dedicated to perimeter safety and security
January 2026 Issue
SmartPerimeter.ai begins 2026 with a powerful focus on what’s breaking—and what’s finally working—across borders, supply chains, and critical infrastructure.
You won’t want to miss our exclusive interview with retired U.S. Border Patrol agent Jason Thompson. Plus, features on logistics, manufacturing, and a fresh look at solar power’s growing role at the perimeter.
Read on, our 2026 prediction is for Chaos, and smartPerimeter.ai will help you manage through it.
Featured This Month:
- Exclusive Border Agent Interview: What border agents actually rely on for complex identity missions under pressure.
- Trends – The Year of Chaos: Why 2026 will be defined by instability—and why perimeter control is becoming an operational necessity.
- ISC West smartPerimeter.ai Education Sessions Announced: Our first dedicated perimeter safety and security education sessions at ISC West were developed in partnership with ISC and SIA.
- Logistics and Supply Chain Security: How organized crime exploits weak handoff points, and what shuts down repeat cargo theft.
- Critical Manufacturing Security: Why the first breach is physical—and how perimeter incidents now drive policy, enforcement, and operational change.
- Solar Power at the Perimeter: How solar has become the standard for remote, temporary, and high-risk security deployments.
- Product Focus: Altronix’s NetWay Spectrum: Solving the hidden breakpoints in remote security sites—power loss, distance limits, and costly maintenance.
- Barriers & Gates: Commercial gate operators, wedge barriers, and access control built for real perimeter environments.
- Boon Edam on Designing Security: One perimeter failure can shut down an entire building—how entrance design now drives risk, liability, and control.
For the Vendors: Submit your products for our Best of ISC West Review
- Best of ISC West 2026: Now accepting nominations for standout perimeter security products and solutions. Due February 1, 2026.
Industry News keeps you current with important perimeter safety and security announcements.
SMART DISCUSSIONS WITH SMART PEOPLE
Exclusive Interview: Border Patrol Agent Shares Perspectives on Identity and Biometric Tactics
At the U.S. border, identity is rarely confirmed with a passport or travel document. More often, it is established in seconds, under pressure, with limited information—and high consequences. In these encounters, biometric technology becomes the frontline truth-finder, separating assumption from verification.
That reality is well understood by Jason Thompson, a retired U.S. Border Patrol agent with more than 25 years of field experience. Now a subject-matter expert in biometric identity and border-security technology, Thompson brings a practitioner’s perspective to how identity is established when traditional documentation is absent.
“A person attempting to enter the U.S. while concealing their identity does not carry travel documents,” Thompson explains. “As a result, Border Patrol agents rely on biometrics to determine who they have encountered. Fingerprints remain the gold standard for establishing identity. While face and iris capture are in use today and rapidly expanding, fingerprints still deliver the most mature and reliable identity match.”
“Fingerprints remain the gold standard for establishing identity. While face and iris capture are in use today and rapidly expanding.”
Identity Matching at Scale: From the Border to the Database
Thompson notes that frontline biometric matching is powered by IDENT—the Department of Homeland Security’s Automated Biometric Identification System—which contains more than 350 million biometric identity records. Now transitioning to HART (Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology), the system supports national security, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, and border-management operations across every U.S. air, land, and sea port of entry.
At the point of inspection, a traveler’s authorized identity—whether fingerprint, facial image, or iris—is compared against government-verified IDENT/HART records and linked to trusted credentials such as passports or visas. The process is designed to be fast, accurate, and largely invisible to compliant travelers.
Thompson illustrates this with a familiar example:
“If you step off a cruise ship returning from Cozumel, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can quickly verify your identity using a facial image,” he explains. “It confirms you are who you claim to be using a combination of information already provided—by the traveler and by the cruise line—such as passport or visa photos.”
Because cruise operators are required to submit passenger data to U.S. Customs and Border Protection before arrival, CBP can begin the inspection process well before a passenger ever sets foot on shore, illustrating how pre-arrival data and biometrics converge to streamline border operations.
When Identity Is Uncertain or Intentionally Concealed
While the vast majority of border encounters involve lawful, cooperative, and credentialed travelers, Thompson emphasized that biometrics become mission-critical when identity is unclear, incomplete, or deliberately obscured. In those moments, officers are not confirming who someone claims to be—they are determining who they actually are.
Drawing from his field experience, Thompson identified several recurring patterns where biometric systems proved essential:
Deceptively Providing False Information to Cross
Individuals may intentionally provide false personal details or claim a different nationality to manipulate enforcement outcomes. In earlier years, this tactic was commonly used to trigger faster returns to neighboring countries rather than removal to a true country of origin, allowing individuals to attempt reentry repeatedly.
International Biometric Information Sharing
Biometric data sharing with partner nations extends the U.S. border beyond its physical boundaries. By identifying known or suspected threats overseas, the U.S. can prevent individuals from ever reaching a port of entry, shifting border security from reactive to preventive.
Intentional or Incidental Biometric Degradation
In some cases, individuals deliberately damage their fingerprints—through burning or disfigurement—to evade identification. In others, years of manual labor, such as masonry or construction work, naturally wear fingerprints down to the point that collection becomes unreliable, increasing reliance on multimodal biometrics.
Drone-Enabled Border Evasion
Transnational criminal organizations increasingly use drones to scout patrol movements and terrain, enabling coordinated smuggling operations. These tactics require integrated counter-UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) and situational-awareness technologies to disrupt surveillance advantages.
Human Smuggling Concealment in Vehicles
Smuggling operations often exploit commercial trucks and cargo vehicles. Thompson noted that advanced scanning and detection technologies could prevent tragedies by identifying concealed individuals before vehicles reach populated areas or checkpoints.
While the final two bullets reference drones and human smuggling, they remain relevant to an identity-centric narrative because they illustrate the deliberate avoidance of identity verification. These scenarios highlight how adversaries attempt to bypass biometric and identity systems altogether, underscoring the importance of layered border technologies that ultimately re-enable identity resolution once individuals are detected or intercepted.
Establishing Identity Under Operational Pressure
Ultimately, Thompson’s perspective underscores a fundamental truth of modern border operations: identity is not established in ideal conditions. It is determined quickly, often with incomplete information, and under real operational pressure. In those moments, layered biometrics, trusted data sharing, and mature identity systems are not simply technologies—they are decision tools.
As threats evolve and tactics adapt, the ability to confidently answer a single question—who is this person—remains central to protecting borders, travelers, and national security.
TRENDS
Prediction for 2026: Chaos
I’m not going to bury you under a dozen predictions so I can cherry-pick the one I get right next December. I’ll make just one.
The word of the year for 2026 will be chaos.
Last year’s fashionable buzzword—AI Spam—was noisy, trendy, and mostly annoying. Chaos, on the other hand, is operational. It’s security-centric. And it’s already here. You don’t need a think tank report to see it. Chaos is playing out in real time, across markets, politics, infrastructure, labor, and everyday operations. Building a coherent risk assessment, a rational security policy, or a durable operating model now borders on impossible—not because leaders lack intent, but because the ground keeps shifting under their feet.
There’s a hard lesson history keeps teaching: once societal rules are bent for “exceptional” reasons, others feel entitled to do the same. It quickly devolves into a geopolitical version of “he hit me first.” The result isn’t disruption, it’s normalization of disorder.
Chaos went mainstream long before it became a headline. January 6th didn’t invent it; it exposed it. Since then, the media has amplified it daily: inflation, Iran, war, tariffs, immigration, climate volatility, government dysfunction, regulatory whiplash, healthcare instability. Even March Madness brackets collapsing overnight. Pick your sector, chaos is baked in.
Markets hate uncertainty. People hate unpredictability. Organizations hate both. When systems that are supposed to be stable become volatile, trust erodes, and risk compounds. That’s the environment in 2026.
So how do you stop chaos? You don’t, at least not at the macro level. But you can contain it.
Containment Starts at the Perimeter!
Physical and logical perimeters are where chaos first becomes measurable, and manageable. Intrusions, breaches, theft, sabotage, disruption all begin somewhere. If you can’t define, monitor, and defend the edges of your operation, everything inside becomes vulnerable to noise, fear, and reactionary decision-making. Perimeter security requires control in an uncontrolled world. It’s about buying time, clarity, and response options when everything else is moving too fast. Yes, fences and cameras are part of the answer.
That’s why smartPerimeter.ai exists—to help security leaders cut through the noise, focus on what actually works, and design perimeter strategies that function even when the world doesn’t.
I’d welcome your thoughts and predictions at mark@smartperimeter.ai.
Chaos deserves debate.
Thanks for reading.
-Publisher, Mark McCourt
EVENTS
ISC West smartPerimeter.ai Education Sessions Announced for ISC West 2026
smartPerimeter.ai, in partnership with ISC (Reed Expo) and the Security Industry Association (SIA), is continuing its Perimeter Safety and Security Education Track, taking place March 23-27 at The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.
As part of the broader SIA Education @ ISC WEST program, smartPerimeter.ai will produce and moderate a special session dedicated to the latest strategies, technologies, and real-world applications in perimeter safety and security.
ISC West Education Session includes:
- Exclusive Panel, Content Development, and Event Marketing
- Dedicated smartPerimeter.ai Marketing & Advertising Program
- Speaker Registration and on-Site Program Support
Contact kent.beaver@verizon.net for sponsorship information.
FEATURE
Organized Crime is Exploiting the Supply Chain’s Weak Perimeters
The Industry Is Still Not Closing the Gaps
Cargo theft in the United States is not opportunistic or petty. It is organized, repeatable, and increasingly sophisticated. Criminal networks exploit weak perimeter design and inconsistent identity controls—both physical and logical—to defeat the moment freight changes custody. Once that handoff is compromised, everything downstream becomes paperwork.
Many supply chain facilities still operate on a security model that is easy to defeat: controls that are inconsistently applied, rarely audited, and routinely bypassed in the name of keeping freight moving. Throughput pressure shortcuts policy enforcement, creating predictable vulnerabilities that organized crime groups exploit again and again. The result is a theft-based revenue model that scales.
The fixes are not mysterious. They exist at two levels: design and operations. At the design level, better intelligence sharing and faster threat communication are essential. At the operational level, perimeter security policies must be enforced consistently. If an organization cannot reliably answer who is on site, why they are there, what access they are authorized to have, and what actions they are permitted to take, the perimeter is already compromised.
smartPerimeter.ai examines what is changing to slow organized crime in the supply chain, including theft trends, the most targeted product categories, and the layered security approaches that are beginning to show measurable results.
Public–Private Collaboration Is Improving, but It Is Not Yet Scaled to the Threat
Federal enforcement is increasingly treating cargo theft as organized crime rather than isolated loss events. Recent high-profile cases confirm that federal involvement is real, including coordinated investigations across jurisdictions.
Homeland Security Investigations has formalized its response through Operation Boiling Point, an initiative focused on dismantling organized theft networks and improving intelligence sharing between federal, state, local, and private-sector partners. Operationally, this only works when companies provide clean, structured data—carrier identifiers, phone and email artifacts, pickup timestamps, video clips, and GPS traces. Without that data, agencies cannot connect cases, and the same crews continue operating across regions.
The rail sector has been especially direct about the scope of the problem. The Association of American Railroads has reported that organized cargo theft cost major railroads more than $100 million in 2024, with industry estimates exceeding 65,000 thefts that year. State and local jurisdictions lack the capacity to dismantle national crime syndicates operating across rail corridors.
AAR and its partners are pushing for passage of the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (S.1404 / H.R.2853) to establish a coordinated federal framework for addressing supply chain and retail theft. Ports and intermodal facilities, already accustomed to structured security collaboration, are also shifting toward tighter terminal access controls and cargo-theft intelligence sharing as theft patterns evolve.
Federal legislation matters here. Most organizations are still forced to prosecute theft at the state or local level unless federal jurisdiction is triggered. A federal framework would allow logistics and security leaders to align their workflows with national enforcement, improving risk management and investigative outcomes.
Where the Loses are Concentrated
Public tracking and industry reporting paint a consistent picture.
Frequency and Financial Impact
- Reported incidents: Verisk CargoNet recorded more than 3,600 cargo theft incidents in 2024 across the U.S. and Canada, representing a significant year-over-year increase.
- Average value per theft: CargoNet estimates exceeded $200,000 per incident in 2024.
- Total economic impact: Estimates vary widely, with figures reaching tens of billions of dollars annually according to insurance and crime-prevention organizations.
Consistently Targeted Product Categories
- Food is #1 and is highly attractive to thieves because “the evidence disappears” and you can’t really trace it. There are no barcodes, serial numbers, etc. on a lobster.
- Electronics (high value density), according to World Ports, approximately 8% of all electronics in the supply chain are lost, about $16 billion annually.
- Branded apparel/footwear (liquid secondary markets). The $30 billion sneaker market is especially challenging due to significant international dependencies and multiple logistics nodes. For example, a 2023 study found that Nike sneakers are stolen at every point in the supply chain.
- Metals/copper and parts (scrap conversion). The association, US Telecom, identified 5,700 intentional incidents of theft and vandalism between June to December 2024, in just the broadband market.
- Pharma and regulated goods. It is not only highly profitable to the thieves, but it is excessively expensive to the manufacturer. Once a branded drug’s supply chain becomes compromised, then all inventory must be recalled and replaced.
The Core Failure: Perimeter Security Designed for Nuisance Crime, Not Organized Operations
Organized theft wins when several conditions align:
- Perimeters are porous (unguarded fence lines, blind zones, tailgating at gates, unmonitored rail/right-of-way access).
- Identity controls are weak (carrier onboarding, pickup authorization, email domain spoofing, no out-of-band verification).
- Response is slow (alarms without action, video without intervention, guards without mobility).
- Insiders can bypass controls (badges shared, access not role-based, exceptions normalized).
The industry’s dirty secret is that many sites are optimized for throughput and then surprised when security is treated as optional.
What Is Actually Being Deployed to Harden Perimeters: Real Vendors, Real Use Cases
Below are categories of solutions that are actively being adopted across U.S. logistics nodes (DCs, yards, ports, intermodal facilities). The focus is on perimeter physical plus logical controls that actually prevent intrusions and insider abuse.
A) Smart Fencing with sensors, Electrified fencing, and barrier systems are investments that both deter and defend.
- AMAROK is one of the most visible U.S. providers pushing electrified perimeter security and managed monitoring for distribution and logistics environments.
Perimeter intrusion detection sensors (fence-mounted, microwave, radar) for yards and critical nodes
- Southwest Microwave publishes perimeter security solutions widely used in high-security sites, including port security case materials and outdoor perimeter systems designed for harsh environments.
- Senstar markets an integrated perimeter stack that explicitly lists logistics as a target market and emphasizes sensor + analytics approaches.
Why it matters: Cameras alone don’t stop intrusion. Sensors reduce reliance on humans noticing pixels at 2 a.m.
B) AI video analytics + VMS platforms (reduce human load, speed response, support prosecutions)
- Axis Communications + Genetec: Axis provides perimeter analytics integrations into Genetec Security Center workflows (event streaming, metadata, bookmarking), which is the kind of integration enterprises buy when they want alarms to land in an operator console, not in an inbox.
- Hanwha Vision: Hanwha positions AI cameras for logistics sites (warehouses, docks, DCs), including analytics and operational visibility tooling that can support intrusion detection and investigations.
AI reality check: AI helps most when it drives faster verification and dispatch, plus better evidence (vehicle attributes, object classification, timeline search). It’s not magic—bad camera placement and weak lighting still kill performance.
Drones + machine learning for intermodal yard visibility (public infrastructure gets smarter) better yard visibility and faster anomaly detection (unexpected movement, missing container patterns, after-hours activity) reduces the “blind time” criminals exploit.
Logical Security Controls That Stop Strategic Theft
The fastest-growing loss vector is process fraud, not fence breaches. Carrier impersonation, spoofed domains, and fraudulent pickups defeat poorly controlled workflows.
Organizations are responding by tightening:
- Out-of-band verification for pickup changes
- Known-carrier requirements for high-value loads
- Multi-party approval for new carriers and payment changes
- Domain monitoring and email security tied to dispatch and tendering
If the perimeter ends at the fence and ignores identity, the wrong boundary is being defended.
What Best-in-Class Programs Look Like Now
Leading logistics security programs follow a layered model:
- Deter and delay at the perimeter through active fencing and controlled vehicle access.
- Detect using sensors paired with analytics and camera verification.
- Respond with defined playbooks and real dispatch authority.
- Prosecute using clean evidence and cross-case linkage.
- Defeat fraud through identity assurance and hardened workflows.
Outperforming the Criminals
Organized cargo theft is evolving faster than the average logistics security budget cycle. The organizations reducing losses are not simply adding cameras. They are building operational security systems that integrate physical perimeters, verified identities, automated detection, and intelligence sharing with law enforcement—turning security from a cost center into an operational advantage.
The First Breach Is Physical: The Role of Perimeter Security in Protecting Critical Manufacturing
What Critical Manufacturing Means and Why It Is Different
The U.S. Critical Manufacturing Sector includes nationally significant manufacturing industries whose products and processes are essential to the economy and to the functioning of other critical infrastructure sectors. These facilities are not simply production sites. They are operational linchpins that underpin energy delivery, transportation, utilities, healthcare, and defense readiness.
Federal guidance commonly frames critical manufacturing around industries such as primary metals, machinery, electrical equipment and components, and transportation equipment manufacturing. Ensuring the continuity of these operations is not just an economic concern. It is a matter of national security.
Core products considered critical include:
- Primary Metals: steel, aluminum, specialty alloys, and metal processing
- Machinery: industrial engines, turbines, mining and agricultural equipment, heavy-equipment components
- Electrical Equipment and Components: transformers, switchgear, motors, industrial controls
- Transportation Equipment: critical subassemblies supporting commercial and industrial transport
When sites in this sector are impacted by theft, violence, sabotage, or safety failures, the consequences extend well beyond the plant perimeter. Cascading downtime and supply-chain disruption can cripple downstream services across the critical infrastructure economy. Organizations also face increased insurance exposure, regulatory scrutiny, and reputational risk.
Government Oversight and the Limits of Compliance
Critical manufacturing in the United States is largely privately owned. As a result, the government’s role is not to operate security programs, but to enable resilience through guidance, coordination, and enforcement.
Within the Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency serves as the federal risk partner for the Critical Manufacturing Sector. CISA provides planning frameworks, threat information, and collaboration mechanisms designed to help manufacturers assess risk and improve security and resilience. Its broader physical security portfolio includes risk assessments and protective security advising, particularly for facilities whose failure would create outsized downstream impact.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board influence manufacturing practices primarily through post-incident investigations and recommendations. While these agencies focus on safety, their findings often drive changes to maintenance programs, hazard controls, emergency response readiness, and access governance that directly affect perimeter security.
For manufacturers, compliance expectations are not always prescriptive. Enforcement can vary by jurisdiction and by inspector, leaving organizations navigating a landscape where perimeter failures may result in fines, shutdowns, or mandated changes with limited advance clarity.
When Perimeter Incidents Drive Policy and Operational Change
Recent events reinforce a growing reality: perimeter incidents increasingly trigger regulatory attention, policy shifts, and operational reforms.
- Workplace violence at a manufacturing facility (New Albany, Ohio, 2025):
A shooting resulted in fatalities and injuries, prompting changes to controlled entry, after-hours access management, and on-site response coordination across multiple industrial parks. - Fatal explosion at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works (Pennsylvania, 2025):
A multi-agency investigation elevated urgency around hazard-area access control, contractor oversight, and perimeter management during emergency response. - Metal theft crackdowns and tougher penalties (Kentucky and beyond, 2024–2025):
A surge in copper and metal theft drove task forces, tighter scrap regulations, and harsher penalties, reflecting a shift toward treating these crimes as critical infrastructure sabotage. - Kentucky SB64 and critical infrastructure enforcement (2025):
Early arrests under strengthened laws signaled a hardened legal posture around perimeter-driven theft and vandalism.
Together, these incidents reinforce a blunt truth: a perimeter incident is rarely just a perimeter incident.
The Top Five Physical Perimeter Risks and What Works
Assuring and Enabling the Business
Perimeter security in critical manufacturing is shifting toward measured, technology-enabled risk reduction. Theft is more organized, violence carries greater consequences, and incidents now generate regulatory and reputational impacts faster than organizations can adapt.
Up-front investments in policy, training, and technology are significant, and executive leadership is right to demand measurable outcomes. Modern perimeter systems can translate security performance into metrics that business leaders understand and act upon.
Over time, effective perimeter security proves its value by reducing disruption, limiting loss, and increasing operational resilience. In critical manufacturing, security does not merely protect the business. It assures and enables it.
Bringing Power Where it Doesn’t Exist: Solar and the Modern Perimeter
According to the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, the amount of sunlight that strikes the earth’s surface in just 90 minutes is enough to meet the world’s energy consumption for an entire year.
Perimeter security has always had an inconvenient truth: the perimeter is usually the last place you want to run power. It’s far from buildings, follows property lines, and crosses rock, asphalt, rail, wetlands, and countless “not my problem” easements.
And yet, that’s exactly where security teams are expected to deploy cameras, lighting, intrusion detection, and communications—and keep everything online 24/7.
Solar has moved from a nice idea to the default option for many perimeter and remote-site deployments because the alternative (trenching, conduit, permits, downtime, and surprise change orders) is often more painful than the hardware bill.
The Wired-Power Problem: When Trenching Becomes the Silent Budget Killer
If you’ve ever tried to electrify a long perimeter, you already know the trap.
Distance multiplies cost. The farther you get from the nearest electrical service, the more you spend on trenching, conduit, copper, restoration, and labor. Permitting and right-of-way approvals often outlast the security project itself, leaving teams waiting on utility timelines that have nothing to do with risk. And once installed, long power runs introduce new vulnerabilities like cuts, corrosion, water ingress, lightning damage, accidental strikes during excavation, and the inevitable “mystery outage.”
Solar flips that model. Instead of dragging electricity out to the perimeter, you bring a self-contained power source directly to the device. That’s why rapid-deploy solar surveillance trailers have surged in adoption. Some can be operational in minutes, with no trenching and no external power. Electric fencing, mobile security towers, and remote cameras are already leveraging solar with proven success.
When a perimeter project requires civil work, the security timeline becomes dependent on construction schedules. Solar offers a way to decouple security from infrastructure delays and keep protection moving at the pace risk demands.
Reliability Is No Longer the Question: How Solar Keeps Getting Better
Solar technology has matured into an exceptionally reliable, time- and cost-effective power source for perimeter safety and security applications. Advances in energy harvesting, storage, and load management have fundamentally changed what solar-powered systems can support—and for how long.
Modern panels and controllers now extract significantly more usable energy, even under less-than-ideal conditions like partial shade, dust, or high heat. Concerns about systems failing due to weather variability, limited storage, or inefficient distribution have largely been resolved across most perimeter environments.
When a perimeter project requires civil work, the security timeline becomes dependent on construction schedules. Solar offers a way to decouple security from infrastructure delays and keep protection moving at the pace risk demands.
Battery technology has improved just as dramatically. Advances in battery chemistry and battery management—driven largely by mobile devices and electric vehicles—mean longer lifespans, more predictable discharge cycles, and faster recovery. For perimeter security, that translates into greater uptime and fewer surprises.
Load management has also become far more intelligent. Today’s perimeter designs segment assets into zones, allowing power to be allocated only where it’s needed. When an alarm is triggered, energy supports the relevant cameras, lighting, and alerts rather than the entire perimeter. High-performing solar systems actively manage consumption through techniques such as event-based recording, adaptive frame rates, scheduled lighting profiles, and edge analytics that reduce unnecessary transmission and processing.
Solar works when it’s designed as an energy system—not added as an accessory. Most field failures trace back to undersized panels, mismatched batteries, poor mounting angles, weak enclosures, or unrealistic assumptions about shade and seasonal performance. Organizations that work with experienced security designers and integrators rarely encounter these issues.
Where Solar is Winning Today: Proven Perimeter Applications
Solar isn’t a single application—it’s a power layer that’s increasingly showing up across a wide range of perimeter security use cases. Its biggest advantage is flexibility: reliable power without infrastructure, delivered exactly where fixed electricity is hardest to reach.
One of the most visible growth areas is mobile surveillance towers and solar-powered trailers used at construction sites, parking lots, overflow perimeters, and other temporary or rapidly changing risk environments. These deployments solve immediate problems—no available power, no time for trenching, and a need for fast activation.
Beyond speed, mobile solar platforms deliver real security value. Elevated masts and high-visibility hardware create an immediate deterrent, while integrated cameras, intrusion detection, and alarm systems provide continuous perimeter coverage and usable evidence when incidents occur. For organizations managing short-term projects or evolving threat profiles, solar-powered mobile surveillance has moved from workaround to standard practice.
Examples include:
Provides mobile security trailers with self-healing technology, full coverage, best-in-class cameras, device-to-cloud, and rapid deployment.
Markets solar surveillance trailers built for rapid deployment with remote access and live monitoring options.
Sells solar-powered camera and light trailers combining panels, lighting, and HD cameras on telescoping masts.
Is another example of the broader remote-monitoring ecosystem.
Increasingly deployed at vehicle yards, remote lots, construction, and infrastructure projects to protect assets. They are also seen in active shopping centers and mall parking lots, indicating a focus on deterrence.
What to Expect in 2026
In 2026, solar at the perimeter won’t be considered alternative power. It will be part of the design brief—especially for logistics yards, construction and staging sites, utilities, storage lots, and any environment where time-to-protect matters more than time-to-permit.
More Adaptive Solar Collection
Solar collection will continue to improve as panel efficiency, system design, retention methods, and power distribution are pushed to higher performance levels.
Batteries Become Operationally Resilient
Advances in battery management systems—including better cold-weather performance and longer cycle life—will reduce maintenance burdens, particularly for fleets of remote perimeter devices.
Hybrid Power Becomes the Default
Solar, battery storage, and optional grid or shore power will increasingly be combined into adaptive systems that automatically select the most reliable or cost-effective source based on conditions.
Energy-Aware Security Software
Perimeter platforms will begin treating power as a managed resource. Expect analytics that downshift during low-charge periods, smarter alerting logic, scheduled patrol modes, and health telemetry that predicts failures before the perimeter goes dark.
Perimeter Security as a Service
Vendors will package solar, communications, and sensors into validated bundles to eliminate one-off power designs that turn into long-term support and warranty problems. Financing and subscription-based models—covering hardware, service, and maintenance over the life of the deployment—will become more common.
THE BLUNT PREDICTION: By the end of 2026, teams that still default to trenching power for every perimeter device will look slow and expensive. The winners will be those that standardize solar-capable architectures and reserve wired power only where it truly adds value.
NetWay Spectrum: Solving the Hidden Breakpoints in Remote Security Sites
When remote sites fail, it’s usually due to power or connectivity issues—and NetWay Spectrum fixes these to maximize uptime.
If you spend any time working with remote security sites, you start to notice the same weak points repeating themselves. Power fades long before it should. Network links hit their ceiling faster than the design team expects, and extreme conditions wear hardware down devices not rated for these specific applications at an accelerated pace, compromising their integrity.
The hidden cost is the maintenance that follows. A 2024 ServicePower report puts a single truck roll somewhere between $150 to $500 in North America, and remote sites sit at the top of that range because the travel and troubleshooting take longer. Most failures are only discovered after something has already gone offline when there is no remote visibility into power or data integrity.
What Makes Remote Sites Hard to Keep Online
Power Loss
Long runs of copper lose voltage the farther they go, especially once devices start drawing more current. PTZs, thermals and multi-sensor cameras all increase that load over long distances. Remote sites also rely on battery backup more than indoor systems, so the battery charging up solutions must be sized correctly to adequately accommodate connected devices.
Environmental Stress
Outdoor equipment needs to be hardened to withstand harsh conditions so that they maintain steady power under load, tolerate temperature changes and protect the electronics from corrosion, debris and water intrusion. Without that level of protection, outdoor devices are inevitably subject to failure.
Maintenance Challenges
Most issues at remote sites go unnoticed until something stops working because there is no clear visibility into power, batteries or link health. By the time a technician is sent out, the system has already been down for a while. Field dispatches are expensive because of travel time and troubleshooting. When the infrastructure is reactive instead of monitored, maintenance becomes one of the largest ongoing costs for remote deployments.
How Altronix NetWay Spectrum Solves These Problems
Hardened PoE and PoE Plus Switches
NetWay Spectrum delivers steady power across long runs and supports devices that draw more current, including PTZs, thermals and multi sensor cameras. The switches are hardened to withstand real outdoor conditions, so they hold performance even when heat, cold or humidity would normally cause dropouts or reboots.
Flexible Fiber and SFP Options
Every site has different distance and cable requirements. NetWay Spectrum lets integrators match the right Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) to the right fiber, whether it is single mode, multimode, short range or long range. This removes the instability that shows up when mixed or aging fiber is forced into a one-size-fits-all design.
Outdoor-Rated Enclosures
The enclosures are built to withstand outdoor conditions to protect the electronics from extreme temperature changes, moisture, dust and physical wear. This is what keeps power levels consistent and prevents the early failure that happens when indoor-grade hardware is placed outdoors.
Network Communications
LINQTM—Altronix’s network communications platform—provides real-time remote visibility into power, voltage, battery condition and device status. Instead of reacting to a failure after the fact, integrators can proactively detect issues as they are developing and fix them before the site goes dark. This effectively reduces the number of on-site service calls and keeps costs predictable.
Scalable Power and Transmission
Remote deployments rarely stay the same size. NetWay Spectrum is scalable to support small remote installations or large multi-camera perimeters. Integrators can add power, fiber, or PoE ports as the site grows, giving the system a long lifespan and stable performance over time.
By: Ronnie Pennington, Altronix
Why Altronix NetWay Spectrum Delivers Better Results
NetWay Spectrum provides systems integrators with hardened long-distance power and data transmission solutions that are specifically designed for demanding outdoor applications. Uptime goes up because power delivery, fiber links and outdoor protection are designed and manufactured for real-world applications and conditions. Maintenance costs drop because LINQ lets teams see problems before they turn into outages, which reduces service costs.
Remote sites become more dependable because hardened switches, proper enclosures and distance-ready transmission remove the weak points that usually cause failures. And as end users add new cameras, analytics or sensors, the system can scale without rebuilding the backbone.
That combination of high reliability, lower service costs and long-term flexibility is what makes NetWay Spectrum a great ROI driver for both integrators and their customers.
To learn more, explore the full product line here.
Commercial Perimeter Control: How Doorking Is Evolving Access, Traffic, and Gate Automation
Commercial perimeter security is rarely about a single control point. It’s a layered environment where vehicle access, traffic control, and credentialed entry must work together, often under heavy use, harsh conditions, and tight operational constraints. That’s the space Doorking continues to target with its commercial and industrial portfolio.
Rather than chasing novelty, Doorking’s recent product updates focus on durability, lifecycle performance, and integration across perimeter use cases, from controlled vehicle entry to high-security traffic mitigation to credentialed access.
Heavy-Duty Gate Automation for High-Cycle Sites
Gate operators remain a cornerstone of many commercial perimeters, particularly in logistics facilities, industrial campuses, utilities, and controlled-access properties. Doorking’s newly released 6550 Swing Gate Operator is designed specifically for high-cycle, commercial and industrial environments where reliability matters more than aesthetics.
Built for continuous-duty operation, the 6550 supports large, heavy swing gates and is engineered to withstand demanding use patterns common in freight yards, distribution centers, and secured facilities. Its design emphasizes long service life and compatibility with access control and safety systems, making it suitable for sites where gate automation must operate as part of a broader perimeter strategy rather than a standalone component.
Vehicle Mitigation and Traffic Control at the Perimeter
As vehicle-based threats and unauthorized access concerns continue to rise, physical traffic control systems are becoming more common at sensitive commercial sites. Doorking’s 1625 Wedge Barrier System addresses this need by providing a surface-mounted barrier designed to stop or control vehicle movement at entry points.
Wedge barriers are often deployed at government facilities, data centers, critical infrastructure sites, and corporate campuses where traditional gates alone are insufficient. The 1625 system is designed for rapid deployment and integration with access control and command systems, allowing security teams to actively manage vehicle flow while maintaining operational throughput.
Credentialed Access That Complements Physical Controls
At the access layer, Doorking continues to support credential-based entry with its ProxPlus Proximity Card, a long-established proximity credential used across commercial and institutional environments. Proximity cards remain widely deployed due to their simplicity, durability, and compatibility with existing infrastructure.
In perimeter applications, credentials like ProxPlus often serve as the connective tissue between gates, traffic barriers, and access control systems, supporting consistent identity validation across multiple perimeter assets without adding operational complexity.
A Practical Approach to Commercial Perimeter Design
What ties these offerings together is not innovation for its own sake, but an emphasis on systems that can survive real-world conditions. Commercial perimeters demand equipment that tolerates weather, abuse, high usage, and imperfect environments—while still integrating cleanly with access control, video, and monitoring platforms.
As perimeter strategies continue to evolve, vendors that focus on durability, interoperability, and deployment flexibility remain well-positioned. Doorking’s commercial portfolio reflects that reality, supporting perimeter designs where control, safety, and operational continuity must coexist.
Designing the First Impression of Security: Why the Perimeter Defines Everything That Follows
When a major urban bank branch found itself at the center of a public protest, an outside demonstration quickly escalated to the crowd pushing through the building’s public entrance, flooding the lobby where the bank is located, blocking access to businesses located on the upper floors and trapping employees in place. As a result, operations at the multi-tenant building ground to a halt for hours, and although no one was seriously injured, the consequences could have been far worse. This incident left an indelible impression on the institution’s leadership: the first line of defense had failed. Days later, their security manager called to discuss how the building’s manual revolving doors (the ones a crowd had pushed through) could be reassessed through a modern security lens.
This incident serves well to remind all security professionals of a basic premise for facility security: the perimeter is the first line of defense to protect people, assets, property and reputation.
Perimeter Security Sends a Clear Message
Whether it’s a corporate headquarters, hospital, museum, university, logistics campus, or government building, the moment someone steps onto the property, the presence of security protection sends a clear and distinct message. For visitors and employees, this entry experience signals what an organization values: openness, professionalism, hospitality, innovation, vigilance. For adversaries, the same entry communicates something else entirely: this building is prepared, intentional, and difficult to exploit.
The challenge for security leaders and design teams is balancing these two experiences in one architectural space. Modern organizations want to feel welcoming while also needing to deter crime, violence, social engineering, and increasingly coordinated acts of intrusion. Universities, hospitals, government buildings, and even retail branches regularly face incidents ranging from protests to stalking, gang-related retaliation, workplace violence, unauthorized entry, theft, and active shooter events. In recent years:
- S. campuses reported more than 38,000 criminal offenses in a single year.
- The FBI found that over a quarter of active shooter incidents occur in educational and healthcare facilities.
- Logistics centers suffer billions in annual losses from theft, much of it tied to poor entry and exit controls.
A perimeter is no longer an architectural boundary but a risk threshold.
The Liability Landscape: What Follows a Breach
A perimeter breach is often the start of a chain reaction. When an unauthorized individual enters a controlled area, six categories of risk escalate dramatically.
Security involves threats to life and safety, especially in public-facing buildings. Safety concerns arise from exposure to hazardous areas, such as laboratories, manufacturing spaces, or construction sites. Loss prevention focuses on unauthorized access to high-value assets, equipment, or sensitive intellectual property. Compliance with regulations, including HIPAA, NERC, PCI, and FDA, is crucial to avoid violations related to physical access control. Business continuity is at risk during disruptions that halt operations, necessitate lockdown procedures, or attract negative media attention. Finally, liability includes legal risks, such as potential lawsuits from victims or employees following a security incident.
Long after the event is contained, the intangible effects linger, like fear, stress, and a decreased sense of belonging among staff and visitors. Designing a stronger perimeter is both defensive and reputational.
Where Design Meets Deterrence
Architects and security leaders are increasingly collaborating earlier in the design cycle because the main entrance has become a natural tension point: How can we appear open and welcoming while actually operating as a controlled, deterrent-focused threshold?
Manual revolving doors, for example, remain a top choice for high-volume public entrances because they preserve energy efficiency, support smooth pedestrian flow, reinforce architectural prestige, and maintain an “always open, always closed” comfort environment.
They can also be enhanced with features that meaningfully change the security posture at the perimeter without changing the visual experience. Emergency lockdown issues an immediate remote lockdown if a threat approaches. Access control integration offers credentialed after-hours entry without compromising throughput. And remote night locking secures closure without manual intervention or staff presence.
This means a library, corporate lobby, or museum can operate with total openness during the day, yet become a controlled, lockable entry in seconds if a disturbance appears outside.
Perimeter security doesn’t have to feel like a fortress. It can be invisible, intuitive, and built elegantly into the architecture.
The Rise of Identity as the New Perimeter
Aesthetics and hardware are only part of the picture. The most significant shift in entry design over the last decade is conceptual: identity verification now defines the perimeter more than the wall itself.
Cybersecurity principles have entered the physical realm. Organizations increasingly recognize that a valid credential does not guarantee a valid person, social engineering can bypass even well-staffed lobbies, and reactive security tools (cameras, guards, alarms) cannot stop someone who has already crossed the threshold. This is where integrated access control, biometrics, and secure entrance technologies converge.
Solutions such as optical turnstiles, full-height turnstiles, and security revolving doors or mantrap portals can now:
- Detect and prevent tailgating/piggybacking
- Verify identity through biometrics
- Automate alerts when anomalies occur
- Provide audit-ready data for compliance and investigations
- Reduce dependence on guard staff
- Support both ingress (people protection) and egress (theft reduction) requirements
These systems move security from reactive to proactive, stopping unauthorized entry before it becomes an incident.
Designing a First Impression That Works
Crafting a secure, welcoming perimeter requires placing equal weight on three factors.
Brand: The entrance should reflect the organization’s culture and instill confidence in visitors and staff.
Design: The architectural experience must be intuitive, accessible, and frictionless—inviting rather than intimidating.
Deterrence: Beneath the aesthetics, there must be real capabilities such as controlled access, identity verification, tailgating prevention, and rapid lockdown options.
When these three elements come together, the perimeter becomes a boundary, a statement of readiness, a proactive shield, and the foundation for every security measure inside the building.
The Perimeter Defines the Security Journey
With threats evolving more quickly and unpredictably, the first impression of security matters more than ever. The entrance sets expectations, shapes behavior, and determines whether risk stays outside or walks through the front door.
Designing a secure perimeter does not require choosing between beauty and safety, openness and control. With the right strategy and technologies, organizations can achieve all four.
Because once someone crosses the threshold, the consequences and the liabilities multiply. The perimeter is the moment security begins. It’s where first impressions are formed, and where every secure building protects its people and its property.
By: Cameron Mulvey, Boon Edam
Accepting Nominations
smartPerimeter.ai Presents the Best of ISC West 2026 Awards
smartPerimeter.ai is now accepting submissions for its 2026 Best of ISC West awards, recognizing standout perimeter safety and security products, services, and solutions showcased at ISC West.
Award recipients will be featured in smartPerimeter.ai’s dedicated ISC West Special Section, reaching more than 38,000 subscribers across the perimeter security ecosystem, including system integrators, manufacturers, architects, engineers, and enterprise buyers.
Product Categories
- Identity Management
- Access Control and Situational Awareness
- Video Surveillance
- Sensors
- Robotics and Drones
- Barriers, Fences, Bollards, and Gates
Service Categories
- Systems Integrations
- Architecture and Engineering Design
- Alarm Systems and Central Stations
- Intelligent Alarm Verification and Noise Reduction
Industry Sectors
- Agriculture
- Arenas, Venues, Hospitality, Casinos, and Attractions
- Construction, Real Estate, and Property Management
- Education (K–12 and Higher Education)
- Energy and Utilities
- Finance, Banking, and FinTech
- Government (Federal, State, and Local)
Industry Sectors
- Healthcare and Medical Centers
- Industrial and Manufacturing
- Information Technology and Data Centers
- Logistics, Supply Chain, Distribution, and Warehousing
- Ports (Land, Sea, Air, and Rail)
- Retail and Restaurants
- Transportation
How to Submit a Nomination
Submit your Best of ISC West award entries to info@smartperimeter.ai by February 1, 2026. Please include a brief product or solution description (less than 150 words), a high-resolution image, primary use case, and contact information for follow-up.
NEWS – JANUARY 2026
Milestone Systems has launched a new vision language model (VLM) focused on traffic understanding, powered by NVIDIA Cosmos Reason. The VLM underpins two new offerings: a generative AI–based Video Summarization tool for XProtect and a VLM-as-a-Service (VLMaaS) for third-party integrations. The Video Summarization tool enables operators to convert video footage into searchable text summaries, automate reporting, and reduce false alarm fatigue, while VLMaaS provides developers with API access to production-ready video intelligence for rapid integration into custom applications. Both solutions are designed for scalable, region-specific deployment, with initial availability in the U.S. and EU. Read the full press release here.
Rhombus has announced a new integration with ASSA ABLOY Aperio Wireless Devices, enabling organizations to extend secure access control to more doors without running new wiring or managing separate systems. The integration connects Aperio wireless locks, cylinders, and handles directly into the Rhombus cloud platform, linking door events with video footage in real time for faster investigations and improved situational awareness. Managed through the Rhombus Console, the solution supports remote access scheduling, temporary credentials, automated lockdowns, and simplified deployment across interior offices, legacy buildings, and hard-to-wire locations. Read the announcement here.
Security-Net, a network of leading independent security system integrators, has welcomed Mala Grover, president and CEO of Digitronics, as its newest member. Based in Herndon, Virginia, Digitronics expands the integrator network’s footprint across the Mid-Atlantic region while adding deep expertise in federal government security projects. The woman-owned firm specializes in highly regulated environments and holds CSEIP and UL 2050 certifications, supporting complex, high-security installations for government and critical infrastructure customers. Read the press release here.
Shooter Detection Systems (SDS) has received the 2025 SecurityInfoWatch.com Readers’ Choice Award for Best Threat Detection for its new outdoor gunshot detection system. Designed to protect perimeter and open-air environments, SDS Outdoor extends the company’s dual-mode acoustic and infrared flash detection technology beyond buildings to identify gunfire events in real time with precise shooter location and firearm classification. The system integrates with video surveillance, access control, and mass notification platforms to support faster response and early intervention before incidents escalate indoors. Read more here.
PRODUCT / COMPANY SHOWCASE
PureActiv® is an Autonomous Perimeter Protection Software featuring patented Geospatial AI-Boosted Video Analytics. It enhances security by using advanced machine learning to reduce false alarms from sensors and cameras while integrating seamlessly with existing systems. PureActiv® provides real-time intruder tracking, automated detection, and geospatial visualization for superior situational awareness. Its extended detection range cuts infrastructure costs by up to 30% and supports flexible deployment across edge, server, and cloud environments.
Magnasphere revolutionized door protection with the first major advancement since the 1930s reed switch. Its patented, award-winning technology sets new standards for high-security performance and offers a more reliable, cost-effective alternative to traditional reed switches. Magnasphere Motion, powered by Inxpect radar, eliminates false alarms, while its motion-sensing platform, panic switch, and anti-climb fence system deliver advanced, connected security solutions for modern protection needs.
The Altronix NetWaySP4TCW53 is a 4-port hardened PoE switch designed for outdoor and remote security deployments such as parking garages, campuses, perimeters, and transportation facilities. Housed in a NEMA 4/4X, IP66-11 rated enclosure, it delivers up to 60W per port (240W total) to power high-demand IP cameras, access control devices, and edge equipment. Integrated EBC48 rapid battery charging enables power from existing lighting circuits with seamless backup during outages. With LINQ™ Network Management, users can remotely monitor system health, reduce service visits, and keep critical security systems online 24/7.
