Smart IR Camera

As mentioned in “Day and night network cameras” post, in order to see at night or in other situations in which there are low levels of visible light, IR security cameras capture clear images. Such cameras use infrared LED arrays to augment the available ambient lighting.

Sometimes, customers can make the mistake of purchasing an IR camera that does not fit their application because they do not know the size of their coverage area and overexposure is happened. For instance, a person’s face will be “whited out” so that no features can be recognized, making the images captured unusable for identification purposes. This can easily happen for an infrared camera with a 65 foot IR range, but the camera is monitoring an area where people can approach the camera at a much closer distance (5 to 10 feet for example).

Smart IR is a technology was invented to adjusts the intensity of the camera’s infrared LEDs to compensate for overexpose problem. These cameras automatically (combination of hardware and software) adjust the intensity of their built in infrared LEDs to compensate for objects within close distances to the camera lens.

Applications which would greatly benefit from Smart IR include high traffic areas where subjects move towards and away from the camera such as:

• Store fronts
• Gated access points
• Home entry and exit points

Many infrared cameras like VIVOTEK, RedLeaf and Hikvision that are available today include this technology, but not all do, so check your camera’s specification.