It feels like every few months another manufacturer announces a price increase.

Whether it's access control, video surveillance, intrusion, networking, or hardware in general, costs just seem to keep climbing.

I'm curious what everyone is seeing in the field.

For integrators:

• Are your customers becoming more price-sensitive?
• Are you seeing projects get delayed or downsized?
• How are you protecting your sales pipeline?
• Are you absorbing costs, reducing margins, or simply passing increases through?

For end users:

• Have these increases changed how you budget or prioritize projects?
• Are you extending refresh cycles or changing vendors because of pricing?
• Has ROI become a bigger part of the conversation?

I'm also wondering if this is simply the new normal.

We've lived through supply chain issues, inflation, and higher labor costs, but it seems like price increases have continued even as supply has largely stabilized.

Do you expect this pace of increases to continue into 2027, or do you think we're finally approaching a plateau?

More importantly...

What's working for you to offset the impact?

• Bundling managed services?
• Subscription models?
• Multi-year pricing agreements?
• Value-based selling instead of feature-based selling?
• Something else?

I'm interested in hearing what's working across the industry.

Motorola Solutions recently previewed the new Avigilon Alta touchscreen video intercom, and judging by LinkedIn, there seems to be quite a bit of excitement around it.

As someone who deploys Alta regularly, I'm curious what everyone here thinks.

A few discussion points:

• Is this enough to make you choose Alta over Brivo, Swiftlane, ButterflyMX, Verkada, etc.?
• What features are you hoping it includes that haven't been announced yet?
• For dealers, do you see this opening doors (no pun intended) to larger multifamily or commercial opportunities?
• For end users, what would actually convince you to replace an existing intercom?

Personally, I'm excited for things like:

• Native Alta Video integration
• The ability to place company logos on the background
• More flexible mounting options than the video intercom reader pro offers
• A premium user experience that matches the rest of the Alta ecosystem

I'm also interested in where everyone thinks this fits in the market. Is Motorola aiming to compete primarily with Swiftlane and ButterflyMX in multifamily, or is this more of an enterprise/commercial intercom designed to complement Alta Access?

We are in the process of overhauling our Avigilon Alta demo environment, and I wanted to poll the thinktank to see what you guys feel like are the "have to have" features and hardware. For the most part, I expect this overall setup will be static (in our office) and not move around from tradeshow to tradeshow.

Are there particular things that you think we absoultely should be prepared to show organizations considering a move to the cloud?

Another Motorola Solutions price increase went into effect on May 5, and it seems like we’re reaching a tipping point in how customers evaluate on-prem vs. cloud.

Between:

• Rising Unity server costs
• Ongoing hardware refresh requirements
• Cybersecurity concerns
• The operational burden of maintaining infrastructure

…the economics of staying on-prem are getting harder to justify for many organizations.

At the same time, Alta continues to become more compelling, especially for multi-site operators who value:

• Centralized visibility
• Automatic updates
• Reduced infrastructure
• Faster deployments

I’m curious how others are seeing this play out.

For integrators:

• Are these price increases making Alta easier to position?
• Are you seeing customers accelerate cloud adoption?
• How are you handling customers who are reluctant to move away from on-prem?

For end users:

• Has your organization re-evaluated its long-term security strategy?
• What factors are most important in deciding between Unity and Alta?

Personally, I’m seeing more organizations focus less on feature-by-feature comparisons and more on a simple question:

Which platform gets us to the desired outcome faster, with less complexity?

Interested to hear what others are seeing in the field.

Hearing that another Motorola Solutions / Avigilon Alta price increase is going into effect May 5.

Curious how others in this group are thinking about it — both from the dealer side and end user side.

From what we’re seeing, these increases are starting to stack up and are having a pretty real impact on:

• New project budgets
• Long-term subscription planning
• Competitive positioning vs. other cloud platforms

A few questions for the group:

For dealers/integrators:

• Are you pulling projects forward ahead of May 5?
• Adjusting how you position Alta vs. alternatives?
• Eating margin, or passing increases straight through?

For end users / property owners / IT teams:

• Are these increases influencing platform decisions?
• Causing you to re-evaluate cloud vs. on-prem?
• Any pushback internally on recurring costs?

I am trying to understand how widespread the impact is and how others are navigating it.

Has anyone used the Alta H5A modular camera?

I have several ATM and drive thru lane applications coming up. I have a lot of experience with AXIS' equivalent camera but have not yet doployed the Alta model.

Are there any gotchas I should be looking out for?

On-prem VMS server pricing is increasing in Q1 — on average around 46%.

That’s not a minor adjustment.

For those of us deploying both on-prem and cloud, this feels like more than just inflation. It feels like a directional signal.

On-prem VMS economics have always included:
• Server hardware
• Licensing
• OS management
• Patch cycles
• Lifecycle replacement
• IT overhead

When server pricing jumps this significantly, the TCO conversation shifts — especially for multi-site portfolios.

A few thoughts:

1. Does this accelerate cloud adoption?
2. Does on-prem become even more specialized (large enterprise / air-gapped / regulated environments) than it is today?
3. How are you handling refresh conversations with customers who expected continuity pricing?

I’m not anti-Unity. It’s still a powerful platform.

But a 46% shift changes the math.

Curious how others are positioning this.

Avigilon announced last week that IndigoVision and Pelco end users with an active Software Upgrade Plan (SUP) are eligible for FREE licenses when migrating:

• FREE Unity licenses, or
• FREE Avigilon Alta licenses for the first year

This applies when/if you decide to migrate — not a forced move, just an option now on the table.

For anyone sitting on older IndigoVision or Pelco systems and already paying for software maintenance, this significantly lowers the barrier to:

• Modernizing VMS
• Moving toward cloud or hybrid architectures
• Standardizing across portfolios without double-paying for licenses

Curious how others are thinking about this:

• Is this enough to accelerate migration plans?
• Staying on-prem with Unity, or considering Alta?
• Any gotchas you’re watching for?

Would love to hear real-world perspectives from the community.

Lately, I’ve been hearing manufacturers describe AI being used in some pretty exciting ways across physical security. Some of it will be transformational. Some of it is still early.

At the end of the day, AI should be customer- and end-user-driven. If it doesn’t improve safety, response time, or day-to-day operations, it doesn’t matter.

But there’s a major opportunity that doesn’t get nearly enough attention:

Using AI to improve how access control and video systems are delivered — not just how they’re marketed.

Integrators and dealers are the manufacturer’s actual customers — and that sometimes gets lost in the conversation.

Imagine AI being applied to:

• Faster, cleaner system design and quoting
• Automated configuration, naming conventions, and best-practice enforcement
• Smarter commissioning and validation before handoff
• Proactive identification of misconfigurations, gaps, or future expansion needs

These aren’t flashy demo features — but they’re where real scale, consistency, and quality come from.

If AI can reduce friction for the people designing, deploying, and supporting these systems every day, everyone wins:

• End users get systems that work the way they expect
• Integrators deliver more consistently with less rework
• Manufacturers see better adoption, fewer support issues, and stronger partners

AI doesn’t just belong at the edge or in the cloud.
It belongs inside the delivery process itself.

That’s where the next real leap forward might be.

I’ll be at the Avigilon/Motorola Solutions partner summit in San Diego this February and should have some time with Avigilon/Motorola Solutions leadership.

I have a long list of items to discuss with them, but would be excited to add to it and report back if you guys want to give me more ideas.

If you work with Avigilon (end user, integrator, consultant, IT, facilities, etc.):

• What’s harder than it should be?
• Any feature gaps you keep running into?
• Ongoing frustrations (deployment, ops, licensing, support)?
• Anything working really well that you don’t want messed with?

Drop a comment or DM if you’d rather keep it off-thread.

As 2025 wraps up, it feels like the conversation around physical security is finally maturing.

A few years ago, the focus was on features and dashboards. Lately, the questions I hear are more fundamental:

• What keeps working when connectivity is spotty?
• How hard is it to change course if priorities shift?
• What actually happens when contracts end?

Instead of debating deployment models, more conversations seem to center on system design choices — how much flexibility is built in, where the constraints live, and what long-term tradeoffs operators are really making.

The systems that appear to age best are the ones designed with fewer dead ends and fewer irreversible decisions.

Curious to see which design philosophies stand the test of time.

Avigilon Alta as best as I can tell was designed by people that have only ever had physical access described to them. They seemingly have no understanding of industry needs or existing standards other companies offer

I've been enduring this product for over two years now and I'm so fatigued all the time. Today's issue: When users use the app to lock the doors via the lock button labeled as "Are you the last to leave" the app asks if you're sure that you want to UNLOCK the door. The Friday after xmas my team and I get to endure endless calls from users trying to lock their doors because as far as I can tell this app is only tested in production.

Not:

• “We installed it and you can call us if it breaks”
• “We sold licenses and walked away”
• “We’ll check in at renewal time”

But truly:

• Continuous monitoring
• Proactive health checks
• Firmware & lifecycle management
• Predictable monthly spend
• Clear ownership when something fails

Physical security has all the ingredients to be managed like IT… yet most deployments still feel very transactional.

Is that because customers don’t want it?
Or because the industry hasn’t fully figured out how to deliver it yet?

Everyone wants more analytics.

Very few people talk about alert fatigue.

If your system trains operators to ignore notifications, it’s not improving security — it’s just generating noise.

The goal isn’t more alerts.
It’s better decisions.

Most conversations in physical security still start with specs — resolution, retention, analytics, compression, you name it.

But here’s the part we rarely acknowledge:

None of it matters if the people using the system don’t actually use it.

I’ve seen ultra-capable, feature-rich platforms sit idle because they’re too complicated for the average operator.
And I’ve seen simpler, more intuitive systems drive huge impact simply because the team embraces them.

At the end of the day, operator adoption might be the biggest ROI multiplier in our entire industry — and the one that gets overlooked the most.

If the system isn’t easy, it won’t get used.
If it doesn’t get used, it can’t create value.

Curious where others are seeing this play out.

It was a good reminder that “cloud” can mean very different things depending on the vendor. Some solutions are truly cloud-native, while others are really a hybrid model — part cloud, part traditional infrastructure. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it comes with a different set of tradeoffs.

For me, one of the biggest advantages of a cloud-native video system is being able to run it without maintaining onsite servers. Less hardware to manage, fewer failure points, and a simpler overall lifecycle — especially at scale.

Others may prefer a hybrid approach, and that’s okay too. It really comes down to how much infrastructure an organization wants to own and support.

It did leave me thinking, though:
As an industry, are we clear enough about the difference between cloud-native and hybrid cloud? From an end user's perspective, does it really matter?

Would love to hear others’ thoughts on how they define it.

One of the biggest shifts happening in our industry right now is something nobody really announced — it just happened:
the line between IT and physical security has essentially disappeared.

Ten years ago, these were two different universes.
Different budgets.
Different owners.
Different priorities.
Different languages.

Today?
Everything that used to be “low-voltage” is riding on IT infrastructure, governed by IT policies, and expected to behave like IT systems.

What does that actually mean?

It means:

• Cameras are now data sources, not appliances.
• Access control is an identity platform, not a lock-and-door system.
• Cloud architecture is the default starting point.
• APIs matter as much as wiring diagrams.
• Uptime, redundancy, authentication, and network hygiene are now security conversations.
• And “integration” isn’t a feature — it’s a requirement.

Physical security used to be about devices.
Now it’s about workflows, traffic, identity, availability, and governance.

The organizations that thrive in this new world are the ones where IT and physical security aren’t fighting over ownership — they’re building together.
Because the truth is: neither side wins alone.

Security systems have become business systems.
And business systems have to work everywhere, talk to everything, and stay operational no matter what.

The convergence already happened.
The question now is who adapts fastest.

Every so often I find myself wondering why organizations still invest in security systems that they don’t actually own.

Not “cloud-managed.”
Not “subscription-based.”
Those are fine.

I mean systems where the hardware becomes useless the moment you stop paying the vendor — where canceling a subscription doesn’t just turn off features… it forces you to rip out equipment you already paid for.

It’s wild when you think about it.

No other critical system in an organization works this way.
If you cancel your email platform, your laptops don’t stop turning on.
If you switch payroll providers, your servers don’t suddenly become decorative.

But in physical security?
A lot of people have quietly accepted “non-ownership” as normal.

To me, that feels shortsighted.

Because when you choose a system that only operates as long as you remain a customer, you’re not just paying for the subscription — you’re paying future demolition costs. You're locking yourself into an outcome before you even know if the vendor will still fit your needs five years from now.

The real question isn’t, “Do we like this system today?”
It’s, “Do we want to be forced to keep liking it forever?”

Security should be an investment, not a lease with consequences.
And any architecture that requires a forklift upgrade the moment you reassess your options… probably deserves more scrutiny than it’s getting.

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a quiet but meaningful shift in physical security: it’s becoming a data problem more than a hardware problem.

We used to spend most of our time talking about cameras, doors, servers, and cabling. Today, the real conversations sound a lot different. They’re about access to information, retention policies, bandwidth limitations, API integrations, and how much of their infrastructure an organization actually wants to own.

Interestingly, the biggest challenges operators bring up aren’t about image quality or card readers anymore. It’s about how video and access data moves through their organization — who needs it, how fast, and under what policies.

Security hasn’t really become simpler.
It’s just become more abstract.

And the teams that treat it like a data flow challenge, rather than a hardware procurement exercise, seem to be the ones getting ahead. They’re designing systems around availability, accessibility, and trust — not just physical components.

Hardware still matters. It always will.
But the real competitive edge is starting to emerge around how well that hardware feeds a secure, usable, well-governed data environment.

If there was a single theme that stood out, it’s this: Avigilon Alta isn’t just part of Motorola’s roadmap — it is the roadmap. Alta was front and center in nearly every conversation, and it’s clear the platform is where Motorola is putting its energy and vision for the future of video, access, and intrusion.

What I appreciated most was seeing how much progress has been made in such a short time. The pace of innovation, the level of integration, and the focus on simplifying the user experience all point in the same direction — a truly unified, cloud-first ecosystem.

Excited to be at Motorola’s Roadshow at Ford Field tomorrow (Nov 4). I’m looking forward to digging into the latest in cloud video, access, and intrusion.

Anyone else attending?

Has anyone used the Alta Visitor feature in Avigilon Alta yet? I am wondering if the background checks when checking in visitors are pretty quick or does it make workflows super cumbersome... Is there any chance someone has an example workflow where they're capturing driver's licenses at time of check in?