Video Analytics for Smart Video Doorbells – Here’s Why You Need it

Smart Video Doorbells with video analytics keep users’ homes safer

Smart Video Doorbell Analytics is a video analytics feature powered by AI Technology for specific tasks such as reading vehicle license plates, identifying moving objects, and performing Face Recognition.

The popularity of Smart Video Doorbells among Smart Home and security devices is considerably high even though Smart Video Doorbells have only been on the market for a short time compared to other products in these categories.

Today, it’s not enough to have traditional video surveillance around a home or business, regardless of whether this surveillance comes in the form of a Smart Video Doorbell or HomeCam.

With traditional surveillance methods, people need to take turns monitoring video feeds, which is impractical and comes with an added cost. Furthermore, storing large amounts of data to view only a few relevant frames is inefficient.

Video analytics was created to address these concerns in video surveillance, including in Smart Video Doorbell devices.

Advanced Smart Video Doorbell products are now powered by video analytics to keep users’ homes, businesses, and loved ones safe even when miles away!

This article will explore how video analytics works and why your Smart Video Doorbell devices need it to deliver superior home security and maintain their competitive advantage in the market.

But first, let’s define video analytics.

Video analytics simply explained

Video analytics (also called video content analysis) is a technology that automatically analyzes video content.

It does this using AI and Edge AI algorithms that process video data to carry out specific tasks – for example, reading vehicle license plates or identifying moving objects.

In the context of Smart Video Doorbells, video analytics is a technology that identifies objects and classifies them as a person, animal, or package. It can also detect suspicious or surprising activities. This is known as anomaly detection.

From this intelligent data gathered via video analytics, Smart Video Doorbell devices can generate alerts whenever the camera picks up a particular activity.  

Video analytics is used for various purposes, such as gun detection and access control,  but for our purposes, we’ll explore exactly how it works on Smart Video Doorbell products.

How does video analytics work on a Smart Video Doorbell?

Regarding Smart Video Doorbells, video analytics can deliver fast, accurate notifications, which is vital to home security use cases. 

Video Analytics adds another layer of intelligent security to Smart Homes and businesses through fixed algorithms, detection technology, artificial intelligence, and recognition capabilities. 

Motion detection features on Smart Video Doorbells utilize fixed algorithms and can automatically record activity once motion is detected. Motion detection is usually done by frame referencing or pixel matching, where any change between frames is considered a ‘detection.’ This task is not the same as Video Analytics and can be considered a basic Smart Video Doorbell capability.

On the other hand, unusual Motion Detection (UMD) is a form of video analytics that brings a new level of automation and pre-emptive action to home security. UMD technology can continuously learn what typical activity in a scene looks like. Once it learns this, it detects and flags unusual motion without predefined rules or extra setup processes. 

Smart Video Doorbell companies that are only doing basic motion detection must up their strategy to maintain their competitive advantage in the market.  

As the example above illustrates, video analytics extends motion detection capabilities and can be considered a more advanced feature of Smart Video Doorbells. It’s considered superior to motion detection as it can eliminate the cause of many false alerts, identify items of interest, and provide more detailed and helpful information.

Additionally, video analytics can accurately identify and notify users when someone is loitering around their yard, when a vehicle pulls up, when a package arrives, or when there’s any suspicious activity around the property. 

Face Recognition is a form of AI that uses video analytics to identify a person based on whether or not an image of their face is pre-recorded in a Smart Video Doorbell’s database.

Face Recognition takes motion detection (and person detection) one step further by identifying the person in question. 

If this person hasn’t uploaded their face into the database, the Smart Video Doorbell user is sent a notification saying there was an unknown person at their front door. This is a highly sought-after feature known as stranger detection.

The top 3 benefits of video analytics for Smart Video Doorbells

Equipping your Smart Video Doorbell products with video analytics (whether integrated within the camera or in the cloud) provides numerous benefits and helps your customers attain a secure and safe home.

Here are the top 3 major benefits of video analytics for Smart Video Doorbells.

1. Video analytics enables proactive home security

Video analytics allows Smart Video Doorbell users to receive intelligent alerts and notifications, allowing them to act proactively to events happening around the home.

2. Video analytics reduces false alarms

False alerts can frustrate users by generating useless notifications from triggers such as the wind or shadows. This can lead users to disable or ignore alerts. It can also make users less likely to renew subscriptions associated with their Smart Video Doorbells. 

Video analytics enables intelligent alerts and filters out false alarms. Video analytics lets users get the most out of their Smart Video Doorbell products by showing people only what they want to see.

3. Video analytics hold advantages for data storage

Because video analytics filters out false alarms and only records activities of interest, less data storage is required. This feature makes it quick and easy for users to access video clips that matter, as there’s no need to wade through irrelevant footage looking for the right clip. 

There’s also a cost advantage here. 

Since data storage is expensive and video clips can be large, storing only what’s essential allows users to save considerably on storage expenses.

Is the Edge or the cloud better for Smart Video Doorbell video analytics?

Behind the benefits of video analytics is a need for improved video storage and data processing. 

Cloud computing utilizes centralized processing and storage systems. This usually comes with a monthly subscription or payment for access to stored videos.

On the other hand, Edge computing does data processing and storage on the device itself. This is viewed as more cost-efficient, time-saving, and safer in terms of privacy. 

Smart Video Doorbells powered by video analytics perform highly demanding detection, identification, and analysis tasks. Unfortunately, these compute-intensive tasks can put pressure on the cloud, slowing it down and downgrading the efficiency and “real-time” feature of a Smart Video Doorbell device.

This is where Edge Computing and Edge AI comes in.

Edge computing and Edge AI allow data processing to occur close to the data source. This results in high-speed response times, which is essential for IoT devices, especially those performing security functions.

Video analytics is recommended to adopt an Edge computing method or an edge/cloud hybrid approach because it offers a better deep learning environment with fewer network and bandwidth limitations.

All in all, Edge-enabled devices allow faster insight from video analytics.

To prevent any harm from happening to your customer’s homes and businesses, receiving real-time notifications for real-time responses to the activity taking place around a property is vitally important.

This need is fulfilled by Edge-enabled Smart Video Doorbells and Smart Home devices,  delivering faster insights so critical decision-making can be done in record time.

Additionally, Edge computing and Edge AI reduce data access delays and bandwidth issues and make it easier to handle data compliance regulations.

Smart Video Doorbells with video analytics offer unparalleled home security

Our world continues to become technology-dependent, including when it comes to home security measures.

Video analytics plays a crucial role in protecting peoples’ properties. It now functions as part of advanced Smart Video Doorbells products, enabling accurate object detection, Face Recognition, and anomaly detection. 

Coupled with Edge computing, video analytics tasks can eliminate the need to send data to a centralized cloud server for analysis. 

This results in faster processing and reduced bandwidth usage.

Indeed, video analytics is incredibly successful in providing accurate insights. As time goes on, more and more Smart Video Doorbell products will adopt video analytics because it offers unparalleled home security.