The trigger moments that start this conversation, what changes on day one and a four-phase plan that keeps every site recording throughout. Written for teams whose Wisenet cameras are staying exactly where they are and whose question is about the software behind them.
Wisenet cameras are supported hardware for a camera-agnostic platform, so a switch here changes the layer that reads them rather than the fleet itself. Both rows describe what each vendor publishes.
Four moments when teams running Hanwha's video management system start this conversation. If none of them are true, staying put is a reasonable answer.
Worth killing early, because it is the most expensive version of this project. Wisenet cameras are supported hardware for a camera-agnostic platform: any ONVIF or RTSP IP camera connects as it is, and legacy analog comes in through the Intelligent Video Recorder. Hanwha builds its cameras to feed platforms other than its own, which is why keeping them and changing the layer above is a supported path rather than a workaround.
Hanwha documents an Analytics Object Detected event meant for video analytics that supply object detection metadata, and WAVE stores and searches that metadata well. What follows from that architecture is worth checking before any renewal: walk each site and write down what its cameras actually detect today. If the sites commissioned last year answer questions the older sites cannot, the gap sits in the devices rather than in a setting somebody forgot.
Hanwha publishes this plainly. A Professional License does not expire and it is locked to the hardware ID of the computing device it is installed on, and one recording license is needed per camera. That is a clean model, and it makes every server refresh a licensing exercise as well as an IT one. A refresh already on the schedule is the cheapest moment to compare platforms, because the decision is open anyway.
The Wisenet catalog and the plugin ecosystem around WAVE are aimed at security detection, and that is a good scope. If a plant now wants dock dwell, PPE or SOP adherence from views it already has, that is a second catalog and usually a second vendor unless the layer above the cameras already ships it. Price that as its own question rather than folding it into a VMS decision.
The structural differences that decide whether a switch is worth starting.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Wisenet WAVE data comes from Hanwha Vision's own WAVE documentation on wavevms.com and its support portal, read on August 14, 2026. Where Hanwha publishes nothing, this table says not publicly specified rather than guessing. Wisenet cameras are supported hardware on both sides of the table and stay on the wall either way.
A rollout that keeps coverage live throughout. Most sites go live inside six weeks.
Inventory the fleet per site: model, resolution, codec and network path, plus which cameras reach WAVE over ONVIF and which were added by an RTSP, HTTP or multicast stream URL because they were not fully ONVIF compatible. That second list is the one to confirm first, because it is the same list any camera-agnostic platform has to check. Record the licensing while you are there: how many recording licenses each site holds, which machine's hardware ID they are locked to and which arrived bundled with a recorder.
Run one site live on both platforms at once. The overlap is the point: it is the only honest 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 camera generations, because that is where the difference between detections supplied per device and agents reading every camera the same way is visible rather than theoretical.
Move site by site rather than estate-wide, keeping WAVE 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, not a re-survey. Decommission a WAVE server only after the site behind it has been signed off, and note where its licenses sit first, because they are tied to that machine rather than to the site.
Once coverage is stable, the work moves from parity to the questions the previous layer was never scoped for: adding operations and safety agents on the same Wisenet cameras, building an Iris detection for something specific to your process and deciding what happens at 03:00 when nobody is watching. This phase is where the switch stops being an infrastructure exercise and starts paying for itself.
The six that come up in every one of these conversations.
Good, and nothing here asks otherwise. Wisenet cameras are supported hardware for a camera-agnostic platform, so every camera keeps its mount, its cabling and its field of view. What changes is the software behind them. Hanwha designs its cameras to be integrated into platforms it does not own, so this is the path the hardware was built for rather than a compromise.
True, and the business case should say so plainly rather than pretend the sunk cost away. Two things soften it. The licenses are locked to the hardware ID of the machine they sit on, so a server refresh reopens the question anyway, and assess and pilot cost one site rather than an estate. Time the cutover to a refresh you were going to do, not to an invoice date.
No, and the plan makes that structural rather than a promise. WAVE 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.
They stay on that server or recorder under the retention you configured, and they do not migrate. Export anything under a legal or insurance hold before the storage rolls over or the machine is decommissioned. Treat that export list as a deliverable of the assess phase rather than an afterthought, because the window closes with your own retention settings.
That cost is real and worth naming rather than waving away. The offset is that asking a question in plain English removes most of the scrubbing the old workflow required, so the skill being replaced is largely the one nobody enjoyed. The fortnight of overlap in the pilot exists for exactly this, and it is the cheapest training budget in the project.
It depends on your camera count, your retention and how many recording licenses you have already bought outright, and anyone answering without those three numbers is guessing. Quote both routes against the identical site list over three years, with software, servers or appliances, storage and installation as separate lines on each side. Perpetual licenses and a subscription do not compare on a single year, so use the same three-year window for both.
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."
No. Wisenet cameras are supported hardware for a camera-agnostic platform: any ONVIF or RTSP IP camera connects as it is, and legacy analog comes in through the Intelligent Video Recorder. Nothing on the wall moves, no coax is pulled and no field of view is re-surveyed. Camera reuse is the argument on this page rather than a concession inside it.
No. Hanwha makes cameras and Spot AI is software that runs on cameras including Hanwha's. The two sit at different layers of the same system. That is why the subject of this comparison is Wisenet WAVE, the video management system Hanwha publishes alongside its hardware, rather than Hanwha Vision the manufacturer.
They stay with the machines they are locked to. Hanwha publishes that a Professional License does not expire and is locked to the hardware ID of the computing device it is installed on, and that one recording license is needed per camera. Any site keeping a WAVE server for another reason keeps its licenses with it, so list the hardware IDs during the assess phase before a machine is decommissioned.
Most estates are live inside six weeks: a week to assess, a fortnight of pilot on one site and then site-by-site cutover. Sites go live individually rather than in one switch, so the timeline scales with how many sites you have rather than how many cameras sit inside them.
WAVE is a server-based video management system: recording runs on your own hardware or a Hanwha recorder, licenses are per camera and locked to that machine, and the object metadata it searches arrives from the camera or an analytics plugin. Spot AI is hybrid edge to cloud: full-resolution video stays on the Intelligent Video Recorder in the building, only event metadata leaves it, and the agents read every camera the same way across security, safety and operations.