The Detektor International Award ceremony was held at the Skydd-dinner at Stockholmsmässan in Stockholm yesterday evening. The twelve products awarded as finalists were chosen on the basis of both innovation and customer orientation. Sony won the Best CCTV product award, HID won the award for the Best Access control product and Cias won the award for the Best alarm and detection product.
The Detektor International Award was introduced in 2000 to reward manufacturers of products and services that stand up to the criteria of outstanding innovation and contribution to the advancement of the security industry. The Detektor International Award is an independent prize and as such companies cannot nominate their own products. Instead, the nomination is conducted by the editorial board of Detektor. This selection criteria is the main reason why it has become one of the most prestigious awards in the global security market.
The jury consists of nine members from three continents: Europe, Asia and America. The criteria for a product to be nominated for a Detektor International Award encompasses not only the technical solution but also the packaging and over all presentation of the product, which actually could equally as well be a service. The three product categories for the awards are Access Control, Alarm and Detection, and CCTV. The overall winner in each category received the award for “Best Product”, the second received the “Highly Commended Award” and third place winners were presented with the “Innovative Achievement Award”.

The Access Control category
The "Best Product Award" in the Access Control category went to HID from the USA for its Iclass SE Readers, multi-functional readers which can be updated with software in order to meet the demands for different card technologies such as EM, Mifare, Desfire, HID Prox, Indala, Iclass, etc.
“These multifunctional readers demonstrate HID’s commitment to taking access control to new heights based on customer demand”, declared the panel of judges as the motivation for selecting the Iclass SE Readers as the overall winner in the Access Control category.
The "Highly Commended Product Award" was awarded to Assa from Sweden for the UDC500I, a gateway unit and an intelligent connection terminal block. It allows a Hi-O door environment to be connected to a traditional non-Hi-O access system (integration with access control systems from other manufacturers).
The "Innovative Achievement Award" in the Access Control category this year was shared by Suprema from South Korea – for Facestation, an IP based biometric access control terminal featuring facial recognition technology which identifies individuals from their facial image features with a matching speed of less than one second – and Idesco from Finland – for The Aesco module, part of the The Aesco package, which is the industry’s first card-reader-host encryption solution.

The Alarm & Detection category
The "Best Product Award" in the Alarm and Detection category went to Cias Elettronica from Italy, for the Sioux, a fence mounted perimeter intrusion detection system which comprises a multitude of mems type tri-axial accelerometer sensors. The motivation of Detektor International’s panel of judges was: “Sioux marks a giant leap in today’s modern technology for fence mounted perimeter intrusion detection systems”.
The "Highly Commended Product Award" in the Alarm and Detection category was given to Tyco from the US for Visonic Powermaster-30 G2, a wireless alarm panel with PowerG technology. The system can handle some 120 wireless detectors with 64 groups, 32 control panels, 8 sirens and 4 radio repeaters.
The Alarm and Detection "Innovative Achievement Award" was shared by Optex from Japan – for the Redwall detector bundled with PIE-1 Alarm IP Encoder, an encoder which provides the dual functions of PoE power delivery to remote Optex devices and conversion of alarm signals to an IP protocol for delivery to video management systems or network video recorders – and Risco Group from Israel for its Wireless Video Verification.

The CCTV category
The "Best Product Award" in the CCTV category went to Sony from Japan for the Ipela Engine, an integrated signal processing system for high picture quality. It is capable of the industry’s first 130dB wide dynamic range in full HD quality at 30 fps. The shooting of high-resolution images in full HD (1920x1080) is now possible through high-speed recording at 60 fps, double that of the standard number of frames until now. This choice, by Detektor International's panel of judges, was explained by the following motivation: “Ipela Engine is the outstanding highlight of video surveillance products in 2012. A sensational improvement of picture quality and an essential contribution to image usability”.
The "Highly Commended Product Award" in the CCTV category was given to Axis from Sweden for the Axis Camera Companion, a video surveillance solution for small systems up to 16 cameras. All video is recorded on SD memory cards in the cameras. No central DVR, NVR, PC or server is necessary – making each camera an independent video recording device.
The "Innovative Achievement Award" of the CCTV category was shared by Merit Lilin from Taiwan – for VD022, a real-time video decoder used for decoding H.264 streaming from full HD IP cameras and NVR’s cameras. It enables full screen or quad viewing of HD IP cameras streamed directly to a monitor without a PC – and Raytec from the UK, for Vario, a LED lighting solution for CCTV systems with interchangeable lensing and hot-spot reduction technology.