We have some news. PowerTech Group of Chicago is now an authorized OpenEye partner and dealer, bringing one of the industry's leading cloud-managed video surveillance platforms to our commercial and industrial clients across the Chicago metro area.
If you've been following developments in the security camera space, you know the industry is shifting hard toward cloud-managed systems. OpenEye has been at the forefront of that shift for years, and we've been watching them closely. After evaluating their platform extensively — including what we saw at ISC West this year — we're confident this is the right addition to our security camera lineup.
Here's what this partnership means, who it's for, and why it matters for businesses across Chicago, Arlington Heights, Schaumburg, Naperville, and the surrounding suburbs.
OpenEye is a cloud-managed video surveillance platform built specifically for commercial environments. Unlike traditional camera systems where everything lives on a local recorder tucked in a back closet, OpenEye moves your video management, storage, and intelligence to the cloud — while still keeping local recording as a backup.
In practical terms, that means:
The bottom line: OpenEye turns your camera system from a passive recording device into an actively managed security tool — one that alerts you to problems, helps you find answers faster, and stays healthy without constant manual oversight.
Most commercial camera systems installed in the last decade follow the same basic architecture: cameras connect to a Network Video Recorder (NVR) sitting on-site, footage is stored on that recorder's hard drives, and you access it through proprietary desktop software or a clunky mobile app. It works — until it doesn't.
Here's where traditional NVR-based systems fall short:
Hardware failure is a when, not an if. NVR hard drives are constantly writing data. They wear out. When they fail, you lose footage — sometimes weeks of it — and you may not even know until you need to pull a clip and discover it's gone. Cloud storage eliminates this single point of failure.
Theft defeats the purpose. A burglar who knows where your NVR is can take it on the way out. Now you have no cameras and no evidence. With cloud-managed video, the footage is already off-site the moment it's recorded.
Remote access is an afterthought. Traditional systems weren't designed for remote viewing. Port forwarding, dynamic DNS, VPN configurations — it's fragile, it's a cybersecurity risk, and it breaks constantly. OpenEye is cloud-native, meaning remote access is built into the foundation, not bolted on.
Multi-site management is painful. If you have five locations, you have five separate NVRs, five separate logins, and five separate systems to maintain. With OpenEye, every location lives on a single dashboard. One login. One view. One place to manage everything.
Nobody watches the watchers. Traditional systems don't tell you when a camera goes down. The camera in your parking lot could have been offline for a month, and you won't know until something happens. OpenEye's health monitoring means every camera is continuously verified.
A note on hybrid architecture: OpenEye isn't cloud-only. The system maintains local recording on-site as a redundancy layer, so even if your internet connection drops temporarily, you don't lose footage. When connectivity returns, everything syncs. It's the best of both approaches.
OpenEye is built for a specific type of commercial customer — and if your business fits any of these descriptions, this platform was essentially designed for you.
Multi-location businesses. Retail chains, restaurant groups, franchise operators, medical office networks — anyone managing security across more than one physical site. Instead of logging into separate systems for each location, you get a single unified dashboard. You can pull up any camera at any location in seconds. You can compare activity across sites. You can apply consistent policies everywhere.
Retail and restaurant operators. OpenEye's analytics are particularly strong here. People counting gives you real traffic data. Heat mapping shows you how customers move through your space. Smart search tools let you investigate shrink, slip-and-fall claims, or employee disputes quickly and definitively. For restaurants, being able to verify food safety procedures, monitor back-of-house operations, and review incidents remotely is invaluable.
Property managers and commercial real estate. Managing common areas, parking structures, loading docks, and tenant spaces across a portfolio of properties is exactly what this platform was built for. Health monitoring ensures nothing falls through the cracks. Cloud storage means you're not maintaining hardware in every mechanical room.
Businesses without dedicated IT staff. This is a big one. Traditional NVR-based systems need someone to maintain them — firmware updates, hard drive replacements, network configurations. OpenEye is managed in the cloud, which means firmware updates happen automatically, system health is monitored 24/7, and your IT team (or ours) isn't spending time babysitting recorder hardware.
Any business that's been burned by a failed recording. If you've ever gone to pull footage after an incident and found that your system wasn't recording, the quality was unusable, or the hard drive had failed — you already understand why cloud-managed video matters.
We don't add technology partners casually. OpenEye earned a place in our lineup because it integrates cleanly with the security ecosystem we already build for our clients.
Alongside Avigilon and Mobotix. We continue to install and support Avigilon and Mobotix camera systems — they remain excellent choices for on-premise, high-resolution surveillance with powerful on-camera analytics. OpenEye gives us a cloud-first option for clients where centralized remote management, multi-site visibility, and cloud storage are the priority. In some deployments, we'll use Avigilon cameras with OpenEye's cloud management layer, combining best-in-class hardware with best-in-class cloud infrastructure.
Paired with Brivo access control. For clients running Brivo cloud-based access control, adding OpenEye creates a fully cloud-managed security operation. Access events from Brivo can be correlated with video from OpenEye — when someone badges into a restricted area, you can instantly verify who they are on camera. Both platforms are browser-based, both are cloud-native, and both are built for multi-site management.
Backed by Emergency 24 monitoring. Our alarm and camera monitoring through Emergency 24 continues to provide the 24/7 human response layer. OpenEye's intelligent alerts can trigger monitoring station responses, ensuring that critical events get immediate attention — not just a notification on someone's phone.
Supported by our managed IT services. Cloud-managed video depends on a solid network. Our managed IT team ensures your bandwidth, network segmentation, and cybersecurity posture are all properly configured to support cloud video without impacting your business operations. We handle the infrastructure so the cameras just work.
Integration matters: The real value of a security system isn't in any single component — it's in how the pieces work together. Cameras that talk to your access control. Alarms that trigger video verification. Health monitoring that catches problems before they become gaps. That's what we build.
Every installation is different, but here's the general process when we deploy OpenEye for a Chicago-area business:
We've been designing, installing, and supporting commercial security systems across the Chicago metro area since 1993. We're UL Listed, licensed, and bonded. We're not a national chain sending a different subcontractor every time — we're a local team based in Arlington Heights that knows your building, your system, and your business.
Adding OpenEye to our platform gives our clients more options, not fewer. Whether your business needs a traditional on-premise Avigilon system, a cloud-managed OpenEye deployment, or a hybrid approach that combines both — we'll design the right solution for your specific situation. No one-size-fits-all recommendations. No pressure to overbuy.
We serve businesses throughout Chicago proper, Arlington Heights, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Rosemont, Naperville, Oak Park, Evanston, and the entire Chicagoland area.
Want to see what cloud-managed video surveillance looks like for your business? We'll walk your property, assess your current system, and show you exactly what OpenEye can do — no obligation.
Schedule Your Free Assessment