Organized in association with the British Security Industry Association (BSIA), the awards acknowledge the people, products and technological advancements that have played a big part in the security industry over the past year. The IFSEC Security Industry Awards is both a celebration and an acknowledgement of excellence of the products and technological innovations influencing and shaping the industry and security best practice. Judging was carried out by three panels of key representatives from the security industry. The Product & Project/Installation Award Panel was composed of 9 top security professionals.

Electra, the new smarti unit, combines multimodal biometric access control based on facial and voice recognition with RFID, power over Ethernet and a myriad of other features that make it an easy choice for users across a wide range of categories. An indoor unit, Electra can be in wall or on wall mounted and it has an IP-65 compliant front panel. Easy user interaction is made possible by the use of a 5.7'' color touch screen. It does not require a fan for cooling and is thus quiet to operate. It has a built-in camera, speakers, microphone, RFID reader, internal memory and storage. The TCP/IP connector supports power over Ethernet. The integrated communication ports and relay I/O controller can be used to control lights, electronic locks, alarms, sensors etc. The unit can be integrated into existing systems and networked with other ELECTRA units, other smarti models and other electronic devices via TCP/IP into a flexible access control system.

Access control is increasingly moving toward identification by who you are rather than by what key or card you may carry or PIN you might know. Smarti is set to meet this challenge. It identifies people by who they are (face and voice recognition) and not by what ID card or key they carry. The biometric information about an individual is saved as part of a swift enrolment process. Smarti uses this information to recognize a person and then acts according to pre-defined instructions that the system controller sets up. These might include saving a photo of the person in the event log, and then opening a door, turning on a light, sending an e-mail or SMS etc, or a combination of such actions.

An additional advantage of this great product is the integration of multiple additional features (video intercom, video & IP phone, video messaging, video surveillance.) into one compact device for a reasonable price. smarti® is also completely protocol independent and can therefore be used to control almost any kind of electronic device (different sensors, electronic locks, lights, alarm systems, finger print scanners, RFID readers...).

Designed with flexibility in mind, smarti can be used for many applications within: business/corporate and high security environments, for home/building automation etc.