Transcript:

Welcome to the last Your Security Survival Guide for 2024.
We may even just make this the end of
season one, if we’re being honest.
We’ll just do one per year.
It sounds like a good plan to me.
We’ll just do this a quick one today.
We’re testing out a new audio system and our audio recorder, so that would be good for us.
And today we’ll talk a little bit about
PA systems and how they work into your
security for your buildings or even your
home.
Really, if you wanted to do PA systems for your home, if you have a nicer home, that’s more of an okay.
You can actually have it do a bunch of audio stuff.
So you can have it be your full stereo system, plus also the security side of the PA system.
So let’s just cover that, I guess, real
fast.
What actually can you do with your PA system, public address system, that is supporting your security system?
So the first thing really is that the PA
system allows for us to do automated
voice calls.
So things that we want the audio to play if a certain triggers hit.
Because keep in mind that with security, we do a lot of automation as well too.
So we can tie these things all together.
So for example, if you have a car yard,
which is something that we do a lot of,
and somebody walks into the front yard
during the daytime and one of the motion
sensors pick them up one of the cameras
pick them up, we can have the audio then
play, welcome to such and such car yard,
have a look around, we’ll be with you
here shortly, and we’ll come in.
And at that point, we can have a bunch of other things too.
It could actually trigger to an alert inside so that people can actually know something is going on there and that somebody needs help.
You can have it send an e-mail, a bunch of different things.
And then let’s say at nighttime, that same exact PA system, once the system’s armed, somebody walks into the front yard.
Because again, a lot of these car yards are unfenced yards.
People can just walk through them.
But even if it’s a rear yard, somebody walks through it, triggers a motion sensor.
The PA system can then come on and go, hey, you’re under video surveillance.
The police have been notified, blah, blah, blah, whatever you want it to say, right?
Now we are finding that in this day and
age that the automated ones are a little
bit more set up friendly and they’re less
human error specific.
So we used to back in the day do more customized audio.
So the control room would bring up the cameras.
Then they would say, okay, hey, you in the red hoodie, we need you to move along, that kind of stuff.
But as people are starting to save money
and consolidate lines for monitoring to
larger control rooms, so there’s not a
bunch of as many small private control
rooms with just a few 100 lines, we’re
now talking about control rooms that get
thousands and thousands of lines and, you
know, thousands upon thousands of alarms
every night.
So the automated one allows there to be less downtime.
So you’re not waiting for a human to come in and say something.
You’re just going through and it’s just
triggering on its own, right?
So somebody walks in, it says, hey, you’re under video surveillance, this is a restricted area, you need to leave.
That sends the alarm to the control room.
The control room can then check the cameras, and then the control room can then call the police directly.
So we’ve removed that entire section of
time it takes for the control room to
spend time looking at the cameras, try to
figure out exactly what to say.
They’re humans, middle of night, adrenaline.
I’ve been there.
I used to be a control room operator.
And then decide.
So instead, they go, okay, perfect.
This has been triggered.
That PA has gone off.
Now we’re going to just call the police and let them know to go, and then they’ll call the client afterward and say, hey, we’ve had this on the police to your site, that kind of stuff.
It’s all a little bit more automated that way.
So you lose, nowadays, you lose a little
bit of the personalized message on the
audio, but you’re getting a much quicker,
consistent result on the audio as it goes
through.
So all in all, that is definitely a better system for that.
Now the other things you can use the PA system for is obviously for audio.
So we can talk about like you can have a
car yard again or home and you can
actually put in a smart, some sort of
smart audio player and then push the
audio out.
So you can have music playing, you can
have a, put like a radio station through
or Spotify, something like that to where
you’re actually getting more ROI from the
PA system than you would be if it had
just been a PA system with like horn speakers.
If we do it this way, you also get better quality on the audio for the audio blast for when people walk and trigger the alarms as well too.
Old school horn speakers for like PA systems were really kind of muffled.
They weren’t for quality, it was more for like noise, where right now we can get a bunch of quality and volume together.
We’re seeing a big push recently for IP-based speakers.
So they’re almost like smart speakers
that connect to your network and actually
go back that way.
So that way we’re not having to run twin
cable or like figure 8 cable if you’re
cheap to get the speakers to run, which
then has its own innate flaws.
You need an amp.
You need to have it make sure it’s run in a very clean area so you’re not crossing lighting or power.
There’s a lot of things to go to.
Where the new IP modules, basically you plug them in.
to your network.
They get POE from your switch so that you’re not running power to them either.
It’s just the Cat6 to the speaker.
And then a lot of them are smart.
They can actually have the audio loaded
directly into the speaker as well too, so
that you can actually change what it says
and customize what it says when something
happens, which is very cool.
So you have the PA system.
which will do the audio blast on emergencies or break-ins or any sort of alarm.
And or even visitors, if you want it to be like, hey, thank you for visiting our showroom, we’ll be with you in a second, right?
You could have it do that as well too.
You have the music playing, so you have the ability to have smart speakers that can play audio throughout your property.
And then the third one on top of that is
you can have it with sequencing from the
automation system.
So whether it’s you’re using the alarm
system like an Inception or a Protege or
a Gallagher, or you’re doing something
like a Control4 or a home automation
system that’s less security but more just
automation, you can do things like
schedules.
So if you have staff working on site and
they have a set time where they go
through and take lunches or they have
Smoko or any sort of breaks, you can do
that.
You can have a tone play for that.
You can have it do tones for, or it could
be tones or voiceover, but have tones for
things like fire alarms or any sort of
like emergency spills, things like that.
And then also you can use it as a straight public address system, which is what it’s for normally.
So you could be like, hey, John, I need you to come to the reception area.
We have a client here that needs to speak with you.
And then you can do that through.
So all this kind of runs through that PA
system, which from our end in the
security, we actually provide that as one
of our services that integrates with the
security.
So yeah, a PA system is actually a great
set of technology that you can use to add
value to your existing alarm system.
Or if you’re putting in a new alarm
system, that may be the time to actually
get it in there, especially if we’re
running Cat 6 for things like cameras and
alarm system stuff, which a lot of this
Cat 6 now, which is your Ethernet for
your internet type stuff.
Do it all at the same time.
Save money on the cabling.
If you have to, if it’s an upfront cost problem, talk to your security provider.
We provide a lot of financing so you can
actually get something you want and then
pay it OPEX over time instead of having
to get it all up front right away.
Yeah, but that’s a good way to kind of
include something that adds value to your
system that you would use on a daily
basis.
A lot of the times, a lot of the security stuff, it kind of goes unnoticed.
You arm it every night.
You disarm it every day.
360 days out of the year, it does nothing, right?
So that you can see, even though it’s doing stuff in the background, where in an audio system, you’re playing music through it every day.
You’re doing the audio blasts every time somebody walks into the property.
You’re doing welcome messages every time somebody walks into the property.
You’re doing bells for breaks, that kind of stuff.
You can be doing voiceovers that says,
hey, the gym is closing in 10 minutes,
that kind of stuff, or your store is
closing in 10 minutes, we need to move to
the cash register, you can automate all
of that, so it just happens automatically
and you don’t need to do it manually
anymore.
So if you do have any questions about any of that stuff, always reach out and I’m happy to talk to anybody about all this stuff because I’m a big…
tech nerd and a big security nerd and an automation nerd.
So by all means, reach out.
I’d love to have a chat with you, be able
to kind of go have a one-on-one to figure
out what works best for your solution,
because designing system is kind of what
I like to do.
So perfect.
Anyways, you guys all have a very lovely
New Year’s, and we’ll start season 2 of
your Security Survival Guide when we get
back.
And keep in mind, you shouldn’t ever need to feel unsafe.
We’re here to make sure that never happens.
So if you are feeling unsafe or insecure, reach out.
We’ll be happy to help you.
All right, guys, have a great, great New Year’s.
Bye.