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About project
Working time:
Since 2025
Industry:
Real estate and hospitality
The service:
IoT Platform
Overview
The customer is a Toronto smart building software company whose platform runs access, devices and resident services in hotels and residential buildings. Building operators also run IP cameras that were recorded on site but rarely watched.
The Challenge
Each building had its own video recorder, and incidents were found hours later by scrubbing footage.
1. Nobody Watching
Front desk and security staff could not watch every feed.
2. Found After the Fact
Tailgating, loitering and blocked exits were discovered from complaints, not alerts.
3. No Central View
Each site’s recorder had its own interface and retention.
4. Bandwidth Limits
Many buildings could not stream every camera to the cloud all the time.
Technology & Approach
We extended the platform’s existing site gateways instead of adding hardware, processing video at the edge where bandwidth required it and in the cloud where it did not.
Implementation
Phase 1: Design per Site
Reviewed cameras, bandwidth and the events operators cared about, and agreed which processing runs at the edge and which in the cloud.
Phase 2: Ingestion
Camera streams flow through Amazon Kinesis Video Streams, with AWS IoT Greengrass components on the site gateways buffering and filtering where bandwidth is limited.
Phase 3: Event Detection
Amazon Rekognition Video and a custom model on Amazon SageMaker AI detect occupancy, loitering, tailgating at entrances and blocked exits, and send alerts with short clips to operators in the platform.
Phase 4: Search and Retention
Events are stored in Amazon DynamoDB by time, site and camera, searchable with clips in Amazon S3 under the retention rules each operator sets.
Customization & Client Adaptation
Video analytics had to fit buildings with very different cameras, networks and staff.
Part of the Existing Platform
Alerts appear in the same operator console that already controls doors and devices.
Privacy by Design
Only events and short clips leave the building by default, and retention is set per site.
Edge Where Needed
Sites with limited bandwidth process video on the gateway and upload only events.
Tuning per Camera
Zones and thresholds are set per camera, so a busy lobby and a quiet service corridor are judged differently.
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The Results
Operators now get alerts within seconds of an event instead of finding it in footage later, and incident review starts from a searchable event history with clips.
Long-Term Value
- One video and event view across every building.
- New event types added as models, not hardware.
- Retention rules enforced in the customer’s AWS account.
Business Impact
- Security staff focus on alerts instead of screens.
- Faster investigation of incidents and complaints.
- Lower bandwidth use at sites with edge processing.
