Overview
Agent Talk Down is a capability offered with Verkada Alarm that allows remote monitoring agents to perform live Talk Down through the BZ11 Horn Speaker when an alarm is raised.
How does it work?
At Verkada, we view talkdown as a reasonable attempt to deter person from performing specific activity with the goal of preventing potential crime. Agent Talk Down gives the agent ability to talkdown through the BZ11 horn speaker configured at your site (more on that below) in an attempt to deter intruder after raising an alarm and before initiating dispatch.
Let's walk through an example to understand how Agent Talk Down would typically proceed when it is enabled and configured properly:
Video Verification event is triggered from a camera at your Verkada Alarm site
Agent raises an alarm based on provided video
Once alarm is raised, agent gains live access to emergency dispatch context cameras and the camera that triggered the verification
If one (or more) of the cameras received by the agent have an associated BZ11 speaker, agent will talkdown to deter intruder
After a reasonable Talk Down attempt, agent calls through contact list, describes the results of Talk Down, and requests next steps from the contact. If an agent is unable to reach the contact list, he/she will call dispatch and describe the result of Talk Down.
A few key points to note from this example that illustrates more specifically how Talk Down will work:
The agent will talkdown between the steps when agent raises an alarm based on provided video and before initiating dispatch.
The agent will only be able to talkdown through cameras that were sent as emergency context cameras (and nearby cameras in case of panics/duress code entry).
The agent will receive the ability to access the camera, and consequently talkdown after an alarm is raised.
At least one of the cameras received by the agent as emergency dispatch context camera must have a speaker associated with it for the agent to attempt Talk Down.
The agent will attempt to use the best possible camera to talk down through and will be able to change cameras as the intruder moves through your site. However, please exercise caution before sending too many emergency dispatch cameras to the agent, as that could hamper the agent's ability to attempt Talk Down in an efficient manner.
The agent will initiate dispatch regardless of the outcome of Talk-Down. During the call, the agent will describe the result of Talk Down and request next steps from the customer. At this point, you may choose to contact dispatch, resolve alarm, or disarm your site for up to 12 hours.
There are two exceptions, which are detailed below, to the aforementioned flow:
Situation 1
If your site panics (from panic button, console duress code entry, and/or web panic), and Agent Talk-Down is enabled along with "Immediate Dispatch on Panic", the agent will still call dispatch directly before initiating Talk Down. Agent will still attempt to perform Talk Down in this scenario and the rest of the flow will proceed as noted previously.
Situation 1
If your site panics (from panic button, console duress code entry, and/or web panic), and Agent Talk Down is enabled along with "Immediate Dispatch on Panic", and silent panic is enabled for your device, the agent will not perform Talk Down. A silent panic overrides all settings for Agent Talk-Down for your site and agent will directly call dispatch while no alarm output will trigger at your site.
What will the agent say?
The Talk Down script will contain:
Description of person (within reason)
Description of Activity (within reason)
Description of agent action if person does not cease described activity
Furthermore, agents will give a reasonable amount of time for intruders to cease activity before calling through the contact list. A sample script may look like this:
Person with dark clothing and covering face with a mask attempting to peek inside building, you are on monitored private property. Cease all activity immediately otherwise police will be dispatched.
The agent may repeat the script until it is reasonably clear that the person has either left the property entirely or refuses to leave the property
Configuration
To enable Agent Talk Down for your site, you must:
Have an active alarms license for the physical location that your site is in
Have a BZ11 Horn Speaker along with an active hardware license configured for your site
Have paired the BZ11 Horn Speaker with cameras at your Alarm site
Either set up the paired camera(s) as triggers for our video verification service or send paired cameras as emergency dispatch context cameras for your site
Enable the Agent Talk Down toggle in your site settings
The failure to complete any of these steps may mean that Agent Talk Down is not properly configured for your site and subsequently will not work as expected. For more information on how to set up the BZ11 please visit the Setting up the BZ11 doc.