13th December 2022
As you may already know, Bosch has issued an End of Life (EOL) Announcement of its security escort product due to what it says are critical shortages of key components.
In a statement, Bosch says, “Due to a critical shortage of key components without direct replacement or foreseeable resolution to supply, Bosch has issued an End of Life announcement on an extensive range of products in their security escort range. The matured hardware technology has very limited design enhancement capability, and legacy software has no further IT security enhancement capability. There is no direct successor for these products, and the End of life date (EOL) advises that no further development will take place on these products or software. The End of Service (EOS) is 31st December 2026. During this time, Bosch will provide replacement parts and technical support.”
This has shaken up the industry, with a large number of Australian and New Zealand prisons and healthcare facilities looking for a replacement for the existing Bosch security escort system.
The good news is we have today received what we believe to be the only solution that not only replaces the Bosch security escort system, it also uses some of the existing Bosch infrastructures, substantially reducing the cost and time of replacement.
We recently met with the Actall team at their headquarters in Denver, Colorado, where the company was founded in 1997, to review their technology and to validate this was going to be the right fit for the Asia Pacific marketplace.
From right to left: Mark Winter (Chief Executive Officer) and Stephen Pirotta (Senior RTLS Technical Lead) inTechnology Distribution, Bob Hampe (President), Josh Childs (VP Sales) Actall.
Actall has developed innovative technologies and installed highly accurate RTLS systems in over 1,000 facilities across the world, in complex physical environments like prisons and healthcare institutions, meaning the transmission of location data isn’t impeded by concrete or steel-reinforced walls, multiple stories, winding corridors, stairwells, industrial kitchens and laundries, or any number of facility-specific nuances that would wreak havoc with other RTLS systems.
In the US, the corrections system spans federal and state prisons, local jails, juvenile detention centres and other related facilities. There’s no one type of correctional facility, just as there’s no one way to generalize a given facility’s population. But in densely packed facilities where tensions can run high and violent interactions are a risk for both inmates and staff, safety enhancements to reduce violence can be the difference between life and death.
That’s why an accurate and fast real-time locating system (RTLS) is so critical in the corrections environment. But the environment itself—the facility’s physical makeup—can pose problems that some traditional RTLS technology just can’t solve. That’s where Actall come in.
At Actall, they often discuss facilities in terms of their complexity. In the case of corrections, that means acknowledging the impact that the facility design has on duress or alarm signal propagation. Factors include extremely dense building materials such as reinforced concrete floors and thick walls, as well as layouts that include winding corridors, tunnels, firewalls, stairwells, industrial kitchens and laundries. When seconds count, it’s of the utmost importance that signals are able to travel quickly to the designated head-end receiver with precise-as-possible location data.
Actall solves these issues with dual-band technology, precise RSSI tuning and granularity down to an individual cell—using pings and signals that are strong enough to travel long distances and nuanced enough to be easily distinguished from any competing signals or interference in a facility.
Tracking Is About More Than Staff and Inmate Safety
Highly accurate tracking to promote safety and enhance intervention techniques is important to corrections clients. At Actall, they see a future in which RTLS isn’t used merely to track or count individuals.
When corrections officers and staff can see inmates performing their roles, staying out of trouble or exhibiting positive behaviours as indicated by their movements and participation in the facility, corrections staff will be able to reward those individuals appropriately—potentially leading to positive behaviour change and long-term outcomes.
For more information on the Bosch security escort replacement technology from Actall please contact us.