Video surveillance was the killer app that triggered the beginning of the proliferation of security cameras in our cities and buildings. The presence of security cameras helps prevent bad actors from thinking they can commit crimes easily and not be found. This does prevent crime and gives people a higher sense of security.

Today in all aspects of life, data is used to understand and improve the world around us. Data from cameras now also helps us gain actionable intelligence. We can already see this with cameras measuring traffic density and speed. Parking management has grown from closed, tightly managed garages with lights indicating free spots to more loosely managed solutions where cameras will tell traffic apps about how likely we are to find a spot. Most of this, we don’t even see it happening. Navigation apps do it in the background and save time, effort, and energy driving around searching for a parking space.

Managing Security Cameras For EV Charging Stations In The Cloud 

Distributed assets and remote locations are best protected with a cloud-based video surveillance solution that provides secure remote access to security cameras along with a safe and secure central management system to maintain the camera infrastructure remotely. 

Most high-voltage electric charging stations are unmanned and have no local human management instead, they are fully automatic systems. Since EV charging takes time, usually 30 minutes or more, even on high voltage high power 100-150 kWh systems, it makes sense to place these electric vehicles charging stations near malls or places where people can use the wait time productively. Many people use EV chargers on longer drives and road trips and will get off the highway to these EV charging points. On a road trip, we typically take more valuables with us, and the risk of break-ins is significantly higher than in a normal parking lot. Keeping EV charging stations secure is one of many aspects of why we need security cameras in these areas; however, there are additional reasons.

Electric vehicle charging stations are often vandalized with for political reasons and for profit by people trying to steal copper. Last EV charging station operating companies want to ensure the parking slots are being used by their intended constituency, and by getting an ROI from loading cars. EV stations at malls are often used by frivolous non-electric car owners who just choose spots close by as convenient parking spots. 

This begs the question if it wouldn’t be best to put electric car charging stations a bit farther away from the stores to prevent this behavior. The cost of running electric wiring and long ditches makes this economically not feasible. As a society, we want to give some advantages to electric vehicles, at least for the next years, to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles. While we know electric vehicles alone will not fix the climate crisis, we do know transportation causes 27% of GHG (Greenhouse Gas Emissions) and is one of the largest producers of CO2 in an area where we can make a difference, by substituting fossil fuel energy with electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind.

Security cameras and license plate recognition can help identify vehicles in such a category and recognize regular offenders to prompt local police to issue citations or tow offending vehicles that abuse EVcharging stations spots.

Next, we’ll outline some key reasons why it makes sense not to create a proprietary security system for EV-Charging equipment companies but to purchase and manage physical security equipment separately with a tried and true platform.

First and foremost, it is not good to be locked into any single camera vendor's solution. Short-term, from a capital expenditure point of view, there may be important savings when in a project, there is the freedom to choose between different brands. Long-term, this will also have an effect on maintenance and support, contracts with monitoring, security, and even the possibility to interconnect with Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA). 

IPTECHVIEW provides an easy, secure remote monitoring and management platform, including the ability to update camera firmware, load and update camera AI applications and configurations, and allow one-on-one remote camera viewing and tweaking, which is important with applications like LPR (License Plate Recognition). Manual setup or adjustment of video detection areas, aperture settings, and other adjustments are often needed. Determinations on lighting at night and repositioning of cameras also typically have to be done on a one-by-one basis. A secure remote management tool like IPTECHVIEW becomes instrumental for the long-term management of this type of installation.

Layer 2 connectivity to the cameras is usually easy since EV systems usually have good broadband. Still, the reality is that it’s best to separate systems more and leave security monitoring operating on a separate subnet and manage it through a separate organization versus combining it all into one in-house EV management system.  

Cost and time to market will be better, and deployments will accumulate all benefits from prior experiences. A dedicated nationwide support network that is task-specific and nationwide will have huge operational management advantages. 

The same goes for tier-1 monitoring of the parking areas and EV charging stations. It’s best to leverage large national monitoring companies that integrate IP TECHVIEW-enabled cameras from leading nationwide brands like AXIS, MOBOTIX, and other NDAA-compliant cameras supported natively. 

IPTECHVIEW is also unique in that it is not a single vendor solution but offers access to a wide range of camera manufacturers. It is possible to choose the next camera for each purpose and mix and match brands to form the right security solution. I.G. Axis PTZ, outdoors and ATM style cameras, MOBOTIX super high durable and intelligent M73 day, night cameras with in-camera LPR software or more cost-effective models and brands depending on site requirements. The main point is that there is a wide variety of compatible equipment that offers excellent remote management capability. It also doesn’t end with the cameras. The platform also manages wired and wireless routers and PoE switches, providing a complete infrastructure management solution that includes remote rebooting of any of the PoE ports.

Last but not least, IPTECHVIEW has established a supply chain to provide complete pre-configured systems, including LTE routers, wired routers, switches, and all cameras that can be drop shipped ready to install, and also has established relationships with both leading individual security integrators for more custom installations as well as nationwide wiring and integration partnerships large standardized deployments.

Nationwide physical maintenance, standardized security and response protocols, SOPs, connections with monitoring and law enforcement, relationships with EV-Charging equipment manufacturers, A & E, and projects management can all be leveraged to produce an ever safer environment, better results, tighter integrations, and more and more cost-efficient solutions.