Motorola Solutions has launched SVX, a first-of-its-kind video remote speaker microphone that converges secure voice, video and AI, designed for the company’s flagship radio, APX Next. Assist, also just launching, follows the company’s strategy of offering the power of AI to every first responder in the U.S.
Converging a body camera with first responders’ most trusted lifeline – their radio – replaces the need for multiple devices. And Assist introduces a new category of human-AI collaboration for public safety, providing contextual and actionable information that’s personalised for the time, person and place where decisions need to be made.
As a converged and wireless device, SVX effectively halves the number of devices and reduces maintenance, while everyday shifts are covered with the swappable battery. Critically, the convergence of radio, video and AI serves as a force multiplier, capturing and synthesising a greater diversity of data throughout an incident for more accurate police reporting and verified evidence.
“An officer’s uniform is their emblem. Their emblem of service, of protection, of courage and sometimes of sacrifice, in the pursuit of making our communities safer,” said Mahesh Saptharishi, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Motorola Solutions. “We’ve designed SVX and Assist to combine secure voice, video and AI with exceptional quality and capability for the people in uniform who protect us all.”
SVX brings Motorola Solutions’ mission-critical communications security and audio clarity now to both voice and video. Integrated with the APX Next radio, it features the company’s latest generation ambient noise reduction, allowing officers to communicate with clarity or ask Assist for support despite background noise. At the same time, SVX’s high-definition video retains all ambient sound to protect the objective integrity of everything an officer sees and hears through the camera. Capturing dual streams through both radio and video communications, which Assist can unify in evidence, means SVX is capturing greater context and clarity for a more comprehensive timeline of events.
“Try using your everyday smartphone AI assistant with police sirens blaring; your message won’t be understood,” said Saptharishi. “Police officers need to confidently communicate wherever they are, and the quality of audio directly affects the usability of radio and video evidence.”
The power of Assist’s AI redefines SVX from being hardware to actively supporting an officer in real time. For example, Assist enables SVX to query a license plate or driver’s license and automatically search for associated records or warnings. Assist can detect keywords in radio traffic, such as “shots fired,” alerting nearby officers and command center staff while making it possible to see and hear what’s going on through SVX to support a response. Assist can turn SVX into a live language translator between an officer and a community member. Assist can also guide officers with steps to follow per agency policies, such as administering a life-saving Epipen, which streamlines incident management and follows protocols.
“In this line of work, the worst feeling is knowing a key piece of information that would’ve changed your approach didn’t make it to you, that it was buried somewhere,” said Saptharishi. “When AI can make information proactively available, instead of something that needs to be found, we can automate tasks and augment human attention. In public safety, precious time can be the consequential difference.”
The convergence of radio, video and AI means Assist can go far beyond documenting an officer’s individual perspective by collating the diversity of data from every stage of the incident, including radio conversations, officer’s location, 911 call information, dispatch records, other body or street camera footage, community inputs and more. Assist’s access to more sources means more cross-referencing and verification for higher levels of accuracy, reliability and trustworthy insights.
