Deutsche Welle radio about our innovative device

( Text version of radio podcast below)

There are plenty of devices which try to prevent guards sleeping during the night. There are various time – clocks, hand held high-tech tags or personal tracking devices, which keep a record whether security personnel have visited all necessary check points during the patrol. But the mentors from "Bask apsardze" - a private company in Riga have designed an ideal gadget called Guard Non Stop. The company showed it off in the beginning of November during the annual inventor’s day in Riga.

The gadget is intended especially for those guards, who spend a night sitting at their desk in security booths. Valentins Glushenko is one of the engineers behind the black round – shape device with screen and buttons. He explains how the high-tech gizmo works.

The device has diodes which blink in while and a guard has to react to them. So if there is a signal he has to press a check button of the machine, which shows that everything is going well at the post.

The standalone device can also be connected to sci si monitor 1:08 and next to the lighting diodes it colors the monitors purple. But if guard doesn’t react to the lights that blink around a minute then this happens: beep. The guard nonstop machine, which is usually placed on guard’s desk, gives a sound signal – it is a last chance for the security personnel to respond.

- “Objekts 3 – 2 -1 Trauksme”

When the alarm sound goes off device informs the guard’s boss that there hasn’t been any response on the particular post. It is usually a prerecorded voice that messaging in Latvian, English, Russian or other language which is sent over a telephone line or GSM modem. But what makes it different than a normal alarm is there’s no way to predict when a device will ask for a check signal. The device is designed to do it in randomly generated intervals. Again, Valentins Glushenko: “There’s microprocessor in gadget, which repeatedly counts up to 100 on very high speeds and there’s also electronic clock. When you switch on device it gives a first signal after certain time, but as soon as the guard will press a check – button the devices registers the particular number and along with the clock the processor calculates a random test signal.” The random checking signal can be configured appear after every 5 – 75 minutes. It will be really difficult to work under such screwed routine, but in practice this is different story.

Raivis Terins runs his own security company “Koblenz Security” in Riga. He has bought 4 such devices for his employees. He says that unpredictable checking saves his company money as there’s no need to drive to distant posts in the country and inspect guards in person.

- “Average time what we are putting on it is 15 minutes to half an hour, because even if we look on guard stationary post of course we understand that guard should go to toilet for example or have a coffee break so it will take 15 minutes up to half an ho but not more.”

Now sooner or later somebody will try to get around a tossy widget, but the problem is that it has no lock switch and the guard’s supervisor is the only one who can punch in 4-digit PIN code and change settings of device. Besides, there’s no way how the Guard Non Stop can be turned off without notice. It will send an alarm message by modem even if power cable is cut or suddenly there’s no electricity.

- “The speech stands up for me is untimed random reporting requests that I think is very unique to this product. And which is basically improve the efficiency of guard” – That’s the Balaji Srimoolanathan; he is the security analyst of the consulting company "Frost & Sullivan" in the UK. “There are other alarm based technologies proximity based reporting systems are there which fundamentally doing same job but not on the same performance level”

He adds that such device can be particularly appealing to small companies or individual customers who have their own security guards and who are struggling to keep their guards awake. Large businesses will be much keener to integrate such gadgets into their existing security systems which continue to grow.

“Frost & Sullivan” estimates the European security market revenue to be more than 8 billion euros in 2011. The Guard Non Stop is trying to get small piece of that. It is already available for buyers for about 150 Euros a piece – competitive systems cost more than 3 times that amount. But for now the "Bask apsardze" has only sold about 100 units - mostly to customers in Russia and Ukraine.