Nortek’s Elan Home Systems introduced its first line of IP cameras and networked video recorders (NVR) that integrate natively with the company’s home automation and entertainment system.
It’s kind of a big deal — apparently the first “native” integration between an NVR and popular smart home system in the pro channel. Competitive systems from such companies as Savant, Control4, Crestron, URC and RTI all integrate nicely with third-party NVRs, but can’t capture every bit of footage, data and feature set within their own control environment … like Elan now can.
“We’re the only ones doing an NVR solution where you don’t have to open up the NVR app,” says Brian Pflum of Core Brands, the Nortek group that includes Elan and other connected brands. “Our NVRs are Elan branded and fully integrated into the Elan system.” So what exactly can this “fully integrated” solution do that the other guys can’t do … without dealers having to write a bunch of custom code … even with really good drivers or a special software kernel from the automation provider (like Control4’s SDDP)?
For starters, Elan cameras connected to the Elan NVR automatically get sucked up into the Elan home automation program for configuration and control. Third-party ONVIF 2.0 cameras also are discovered automatically and brought into the Elan ecosystem, but dealers must punch in the settings (e.g., video file format) and can’t exploit all of the cameras’ features and metadata from within the Elan environment. From there, any feature or footage available within the camera or NVR can be incorporated into Elan scenes, controls and user interfaces
