Encana now has a pair of eagle eyes to watch their oil and gas operations thanks to the minds at two Northern B.C. companies.
Eagle Vision Video and T.R.U. Security's new security system provides eyes that can see day or night, 24 hours a day. And if anyone tries to sneak onto the property, those eyes will not only see the intruder, but dial the owner's cell phone and send photos of what's taking place.
"The components [a surveillance camera, a solar panel for remote power, a piece of worksite equipment in which to secret the lens, etc.] are common, that's not the inventive part," said company co-owner Cole Busche.
"What's unique is the operating system, we have our own technology in the form of control panels we built ourselves and software that takes the pictures - we can do stills or video - and if anything is alarming to the system it sends an alert to your smartphone. It sends you a text that tells you something is wrong, and it sends the pictures."
So if your assistant manager forgot a lunch box and just had to get it from the vacant worksite, you'd be able to recognize that from the photo, but if you saw images of someone stealing or vandalizing your place, you could then alert the police.
"I thought of the original basic idea, but Cole knew that [crooks] often target the cameras themselves so we wanted to solve that, too," said co-owner, Benjamin Haab.
"We can hide the cameras inside all kinds of common worksite spots and if someone does notice it, by then it is too late, the picture is taken."
The new high-tech surveillance product was invented in Fort St. John and Prince George by partners at Eagle Vision Video and T.R.U. Security - and they won a Business & Technology Award at the eighth annual B.C. Natural Resources Forum for it this week.
"It was really a surprise, a nice surprise, but there was some stiff competition, some real innovation," said Haab.
He, Busche and Prince George tech-designer Ben Knutson are the people behind the new product.
Encana is the flagship client due in part to the bombings that targeted the company's field sites in northeastern B.C. But the advantages of the system are getting a lot of attention from all kinds of industries that have sprawling sites in need of constant vigilance.
"We saw a real gap in the market: something affordable, something stealthy," said Busche. "We couldn't find anything out there in the marketplace to do that, so we went ahead and built it ourselves. The incident is recorded and a notification is sent immediately to the people who need to know, no matter where or when."
The images are higher resolution than most common surveillance systems, and have night-vision capabilities, so they have a better chance of both providing recognition of a suspect and stand up to the scrutiny of a courtroom.
It can operate anywhere with cell service or, for a necessarily higher cost, to satellite phone service.
For more information, visit their website at www.eaglevisionvideo.ca.
