Frontsteps HOA Solutions
Security Technology of South Texas, Inc. is pleased to announce a new marketing partnership with Frontsteps, the nation’s leader in HOA management and security automation. Fronsteps solutions for HOA and Condo communities feature all encompassing protection of residents and community assets via cloud-based security. In the cloud is stored vast amounts of data, keeping residents in the loop and assisting in their ability to self-serve, reducing the cost of employee overhead. Efficiency is improved by streamlining procedures and allowing workflow automation from a single dashboard interface. Here we will take a look at what makes Frontsteps an ideal solution for home owners associations in both condominium settings and communities of houses.
Frontsteps’ HOA solutions are a turnkey, singular answer to the needs of an HOA. The centerpiece of the solution is the centralized dashboard which allows residents to manage their maintenance requests, access documents from the cloud, and view calendar events, among other things. Email, text, and voice newsfeeds keep residents informed en masse with just a single log-in. Automated workflows allow the HOA to run more efficiently and hold on to more time in the day.
Equally important are the security solutions built into the system. Visitor management is a critical component of any large-scale security operation in a residential setting. Visitor entry is expedited with gated, guarded, and lobby-attended communities. Cars can be processed quickly and residents are notified through the system of guest arrivals. Residents manage their guest lists through the cloud using the app. If human guards are employed, they are aided by the ability to scan mobile passes and guest IDs. This logs the activity and sends guests quickly on their way.
Access control involved the monitoring of an unlimited amount of doors, entry points, and vehicle gates in real time. The software integrates with existing system infrastructure. This can include “clickers, key fobs, proxy cards, [and] vehicle transponders” (frontsteps.com) which gives another layer of security for community assets. This web-based system is backed with local storage, allowing admins to view status and connectivity of hardware in real time. Doors can be unlocked remotely and all transactions monitored. In this way, guards and admins can know who accessed a facility and when, improving incident reporting. Another high-tech feature is license plate recognition. In seconds, visitor and resident license plates are identified and logged into the system with entry either being approved or denied. Camera integration protects assets and residents through cloud-based surveillance camera integration. Again, existing infrastructure can be integrated here.
A key aspect of Frontsteps solution is “Mobile Patrol”. The fully mobile application allows security admins instant access “to patrol status updates and critical information, like incident reports and messaging.” (Frontsteps.com) Guards can give live updates in just seconds and share information for different checkpoints along a given patrol route. GPS GeoTagging assists in this process. This vastly improves the productivity and accountability of security staff as they must check in to their patrol checkpoints.
Security Technology of South Texas is happy to offer custom access control and surveillance solutions to the HOA market, designed either turn-key and from the ground up, or integrated into an already existing series of cameras.
Please contact us through email at admin@gostst.com on our website or via phone at 210-446-4863 24/7 to schedule a consultation.
Videofied for HOAs
Even as Summer closes, neighborhood and apartment swimming pools and related facilities face break-ins and the associated liabilities such as trespassing, vandalism and etc. Perhaps even more risky is the fact that in the case especially of children and teenagers who decide to sneak past your perimeter can cause a legal suit for you to deal with should they injure themselves.
We have discussed the Videofied platform before in this blog. A series of wireless IP cameras, motion detectors, sirens, and a 4G modem to communicate in the event of a wifi outage are considered the core components to a system.
This “wireless, cordless, and weatherproof security system, Videofied has proven to be an excellent candidate for a large variety of outdoor applications,” and now features the new “Look-in” smartphone app management, as well as video alarm transmission that is now faster than it has ever been previously.
Videofied provides a quicker police response to real crimes than human operators are able to filter out false alarms. This is because Videofied has what is known as a “Video Verified” system of human operators who dispatch police for burglars and break-ins, but do not summon police by accident when a stray cat or shadow crosses the camera’s view.
The IP cameras used for outdoor operations are weatherproof and sturdier than their indoor counterparts. Skilled installation can cover a surprisingly large outdoor area by using fully integral combinations of indoor and outdoor IP cameras, optional outdoor and indoor sirens, and motion detectors. Smoke detectors and a unique device called the “Outdoor Visual Verification Detection OMV-VX” are also available. All of these device link via Wifi to a central control panel, but the system can also be monitored and interacted with via the phone app.
When you are securing a pool, Videofied often makes the most sense because of the portability, weather hardiness, and the ability to do things like sound or not sound alarms, depending upon whether you want to just scare off the intruders, or silently have police come to catch them in the act. While this is certainly not the only way to secure a pool environment, it does offer in-suite access control ability through the use of key-fobs, quality video, and the quickest response times in the industry while reducing or eliminating the false alarm rate.
Security Technology of South Texas, Inc. has completed several such projects and our technicians have the skill and confidence to build the last system you will ever need to protect your neighborhood or apartment pool complex.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, please contact us at 210-446-4863 or email admin@gostst.com .
CheckVideo: Solving Summertime Pool Trespassing
Many apartments, condominium communities, and neighborhoods have community pools, often attached to a gym, sauna, or other such facilities. These areas can be a major source of liability for the HOAs that maintain them, and although they are generally locked in some way with a set of posted hours, trespassing is still common. There is a reason that so many of the videos demonstrating security products feature a clip of a pool break-in being foiled, that reason being the unusually high prevalence of trespassing. While there are a number of possible ways to tackle this issue, with varying degrees of success, here we will look at a solution that we recommend and have implemented in these settings before using gear from CheckVideo.
CheckVideo is a cloud based video hosting and monitoring system using off-site cloud storage. Using one or more cameras and motion detectors, a CheckVideo system is able to function during the day as general surveillance, providing the increasingly industry standard ability to check in on the property from a mobile device, while during closing hours operating as an alarm system with the capability to implement a siren or to quietly transmit footage to a monitoring center which can dispatch police if necessary.
CheckVideo features the same kind of analytics which are commonly employed in environments such as car lots, with software able to distinguish between a human presence and an animal, shadow moving, or other false alarm material. The system highlights human faces with a digital box and pushes that video to the phone of the user. It is a combination of analytics, the accessibility of mobile device connectivity, as well as the scalability of a CheckVideo system that makes it such a good fit for semi-public areas such as pools.
Finally, a unique feature for actually searching through your recordings is available in the app. It follows a format where the search parameters “what, where, and when” can be used to narrow down your search if there is a particular event that you are trying to locate. CheckVideo allows, for instance, a search for a “person”, in the “main entrance” between the hours of “X and Y”, which is really quite a next-gen way of going about cloud-hosted video storage and monitoring.
With no servers or on-site software needed, the ability to upgrade and integrate with existing cameras, as well as its overall usability and unique features make CheckVideo an ideal solution for security issues both great and small.
Security Technology of South is proud to offer integration of this service and custom solutions for any and all security needs. Please contact us through email at admin@gostst.com on our website or via phone at 210-446-4863 24/7