GroundWatch: ask your security cameras what happened

Case study · 2 min read

GroundWatch is the physical security system for all of Norhart’s buildings, about 400 apartments. It runs key card entry, phone entry and security cameras in one system, then lets staff ask it what happened in plain English.

The problem: hours of footage nobody had time to watch

When something happens at a building, like trash left in a hallway or a door propped open, someone has to figure out who did it. That meant scrubbing through hours of video, then checking door logs in a separate system, then matching a key card to a unit in yet another one.

Before, we rarely had time to look. Most small incidents never got reviewed at all. Once, a dog peed in a hallway, and all we knew was that it happened sometime in a two-week window. Nobody was going to watch two weeks of footage, even on fast-forward.

What we built

Key card entry, phone entry (the call box at the door, where a visitor dials a resident and the resident lets them in from their phone) and cameras now feed one system. Staff ask a question. It reviews the video, matches it to key card swipes and unit details, and returns the clips and the answer.

How it works

1. Every door event is tied to a unit. Key card swipes and phone entries are matched to the residents and units they belong to.
2. Video is matched to those events by time and place, so the system knows which camera saw which door open.
3. Staff ask in plain English. It finds the moments that matter, follows the person from camera to camera and returns the clips with a plain answer.

Results

• 98% less staff time on incident reviews.
• A typical review went from about two hours of footage to about two minutes.
• Incidents that used to go unreviewed now get answered with a single question, even ones like the dog in the hallway that we never would have spent the time on.
• Clips and door records come back together, so every answer is easy to check.

Privacy and control

Security video is sensitive, so it matters who can ask and what they see. Only the staff members who are allowed to review security video can use GroundWatch. The cameras sit on their own private network, separate from everything else, and use encrypted (HTTPS) connections. Our software reaches that network only through a private VPN connection.

Part of a bigger brain

Building security is one part of the brain that runs our apartment business. Read how it all fits together in the Norhart case study.