Cisco is opening up its IP Cameras platform for safety and security applications in order to allow customers to create their own applications that integrate the company’s security cameras and analytics.
In an Internet roundtable on Tuesday, Cisco and some customer representatives discussed the new platform.
Cisco is also expanding the open IP Cameras platform  to include edge-based storage and the ability to embed push-to-talk instant connections. Video can be stored on its IP cameras with such storage, and when its 819 4G/Wi-Fi routers are used, support automated management of mobile video surveillance, according to the company. The instant connect feature allows developers to download a software kit and integrate mobile into various applications.
Analytics are also available, and Cisco said that ecosystem developers have already built analytics apps to run directly on the cameras designed specificially for communications towers, oil rigs, public safety vehicles, utilities and more.
“Our camera is not just a camera with storage,” said Geetha Dabir, vice president and general manager for IoT at Cisco. She noted that the open APIs are allowing third parties to write analytics software for applications such as facial recognition and gunshot detection.
Chad Lockhart, assistant administrator at Clear Lake Regional Medical center in Texas, said the health care facility was able to cut its costs and improve patient satisfaction by installing 40 cameras in half a dozen nursing units, reducing the need for one-on-one patient sitters to prevent falls. Patients could simply wave an arm to get the attention of people monitoring the cameras, and families felt better knowing that someone was always keeping an eye on the patient, Lockhart said.
Cisco is participating in the push for the IoT on a number of levels. In addition to its own ecosystem, the company recently announced its participation as a founding member of the newly-formed Industrial Internet Consortium and has also worked with the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST). Cisco sees huge potential in the IoT realm, and its figures for 2013 peg the “realized value” of IoT (including machine-to-machine, machine-to-person, and person-to-person communications) at $253 billion out of the $473 billion it says is at stake.
