Just got this email from Rekor

[Fubduck]

Please be advised that the price of Rekor Scout™ Home will increase to $8 per month effective November 1, 2021.



The Scout platform has undergone numerous improvements to provide increased recognition capabilities over the past few years, and we look to continue to increase the capabilities and functionality that exists within our software. As always, we are committed to providing quality products and service to you and appreciate your business and continued support.

Sincerely,

The Rekor Team

I'm guessing that means $8/camera/mo.

 

[TVille]

I'm betting that they have too many commercial accounts using the home license and they want to encourage folks running a half dozen cameras to get the business account, and to reduce the load of home systems who don't ever use the information.

I have two cameras on OpenALPR, one is a 5442 which just happens to be close to the road and works during the day. I'll be dropping that one.

The web site doesn't say per month per camera, only per month. Of course, it also doesn't say the price is going up in 10 days! I think you are right, per month per camera.

 

[wtimothyholman]

I also got this email:

_
Dear Not Available,

Please be advised that all legacy implementations of Rekor Scout™Commercial will increase to $49 per month beginning effective November 1, 2021 to match the current Scout Commercial version pricing.

Over the past two years, the Scout platform has undergone numerous improvements to provide increased recognition accuracy and capabilities, along with improved dashboards and other search and security functionality.

To take advantage of the full capabilities of Scout now and in the future, we encourage you to update your agent to the latest available version (2.7.101), which can be accessed at https://cloud.openalpr.com/getting_started/. The legacy version of Scout will continue to stay live, but we will no longer be supporting updates.
_

The right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing at Rekor. Version 2.7.101 was three updates ago. The current version is 4.1.1.

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

Yeah its a shame, but I still think its worth the money

 

[wittaj]

Ugh....it should be easy for them to determine which one are commercial and which ones are home hobbyist.

60% for what improvements?

 

[wtimothyholman]

Ugh....it should be easy for them to determine which one are commercial and which ones are home hobbyist.

60% for what improvements?

None that I can think of, beyond the upgrades to the agent. To me, the question is this: what is their competition? Even at $8 / camera / month, I don't think any other company can compete. They're increasing their price because they believe they can.

In many ways, Rekor is allowing OpenALPR to languish. Fortunately they are still updating and maintaining the software, but they seem disinclined to promote it. If I were them, I'd be selling a customized box to run Scout that is based on the Nvidia Jetson Nano, and making deals with camera manufacturers to bundle it with a limited time free license. But perhaps the potential revenue doesn't justify the effort for them. It's all about smart cities and traffic analytics to Rekor.

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

I wonder if there will be any viable alternatives to Rekor. Anyone know of any?

$8/Mo per camera kinda sucks, but its not enough I'll cancel. But, I think my limit is $10 a camera. If it gets to that, do I really get $20/mo of Value? I'm not so sure. Especially given that the only way its even usable is feeding the data into third party tools so we can have meaningful retention

If that were not possible, even $5/mo per camera wouldn't be worth it, as 5 days of history is a joke

 

[wtimothyholman]

I wonder if there will be any viable alternatives to Rekor. Anyone know of any?

$8/Mo per camera kinda sucks, but its not enough I'll cancel. But, I think my limit is $10 a camera. If it gets to that, do I really get $20/mo of Value? I'm not so sure. Especially given that the only way its even usable is feeding the data into third party tools so we can have meaningful retention

If that were not possible, even $5/mo per camera wouldn't be worth it, as 5 days of history is a joke

I emailed Rekor support and suggested that they at least increase the data retention period to 7 days if they're going to increase the price by 60%.

No reply so far. It is really hard to get any sort of response from them where Rekor Scout is concerned. They have an almost dismissive attitude towards their own flagship product.

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

What does Rekor actually provide? Is it the AI model?

Can we all just band together and make our own?

 

[biggen]

If it weren't for @mlapaglia and his webhook tool, I probably wouldn't even fool with Rekor. But since we now have virtually unlimited retention using that webhook service, I think its still a damn good service for $8/month.

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

Agreed, I don't even visit the Rekor Web UI

 

[biggen]

What does Rekor actually provide? Is it the AI model?

Can we all just band together and make our own?

You can roll it yourself from their opensource Github. Their opensources are old though. Last public release was in 2016.

 

[wtimothyholman]

You can roll it yourself from their opensource Github. Their opensources are old though. Last public release was in 2016.

The agent has been significantly improved since moving to a closed licensed model. In terms of identifying plates reliably, the Rekor Scout agent is worth paying for.

The open source version could be improved, but I doubt that there is anyone out there with sufficient expertise and time to make a pro bono effort.

 

[nhs128]

Hell my agent service keeps stopping since the last update so bleh.

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

Does the agent auto-update?

I've never touched it since setting it up almost a year ago

 

[nhs128]

Mine didn't. I just updated recently (thought it auto updated lol).

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

Oh wow, I'm still on 2.8.101...

 

[nhs128]

I'm on 4.1.1

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

Now the question is, do I update...

Did you just download and run the installer again? I don't see any update feature in the application

 

[nhs128]

Yeah, I uninstalled and then ran the installer.