The problem with cameras nobody watches
Most businesses have cameras. Almost nobody watches them. The recordings get used after the fact, once the damage is done, and it takes hours to find the right moment.
Classic alert systems react to motion. A reflection in the window, a car’s headlights or falling snow is enough to trigger a notification. After a week, everyone ignores them.
Sentry turns that around. It does not bother you about motion. It warns you when a person is somewhere they should not be, and it tells you why.
What Sentry does, step by step
Sentry runs on a small box placed in your store, connected to your current recorder. It reads the feed from each camera and recognizes a person, not just a change in pixels.
- A person is detected in a zone that matters: the door, the cash desk, the displays, the back room.
- The AI looks at a few frames of the scene and writes one sentence: what it sees, and whether the situation looks suspicious or normal.
- You get the alert on your phone with the clip, the camera name, the time and the explanation.
- You answer with one tap: keep the clip, flag a false alarm, or pause a camera.
After closing, every presence counts
Sentry’s real work happens when the store is closed. At that point, any person inside deserves an alert, no nuance needed. It is simple to set up and there are almost never false alarms.
During opening hours the rules change. We do not warn you about your customers. We can watch a staff-only corridor or a storage area and leave the rest alone.
Coming in early to do the books? One message pauses the alerts while you are on site. Evening cleaning, deliveries and staff staying late are handled the same way.
Built for winter and Montreal storefronts
A storefront window is the enemy of surveillance systems. Glass reflects the street, snow glows under the lights, salt leaves streaks, and it gets dark early in December.
We set the detection zones camera by camera so the sidewalk and the reflections stay out. We check night image quality with the infrared before launch. And every false alarm you flag is used to adjust the settings the following week.
- Detection zones drawn on each camera, no watching the sidewalk
- Night image check before going live
- A trial period where only test alerts reach you
- A false-alarm log to refine the rules
Your footage stays with you
Recordings do not leave your store. The box keeps event clips for the period set out in the plan, then erases them. A clip you choose to keep is stored separately until you decide otherwise.
Only a few frames from an event are sent to the AI for its opinion, and only when an alert fires. Nothing is streamed out continuously.
Sentry does no facial recognition. With January’s hats and scarves it would be useless, and Quebec law frames it very strictly. Sentry describes a situation; the decision always stays with a person.
Law 25 and signage, included in the delivery
Filming a business comes with obligations. We hand you what you need to meet them: the sign to post at the entrance, the notice to give your staff and a footage retention policy, in French and in English.
These documents are prepared from your installation’s settings: who is responsible, how long footage is kept, what it is used for. We take Law 25 into account in every choice, without claiming guaranteed compliance, which also depends on what you do day to day.
How it starts
It all starts with a discovery call. We look at your cameras, your recorder and your opening hours. You receive a custom plan with a clear quote that spells out what is covered.
Installation happens without changing your cameras or your recorder. We connect the box, draw the zones with you, then run a trial period where you receive the alerts and tell us what is right and what is not. After that, we stay on for maintenance and adjustments.
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