 range.

The Mobotitx S14 should be released shortly ~30 days. According to our BDM the price point should be around $1400-1499 MSRP with sensors.

Just wanted to give an FYI, WD and possibly other AV rated hard drives are starting to be in short Supply due to flooding at the factories. There have been several news reports, and distribution is completely out of stock currently and have been told supplies will be tight for a while. Just any FYI if you have any large jobs coming up to plan ahead and double verify stock is on hand from wherever you may order from.

WIth the Mobotix cameras you never have to pay for a license or for software updates for the software. In addition to recording internally in the cameras, you can also record directly to a NAS or file share on the network without the need for an NVR or NVR software running on the PC. This not only decreases costs, but with the analytics being built into the camera, decreases the amount of network traffic.

Thanks for the business! You get free support with purchase so you can call us M-F if you need any setup or install help. How many motion windows do you have active? Frame rate on the mobotix can theoretically reach their stated maxes but only under ideal conditions, with in camera recording, etc etc.. The more motion windows or other programmed events you have running the more processing power you are using, thus lower frame rates. The M12 is a good camera, but is limited in its frame rates for those reasons. That said you should be getting more then 6. Try setting image recording to medium instead of high to start. Josh P.

The frame rate on the M12 is dependent on the size of the image being recorded. The max frame rate for the color sensor(day) is 10fps when you are recording at 3megapixel. The night sensor (B/W) is 1.3 megapixel and gives a max frame rate of about 14fps. Those are max rates. If you need faster day frame rate, you need to lower the image resolution and make sure you are only recording the output of 1 sensor at a time and not both and using the MXPEG codec. THe MJPG option is about half the frame rate of MXPEG

FYI The Mobotix D14 is shipping June 28th and the D12 is no longer available after this week. T24's in multi colors are coming around the same date as well as the new mounting hardware and info module. Door opener and keypad for T24 are still listed as Q3 2011 so will most likely be august-Sept.

Though they may be expensive, I have installed the Mobotix Q24 Night model in a night club environment and had some good results. We used 4 Q24's for general coverage in the 2 dance floors and bar areas, and used a D12 with 2 night sensors for the doorway. One sensor was wide angle for overview, and the second was telephoto that was trained directly to the Bouncer station to record licenses of guests that came in. Iflighting is an issue, just add some IR lighting which will make even the darkest bar/ restaurant bright as day to an IR camera.

I would avoid Exacqvision like the plague. Look at Geovision which has encoder cards and an ok software package or dvr/nvr units from Openeye or others.

We have been looking for a product like this for a while now and was interested in knowing if anyone has seen any products that can do this. Before we contract out to China to have something like this built would rather source from a known brand before we delve into the products ourselves. Looking for 8,12, or 24 ports . POE Injection, and low profile POE driven receivers Mobotix makes a single port solution called MX2wire that is POE with DSLAM giving ip connections over 2 wires but looking for a multiport solution to offer. We have seen several DSLAM only solutions from Zyzel and others but provide only ip connectivity and receivers require AC power and more designed for legacy phone system upgrades and in room Internet connectivity for hospitality. We think this would be a perfect product for upgrading existing analog infrastructure to IP, Just add a 8-12 port DSLAM router, connect existing coax and at the camera end add a converter to convert the coax back to IP with POE at 30-100Mbit. This should give a POE range of up to 500 meters and a dslam only of up to 1.5km on coax or 2 wire.

Thanks, I will check them out!

From what we have been told by Mobotix in the past few weeks: Mobotix D14 June-July '11 Update to D12 with faster board. Will keep same serial connectivity options as D12 Mobotix M14 Late 2011. Update to M12 with faster board and the ability to change lens in the field allowing more lens combo possibilities. 3 Megapixel will be the standard for foreseeable future as they made a pretty big presentation that any higher in megapixel will not be beneficial given pixel size and noise at lower light. This could be true or could be just marketing hype as their boards may not handle the higher megapixel well. They are also coming out with a IP65 sealed multi use junction box with poe splitter/ switch and options for a DSLAM based board like their MX2Wire products. Analytics: A software update for any 24/14 series cameras is coming that will allow for in camera analytics for motion, virtual fences, and some pretty cool trending analysis that will make the q24 a killer solution for retail application customer metrics. We dont have specifics, but I would keep a watch on mobotix in the near future if you are involved in access control or security systems. Looks like there may be some new products coming that integrate everything via IP and poe that should be pretty interesting.

After attending ISC West and seeing the large number of networking vendors, both wired and wireless, is there a consensus or opinion on how long the cctv market will remain a separate segmented market space or will it eventually merge into general IT. With IP cameras, and Servers becoming more common, I see this as a possible trend. Our company does project management and online sales and a large percentage of our customers are IT installers and internal IT departments who are installing these systems. I have heard from customers that once management hears IP based they send the project to their existing IT departments to manage as they feel why send the project outside when they are already paying $$$ for internal staff and figure they should be able to handle it. It may be a just a fluke based on our experience, but we see that CCTV is going to be more of an IP integrator solution then a security installer solution in the next 5-10 years. Does the learning curve for IP with network and server config becoming a barrier for adoption by security firms? I am not advocating for or against a shift, but if it does occur, the economics of CCTV will drastically change as margins on hardware are much smaller in IT and cost of labor/ training higher raising the costs of entry. As we sell retail we have already seen many vendors trying to fight the downward price pressure as margins drop to IT gear levels (7-12% vs 25-50%). Many are trying restrict distribution to prevent this, but ultimately business wise is not a long term fix as a competitor will just enter the market at a lower point with the same features and drive pricing down. ( Geovision and several other emerging brands are pushing the envelope of price and feature sets already, 360 degree cameras for one) End users are in increasing numbers opting to setup and install IP security gear themselves as they already know networking and dont see a value add for a security installer. When they do have it installed I would say over 50% are using an IT integrator or electrician vs a security firm. This last part was even brought up by one of our vendor partners (IP Camera) last week at a partner conference that they see one of their largest growth segments for the future to be Electricians. Thoughts or comments?

The industry is changing towards IP, which is how we got started doing it. We started the business doing IP and VoIP and kind of fell into more and more IP Security camera products as our clients requested it. I for one personally wish there was a way to charge more money and to make better margins on the equipment. We are in a small market and if we had to rely on local installs we would be out of business rather quickly. If you think the security business is tight, I started in HS and Undergrad studying telecom and Media Production only to see the entire industry evaporate as anyone with an Imac and a Camcorder could do what video editors once needed years of training and expensive AVID hardware or tape decks. Once our customers started balking at spending $30/hr for media services it was time to find a new industry. At least what I learned in school and the experience I did have in video carries over to cctv. That was about 10 years ago, and looking back glad we made the switch to telecom and Security.

Fortunately our margins are higher then 5%, probably closer to 10-15% which is not great but normal for electronics. We stock some products and others drop ship based on cost and how frequently we sell the items. We provide free basic support for example on all of our Mobitix cameras including assistance with setup of basic features and motion recording. We do have premium support options ($79-129) that are paid such as router configuration and setting up a NAS. Once a device is connected to the end users network there is not much that cant be done remotely. Yes the walmart way is lowering pricing across the board, but when there are very few products actually made in the country, everything comes down to importing and selling for the lowest possible price and going to high volume over high prices. The only way to compete is in service for local companies, and with ADT and others killing margins on security systems, CCTV and home automation/ home theater are the only real segments left while those last.( Until Best Buy kills that market) We have not done a full announcement yet but we are working on a program that should help bridge the gap between online retailers and installers. Once launched if an end user on our site buys lets say an IP Camera. They click a box on the product page saying they want the camera installed. Once the order is fulfilled the end user info gets passed down to one of our partners in the area who quotes the install and gets 100% of the price they charge the customer and gets a percentage of the profit from the camera sale itself (10-30% still working that part out depending on brand) That end user customer is now the Installers who can sell them other products and services. We have tested this in a few markets and both end users and the installers have given us positive feedback. We plan to have the program fully live by this summer, and have manufacturers sold on the idea and will be helping us with identifying quality installers to start with.

Companies like Avigilon at the high end of the market with a direct to dealer model can control their price and availability but sacrifice market share and sames volume. While I am not sure, I am guessing they are a private owned company. Just like any other market, the larger the company is, and if they have share holders, this sales model will not last forever as stakeholders demand increased revenue and volume. Cisco sells both business and consumer level equipment and both are available to anyone with a credit card. If they decided one day to limit switches with 8 ports or more only to integrators or enterprise customers then they would lose a drastic amount of market share and the exec who suggested it would be out of a job. If anyone here has accounts at broadline distributors like ingram micro, d&h, or synnex, you can see how almost all major brands including axis, panasonic, sony, samsung, and others are sold where anyone can buy. Pricing is the same as any other tech product, your discount is determined on your sales volume. Rory you are right that there will always be a demand for low cost analog equipment. I also agree that in todays tech world that tech savvy end users can setup and configure 90-100% of whats needed for IP CCTV. Wireguys, while I agree that there is a benefit of experience and training, many installs do not require it and I am sure you and possibly most installers would be hesitant to roll a truck out to a job site for a 1-2 camera residential install and give the customer a price they would reasonably pay. This is the market who online retailers like us target. We are one of the very few in the security industry market who actively provide support and get vendor certified. Too often online marketing and sales is discounted as always bad, but I am sure there have been things you have bought online instead of driving down to a local brick and mortar. If you are worried about online sales, worry about your distributors more, as they are the ones who will sell to anyone at any price. I have lost bid jobs to the distributors we purchase from and know others that will sell to end users direct if the sale is right. I would even suggest that if you are a local integrator, to partner with a company like ours that provides lead referral for end users who do want installs, or to create your own online presence. If anyone else is interested in this, just contact us and we will show you how its simple to setup. I am not going to lie and say that we do not get a large amount of sales online, but our largest volume of orders actually come from project management and custom quotes. These only came to us as customers found our site, saw that we carry the products and were sold on our expertise and support in configuring their solution. When it comes to pricing, we would love to have higher prices to account for our overhead and support we provide, there will always be someone around to sell lower and that most manufacturer programs fail. Do a quick search for Avigilon pricing on google and even the brand you mentioned is sold online (Avigilon 2.0MP-HD-PRO-C for $2500)

one option if possible is to install windows in a container and run it that way. The problem with linux is there are several distributions and its sometimes hard to get programs running on every possible configuration. You can also try using WINE and building a container for the MXcontrol center and see if that works. The main benefit of the mobotix cameras is that you can have the camera control all of the recording and management. For best results we recommend internal recording or recording directly to a dedicated NAS and not to a workstation. With this setup, all you would need to add is a low cost windows pc for viewing and management as the PC plays no role in recording and is only there for viewing. If the Mobotix cameras are giving your setup trouble with bandwidth and cpu use, i would dread to see what a megapixel h.264 stream would do.

A good rule of thumb for capturing objects in motion is that the faster an object is moving, the more light you need to capture it without ghosting. This is the same for still photography and for CCTV. Depending on your lighting conditions, an extra light or IR emitter may be needed.