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Writing about video analytics, cameras and false alerts

Six pieces, and four of them are written to be worth reading even if you never buy anything here. Where a competitor is better than us, the post says so, because a comparison that never loses is an advertisement.
Run it on a clip
  • Real prices, checked
  • Useful if you never buy
  • No sponsored placements
02 Everything else, newest first
2026.09.13

exacqVision SSA and license pricing: what an exacq license costs per camera

Professional and Enterprise camera licenses at US reseller prices, what the yearly SSA adds, what a lapsed renewal costs, and the five year total for fifteen cameras.

cost 9 min
2026.09.10

Lumana pricing in 2026: what Lumana security costs per camera

The annual per feed licence model, what the Core appliance adds, and the five questions that move a quote.

cost 8 min
2026.09.09

Verkada cost in 2026: camera cost, licence cost and the five year total

Published camera MSRP, what the licence adds on top, and the full arithmetic for a fifteen camera site over five years.

cost 9 min
2026.09.02

Best video analytics software in 2026, compared honestly

Eight products, what each one really costs, which cameras each one accepts, and the two places we lose.

comparison 11 min
2026.08.28

Video analytics tools: what they detect and what they cost

Five classes of tool, from the detection built into your recorder to a full enterprise platform, priced side by side.

comparison 9 min
2026.08.21

Open source video analytics and the cost nobody prices in

Frigate and ZoneMinder are genuinely good. Here is the hardware, the hours and the compliance gap that come with a licence of zero.

cost 10 min
2026.08.14

Free motion detection software, and where it breaks

What the free tier of every tool gives you, and the exact camera count and lighting condition where it stops being enough.

cost 8 min
2026.08.07

Motion detection software for a webcam, done properly

A working setup for a USB webcam: placement, exposure, sensitivity, minimum duration and the zone that removes most false triggers.

how to 9 min
2026.07.31

Arlo camera false triggers, and every other cause of false alerts

Passive infrared heat on the battery cameras, then IR bloom, headlights, rain on the dome, spider webs and auto exposure. The physics behind an alert storm, and what fixes each one.

physics 10 min
03 What gets written here, and what does not

Three rules, and the third one costs us traffic.

This is a young product with no customers to quote, so the only credibility available to us is being right about things a reader can check.

Prices are the vendor's own published ones

Where a product publishes a price, we quote it and link the reasoning. Where it does not, we say quote only rather than inventing a number, and Spot AI is the clearest example.

We name where we lose

Frigate detects on a continuous live stream today and this build does not. A comparison that never concedes anything is an advertisement wearing a comparison's clothes.

No sponsored placements, ever

Nobody has paid to appear in a list here, and no link on this blog is an affiliate link. If that ever changes, it will be labelled on the page it changes on.

Reading is cheaper than a pilot. Running it is cheaper still.

The demo does the whole detection loop in your browser, on your own clip if you want. When you are ready for your own cameras, one email address starts it.