The trigger moments that start this conversation, what actually changes on day one, and a four-phase plan that keeps every site recording throughout. Written for network teams who bought cameras as part of a Meraki estate and now need the video to answer more than it does.
The question on this page is what happens to the cameras, so the rows follow the video rather than the dashboard. Both rows describe what each vendor publishes.
Four moments when network teams running Meraki MV start this conversation. If none of them are true, staying put is a reasonable answer.
Meraki publishes MV Gen 2 Cameras at end of sale on 31 December 2025 and end of support on 31 December 2030, and MV21 and MV71 reached end of support on 19 June 2026. When a refresh is scheduled anyway, the budget is approved and the disruption is planned, which makes it the cheapest moment to ask whether the replacement has to be the same architecture.
Video records to solid-state storage inside each camera, and Meraki publishes that higher resolution, higher quality and more motion all reduce retention. Cloud Archive adds 7, 30, 90, 180 or 365 days of continuous backup as a per-camera license needing up to 3 Mbps of upload. If retention is the problem, price it per camera and per site rather than per estate.
Meraki answers this plainly in its own FAQ: no, only MV cameras stream to the dashboard. For a site inherited through an acquisition, or a plant whose cameras are nowhere near end of life, that means two systems and two habits until one of them is replaced. Count how many cameras in your estate are not MV before you plan around it.
License plate recognition is published as an Early Access feature running only on the MV53X, focused on North America, requiring an MV Sense license and an MQTT broker. Cross-camera tracking arrived in July 2026 for third-generation dome cameras. That is precise, honest documentation, and it means capability tracks the model on the wall rather than the platform.
The structural differences that decide whether a switch is worth starting.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Cisco Meraki data comes from Meraki's own documentation, datasheets and end-of-life notices as of August 2026. Where Meraki publishes nothing, this table says so rather than guessing.
A rollout that keeps coverage live throughout. Most sites go live inside six weeks.
Inventory the fleet per site and split it in two, because the two halves migrate differently. Non-Meraki cameras are a straight ONVIF or RTSP connection. For the MV cameras, record the model and firmware, since Meraki publishes External RTSP as available from firmware 4.2 and not supported on MV21 or MV71, and mark which units fall under the Gen 2 end-of-sale notice. Then add the license end dates and any Cloud Archive assignments.
Run one site live on both platforms at once. This is easier here than on most switches, because MV records to storage inside the camera regardless, so the dashboard keeps working while the same cameras feed an Intelligent Video Recorder. Pick a site that has both MV and non-MV cameras if you have one, since it tests the whole estate rather than half of it.
Move site by site rather than estate-wide, keeping the dashboard live at each site until its replacement has run a full week. Decide per site whether the MV units stay as stream sources or are retired at their end-of-support date, because that decision is about hardware lifecycle rather than software. Time each site to its own license renewal, and confirm the sign-off test before anything is unassigned.
Once coverage is stable, the work moves from parity to the questions a network purchase was never asked to answer: safety and operations agents on the same cameras, an Iris detection built in natural conversation for something specific to your process, and a decision about what fires at 03:00 with nobody watching. This is where video stops being an IT line item.
The six that come up in every one of these conversations.
Not necessarily, and this is the question to settle in week one rather than guess at. Meraki documents an External RTSP stream that a third-party system can consume, and describes it as a way to integrate MVs into existing deployments. It also documents the limits: live only, one stream per camera, no metadata, no encryption on that stream, firmware 4.2 or newer, and no support on MV21 or MV71. So the answer is per model and per firmware, and the assess phase exists to produce it.
Meraki publishes license terms of 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 years and states that every hardware component requires a license to be managed, so read your own end dates first. Most switches still start before the term ends, because assess and pilot cost little. Run the pilot on one site during the overlap and time each site's cutover to its own renewal rather than paying twice across the estate.
No, and the architecture helps here. Meraki publishes that MV cameras keep recording as long as they have power, so the existing recording continues while the pilot runs. Cutover happens site by site, and each site keeps its dashboard until its replacement has passed a full week of sign-off. If a site fails that test, it stays where it is while the others proceed.
It stays on the cameras and in Cloud Archive under whatever license each camera carries, and it does not migrate. Meraki documents exports as MP4 encoded with H.264, and in its Cloud Archive answer states that users can still do one-hour video exports but no bulk offloading. Build the export list for anything under a legal or insurance hold during assess, because one-hour exports take planning at scale.
Six things, and they are the same six whichever way you go. When each license term ends and what notice it needs. Which cameras fall under a published end-of-sale or end-of-support date. The export format and any limit on bulk export. Which units are still under warranty. Who owns the camera VLAN at each site, which in a Meraki estate is usually already answered. And your own retention and data-residency policy in writing.
It depends on your retention, your camera count and how much of the fleet is due for replacement anyway, and anyone answering without those numbers is guessing. What changes is the shape: camera hardware plus per-camera licenses and Cloud Archive where retention needs it, against a per-camera subscription covering the software and the IVR. Quote both against the identical site list over three years.
Bring a camera list and we will tell you what works as it is.
Customer-reported outcomes from named Spot AI customers.
Staccato went from first conversation to full deployment across an 800-acre campus in seven weeks, on the camera infrastructure it already had.
Bridge33 Capital standardized video across 25 plus properties, each acquisition arriving with a different camera system, and cut footage search from hours to minutes.
The YMCA of Greater Richmond deployed 17 locations in two weeks and standardized retention across the estate.
"Within four minutes of the alarm going off, Spot AI gave us video footage of the incident on the responding officers' phones. We had five recoveries within the hour."
Not automatically. Meraki documents External RTSP as a way for third-party software to consume MV video, along with its limits: live only, one stream per camera, no metadata, no encryption on that stream, firmware 4.2 or newer, and not supported on MV21 or MV71. Confirm model by model in the assess phase, and let the end-of-support dates decide the rest.
No. Wireless, switching and the dashboard they are managed in are untouched, because this is a change to the video layer rather than the network. That matters politically as much as technically: the team that owns the Meraki estate does not have to sponsor a network project to let the security team try something.
Those are the simple half. Any IP camera that speaks ONVIF or RTSP connects directly, and legacy analog comes in through the Intelligent Video Recorder. In a mixed estate this is usually the part that unlocks the project, because it puts every site on one platform rather than two.
Most estates are live inside six weeks: a week to assess, a fortnight of pilot on one site, then site-by-site cutover. Sites go live individually rather than in a big-bang switch, so the timeline scales with how many sites you have rather than how many cameras.
Meraki puts the recording inside the camera and manages it from the cloud dashboard, so retention and capability both track the model you bought. Spot AI is hybrid edge to cloud on any ONVIF or RTSP camera, with full-resolution video on the Intelligent Video Recorder in the building and only metadata leaving it, so retention is a function of storage on site.