Prism and Axis Communications entered into partnership Monday to bring an all-in-one IoT-managed video and analytics solution to retail customers. Retailers will now have access to the Prism suite of software directly through the new AXIS M30 line of cameras, one of the most widely adopted camera offerings in the retail space.
The AXIS M30 Series is priced starting at $199, and supports the full Prism platform, including heat and pathmapping, counting, traffic mapping and dwell. Prism combines insightful visualizations of store data with unique privacy-protection features that enable cameras to gather meaningful information without infringing on customer privacy.
To keep brick-and-mortar stores competitive and increasingly profitable, retailers need a new way to match the adaptive, data-driven flexibility of their e-commerce counterparts and competitors, and the Internet of Things has generated the opportunity. IOT has encouraged a new technical mindset for connected stores as well as a renewed enthusiasm for extracting, aggregating, and synthesizing all types of data from the sensors that arereadily available in-store — and with it, brick-and-mortar businesses can achieve the data-driven competitive edge they need.
In order to make every brick-and-mortar store as adaptive as its online counterpart, two things are needed in real-time: visual access and actionable data on what’s happening inside the space. Perhaps more surprisingly, there’s one answer for both of these requirements — video. Video cameras have generally been costly, siloed tools for reducing shrink that eat up bandwidth when remotely accessed, and rarely produce a valuable clip in the thousands of hours of footage they collect. But in part through Prism, security cameras are being reimagined as IoT devices that harness the visual and analytical data trapped within video.
Smart video summaries of activity and key events — coupled with contextual traffic pattern data — enable retailers to finally get the answers that their visual merchandising, marketing, and store operations teams need. When those summaries and insights are extracted across hundreds or thousands of cameras without monopolizing bandwidth, retail teams can access those key answers for a national or global set of connected stores.
Additionally, these visual insights provide the baseline framework for cameras essential to making them higher-value, visual IoT data sensors, thereby combining real-time, insight-rich visual summaries and an IoT platform that makes these sensors essential to retailers competing with e-commerce insights.
“Cameras have a view into virtually everything that’s happening within a store,” said Bob Cutting, Co-founder and COO at Prism. “Which is why retailers are demanding camera platforms that can extend beyond security to deliver relevant data across multiple departments and functions. The Prism-enabled Axis cameras offer cost effective, camera-to-cloud connectivity, and drastically expand data collection and insights for any store.”
“Retailers move quickly and don’t always have time to deal with complex technology decisions,” said Hedgie Bartol, Business Development Manager, Retail, Axis Communications. “This partnership is a win for customers because it combines cost-effective and easy-to-install hardware with award-winning software that extends surveillance cameras into multiple retail functions and also unlocks new value for retailers.”
Several brands have deployed Prism to augment loss prevention, operations and visual merchandising efforts using the data gathered by store cameras and visual sensors. In addition, Prism will also be rolling out a lightweight visual merchandising solution that will be accessible on earlier models of Axis cameras leveraging ARTPEC processors.
These new features, including Prism’s remote visual access, are made possible through the AXIS Camera Application Platform (ACAP), which enables Application Development Partner (ADP) members to develop applications for the Axis network of devices.
