The key advantages were its low profile form-factor and panoramic view, which is perfectly suited for wide open spaces. The 180-degree view was especially suitable for monitoring counters, customer engagement, and acquisition.
Kyle Caldwell, Senior Security Consultant for the Retail Division, explained, "There were several areas of consideration before we made our camera choice. First, size, we had to embed some of these cameras inside of a custom aluminum enclosure, in some cases temporarily, with very little serviceability. Second, compatibility with a variety of video management software platforms was very important. We wanted a clear and direct API/SDK integration with the leading video management systems and needed the ability to obtain all features (including dewarping) from the panoramic camera brand we chose."
The success of Sentry360’s panoramic cameras in the Kiosk pilot leveraged a second on-going deployment within Microsoft retail stores of the future. Successfully doing the work of several traditional cameras, as well as putting the entire activity of a store into real context from one single-sensor/single-lens solution is what really allows retailers to utilise this technology to its fullest potential.
With two, or in some cases, one camera per kiosk, the four megapixel panoramic compact camera achieved the desired small footprint and delivered an easy-to-install solution to enable future scalability.
Thomas Carnevale, Founder and CEO of Sentry360 explains, “The future of retail is a mesh of security, loss prevention and business intelligence. We see intelligent panoramic cameras being a focal point of brick and mortar stores in the future.”