Verkada’s AI Surveillance Tech Turns Security into a Game at ISC West

Verkada’s Escape Room: A Hands-On Dive into AI-Powered Security

User experience took center stage at Verkada’s ISC West booth this year. The company crafted an immersive escape room to showcase how effortlessly its AI-powered cloud video surveillance tools and real-time monitoring features operate on the Command platform.

The platform, for which the Silicon Valley-based company brought a host of updates, is the heart and soul of its AI surveillance architecture.

“We’ve considered all the various applications of AI and how they can benefit our customers,” said Adam Rabin, the company’s Senior Product Marketing Manager. “We’re not just chasing technology for its own sake. Instead, we’ve tailored our applications to address very specific use cases.”

Command’s latest features include state-of-the-art License Plate Recognition (LPR), History Player Search facial recognition, and the integration of potent new hardware, such as Verkada’s latest PTZ camera, which can zoom in on people over 1.5km away—all operable through intuitive commands.

Video analytics in seconds

To showcase these features and more, visitors were invited to the booth to explore them in an escape room demo. This playful challenge highlighted the user experience and demonstrated how tasks can be completed with ease and speed.

“With the escape room, we wanted to show that you can use a series of really powerful tools to find what you’re looking for in seconds,” said Rabin, who guided asmag.com through the experience.

Five minutes in the escape room

Like any escape room, visitors had five minutes to solve a riddle and unlock the door. The challenge involved deciphering a six-digit code based on three tasks:

• Finding the license plate of a car based on a simple description amidst a vast set of footage—by filtering for license plate type, color, make, and model.
• Identifying a person who had previously attempted unauthorized access to the premises while wearing different clothes.
• Zooming in on a distant object to discern specific details.

Despite the complexity, solving the riddles was surprisingly easy thanks to the platform’s intuitive commands, which allow users to filter metadata effectively. We were among the 2,000 groups who successfully escaped the room, with only two failing to crack the code.

Easy-to-use biometric tools

Verkada’s History Player Search offered a glimpse into the company’s AI prowess in facial recognition.

To find the suspect who had tried to enter the premises, we filtered the metadata for “access denied events,” selected the person in the corresponding footage, and Command presented us with footage of other instances where the same person was captured on camera.

“Our next step is to enable searches for actions, such as ‘person sleeping,’ ‘person falling,’ or ‘people arguing,'” Rabin said. “We’re actively working on supporting action-based searches, not just identifying individuals.”

Powerful hardware

At this point, we still had plenty of time left in our escape room experience. Finding the last clue proved simple.

Using a device familiar to many ISC West attendees—an Xbox controller—we navigated and zoomed in and out of a live feed of security footage from outside the escape room. With the help of Verkada’s new CP63-E PTZ camera and its 32x optical zoom, we found the final clue and made our escape.

Integrating hardware and software

Verkada operates a vertically integrated architecture—its own hardware works exclusively with its Command platform, while the platform itself supports integration with legacy devices from other manufacturers. To facilitate integration, the company showcased its new Command Connector, an ONVIF Profile S conformant client that helps integrate third-party hardware.

Verkada is constantly updating the list of devices Command supports, from cameras to alarms and access controls, Rabin said. Command feeds and data can also be easily integrated into software commonly used by corporate clients, such as Microsoft Teams or Slack, he added.

Another highlight at the Verkada booth was a stunning 15-foot LED globe visualizing real-time platform activity across more than 90 Fortune 500 companies. It offered attendees a powerful demonstration of Verkada’s global impact and enterprise-scale capabilities, all running on its cloud-based, AI-driven platform.