Voices of Our Partners Partner interview

What does To-No Security do? A security company that provides security services

To-No Security (Japanese) is a security company focused on alarm-based security services. Because Central Security Patrols holds a stake in us, we are also a member of the Central Security League. Our business has three main pillars: security, building and facility management, and IT solutions. Security work is at the center, but we run a wide range of businesses, including disaster prevention equipment such as fire extinguishers and IT infrastructure. Our surveillance camera business in particular has been growing in recent years. In some cases we install surveillance cameras at the sites of customers whose security we handle, and solutions that use video are spreading, for example retail stores using surveillance cameras to improve customer service.

How do you use amnimo products? Security equipment and remote monitoring systems for local governments

First, we use amnimo products as gateways and routers for security alarm reporting devices. Security devices used to send signals over ISDN or telephone lines, but in recent years they almost always use internet lines. Telephone lines and ISDN have high running costs, so using inexpensive low-speed SIMs leads to big cost savings for customers. In addition, many stores do not have a telephone line, so the switch to the internet is accelerating. ISDN is also scheduled to end in the near future, and we want to use amnimo products to replace it. Beyond security, we also build and operate systems that connect cameras and other monitoring devices to gateways to monitor facilities managed by local governments, such as water facilities, from remote locations.

Why did you choose amnimo products? Trust in the development team and the equipment

The main reason is that we understand the development concept, so we have great confidence in the equipment and can use it with peace of mind. Security equipment is there to guarantee security, so it must keep running without failures. We discussed these requirements with the amnimo development team face to face from the design and development stage. amnimo turned this kind of feedback from the field into the design from a technical point of view before releasing the products, so we can use them with confidence.

Results after deploying amnimo products: (1) Stable operation thanks to the power supply design

The power supply circuitry is carefully designed, and the biggest benefit for us is that the products run stably. For example, many machines restart when a momentary power interruption (Japanese) occurs and temporarily stop working, which we saw as a problem. amnimo products, on the other hand, accept a wide voltage range and include capacitors, so they keep running without rebooting even during a momentary power interruption. I have not seen other equipment with this level of protection, and even if there is some, it is in a completely different price range, so amnimo products are easy to introduce.

Results after deploying amnimo products: (2) Better processing performance

The internals have become more powerful, and we can now do things we could not do before. For example, because of processing limits we could previously use only an old version of the video management system (Nx Witness (Japanese)*), but now we can use the latest version, and that alone makes a big difference.

*Nx Witness: A type of VMS, a system for storing and managing video taken by surveillance cameras, developed by Network Optix.

Results after deploying amnimo products: (3) Fast router performance

We also notice how fast the router part is. Some products are fast only over LTE, but amnimo products are fast even when used without LTE. High speed is a big advantage when connecting to surveillance cameras and handling images and video.

Results after deploying amnimo products: (4) A design that picks up weak signals, and multi-carrier support

The products reliably pick up signals even where the LTE signal is weak. Communication works as long as they can pick up even a little signal, so I think they are well tuned in that respect. Multi-carrier products are also surprisingly rare, which was another deciding factor.

What is amnimo’s greatest strength? Yokogawa Electric and high reliability

Being a wholly owned subsidiary of Yokogawa Electric gives a sense of security. When we explain this to customers in particular, many of them trust the products because amnimo is a Yokogawa subsidiary, which helps us a lot. Also, if any trouble occurs, amnimo always responds carefully, for example by actually coming to the site.

What do you expect in the future? (1) Using remote.it

I feel that awareness of remote.it (Japanese) is finally spreading and adoption is accelerating. With SSL-VPN, you have to open an SSL-VPN port on the company’s global IP address, and that port can be expected to be attacked. remote.it, on the other hand, enables remote monitoring without opening ports while keeping security, so I think demand will grow. In fact, video recorders are sometimes hacked and the system goes down, so the high security of remote.it is reassuring. We actually use remote.it when we maintain customers’ systems remotely.

What do you expect in the future? (2) More use by local governments

I expect use by local governments to accelerate. For example, with a rain gauge, all you need is a power supply and a gateway to send logger data to a remote location over an LTE line, so I think there is demand now that disasters caused by heavy rain are increasing. I think the products can also be used in the remote monitoring systems that local governments are promoting, such as monitoring systems to prevent illegal dumping of industrial waste and landslide monitoring.

What do you expect in the future? (3) Using image AI

This is for the future, but I hear that amnimo is developing an AI edge gateway with embedded image AI, and I am looking forward to it. In security work today, one challenge is the time and effort it takes to find the video we need. In the future, we want to use AI-based image processing to check only the video needed for monitoring, in a timely way, to make work more efficient and raise our service level. That is why we have high expectations for amnimo’s work to build this kind of AI processing into security operations.