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 teams running a camera-and-license platform who want more from the fleet already on the wall.
The cameras do not move, so switching changes what sits behind them and where the video ends up. Both platforms are described here in the words each vendor publishes.
Four moments when teams running a hardware-led platform start this conversation. If none of them are true, staying put is a reasonable answer.
An acquisition, a site that standardized elsewhere or a rack of cameras that predate the platform, and suddenly half the fleet is not the vendor's own hardware. Rhombus names the N100 Relay Connector as its third-party path and states that enabling AI features on those cameras takes a Professional or Enterprise license per camera. Price that across the non-Rhombus half of the estate before you decide anything, because it is the number that usually settles the question.
Rhombus publishes on-camera storage of 20 to 365 days depending on model and license, with cloud archiving available for purchase and 30 days of it included at the Enterprise tier. When an insurer or a regulator moves your retention obligation, that architecture answers with a different camera or more archiving spend. Check what the installed models actually hold before you assume the number is a setting somebody can change.
Rhombus publishes human and vehicle detection, license plate recognition, occupancy counting, line crossing and custom events, split across its two license tiers, plus AI-powered search and review. If EHS or operations now want the same cameras answering questions about PPE, dock dwell or an SOP, establish first what your current tier already covers and what a second vendor would cost on top.
Rhombus publishes MSRP per camera from $399 for a 2MP mini dome up to $3,299 for a multisensor, alongside a per-camera license and terms of 1, 3, 5 or 10 years. A quote is the cheapest moment to compare, because the alternative is priced as software on cameras that are already mounted. Ask for both against the identical site list and the identical retention obligation.
The structural differences that decide whether a switch is worth starting.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Rhombus figures come from Rhombus's own site, pricing page and license comparison, read on August 14, 2026. Where Rhombus 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: manufacturer, model, resolution, codec and network path, and mark which cameras are Rhombus hardware and which are third-party sitting behind an N100 Relay. The third-party half is the easy half, because any ONVIF or RTSP stream connects to the Intelligent Video Recorder as it is. For the Rhombus cameras, put one question to your account team in writing and wait for the answer: whether the model can stream to another platform over ONVIF or RTSP. Rhombus does not publish that, and the whole shape of your project depends on it.
Run one site live on both platforms at once. That overlap is the point: it is the only way to compare search, detection quality and what happens after a detection on identical footage, and it costs one site rather than an estate. Pick the site with the most mixed fleet, because a mixed fleet is where a hardware-led platform and a software layer diverge most, and because it is the site where the licensing arithmetic is hardest to argue about in the abstract.
Move site by site rather than estate-wide, keeping Rhombus recording at each site until its replacement has run a full week. Cameras do not move and cabling does not change, so a site cutover is a configuration change plus an IVR. Sequence the waves against license end dates rather than the calendar, and pull anything under hold out of on-camera storage and cloud archiving before the licenses covering it lapse.
Once coverage is stable, the work moves from parity to what the old platform could not do: adding operations and safety agents on the same cameras, building an Iris detection for something specific to your process, and deciding what fires on site when nobody is watching. This phase is where the switch stops being a licensing exercise and starts paying for itself.
The six that come up in every one of these conversations.
Rhombus publishes license terms of 1, 3, 5 or 10 years, so a fleet bought in waves rarely co-terminates neatly. Pull the end date per camera before anything else. Assess and pilot cost little and the comparison is more honest with both systems live, so run the pilot during the overlap and sequence the cutover waves against those dates rather than paying twice across the estate.
No, and the plan is built to make that structural rather than a promise. Rhombus keeps recording at each site until its replacement has run a full week, the cameras never move, and cutover happens site by site. If a site fails its sign-off test, that site stays where it is while the others proceed.
Ask before you plan. Whether a Rhombus camera can stream to another platform over ONVIF or RTSP is not publicly specified, so put it to your account team in writing during the assess phase. If the answer is yes, those cameras carry across like any other. If it is no, they keep working on Rhombus and you phase site by site as licenses end, which strands nothing. Third-party cameras already on your network work either way.
It does not migrate. Rhombus stores video on the camera for 20 to 365 days depending on model and license, with cloud archiving purchased separately and 30 days included at the Enterprise tier, so your export window is the shorter of that retention and the license end date. Treat the export list for anything under legal or insurance hold as a deliverable of the assess phase, not an afterthought.
That is a real difference and it deserves a straight answer. Rhombus sells cameras, door controllers, readers, intercoms, sensors and TMA 5-diamond certified alarm monitoring as one system, and Spot AI is the video layer. If one vendor for doors and monitored alarms is a hard requirement, either keep Rhombus for those and treat this as a video decision only, or stay put. That is a legitimate reason not to switch.
It depends on your mixed-fleet share, your retention and your license tier, and anyone who answers without those three numbers is guessing. Rhombus prices hardware plus a per-camera license plus archiving; a software layer prices the software on cameras you already own. Quote both against the identical site list over three years, with hardware, licenses, archiving and installation itemized on each side.
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."
Any IP camera speaking ONVIF or RTSP works with Spot AI as it is, whoever made it, and analog cameras connect through the Intelligent Video Recorder. Whether Rhombus's own cameras can stream to another platform is not publicly specified, so ask that in writing during the assess phase. Nothing on the wall moves for the third-party half of a fleet.
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.
It stays where it is and does not transfer. Rhombus publishes on-camera storage of 20 to 365 days by model and license, plus cloud archiving available for purchase and 30 days included at the Enterprise tier. Export anything under legal or insurance hold before the licenses covering those cameras lapse.
Yes, and the plan depends on it. The pilot runs one site on both at once so search, detection and response can be compared on identical footage. Rhombus keeps recording at every site until that site's replacement has passed a full week of sign-off.
Rhombus is a hardware-led platform: it sells the cameras, the video sits on them for a number of days set by the model and the license, and AI on a third-party camera runs through an N100 Relay with a license per camera. Spot AI is a software layer on cameras already mounted, with full-resolution video kept on the Intelligent Video Recorder in the building and only metadata leaving it.