CAM-346
The flash nobody was there to see
Seven minutes past two in the afternoon. A white flash bursts out of the transformer bushings, throwing sparks, and in the same second a column of black smoke starts to climb. There is nobody in the yard. An electrical arc lasts less than a blink: by the time anyone arrives, all that is left is the smoke and a dead machine. The camera has it, with the exact second and the piece of equipment it came from.
Turn on IRIS Vision
AI-generated image
What IRIS is
IRIS watches the plant for you.
IRIS looks at the cameras you already have on the plant floor and understands what it sees: a stopped line, someone inside a robotic cell, someone without their safety gear on, jammed parts. When something like that happens, it alerts right away; and whatever can be counted, it counts in numbers. All day long, with no one needing to watch the screen.
You tell it what you need to watch, and IRIS does it.
Here, for example, in the very second the flash happens, IRIS catches it and saves the video showing exactly which piece of equipment it came from and the seconds before. So the technician doesn't turn up an hour later to find just smoke, they have the moment recorded to see what happened. With that footage, they decide what part to order and what to write in the report.
Works with the cameras you already have. Nothing to replace.
A person replies, not a form.
- Your footage never leaves your premises.
- It doesn't identify people.
- Certifications →
What IRIS understands
What it recognises in this scene
- flash at the bushings
- column of smoke
- transformer tank
- switching cabinet
- yard switchgear
What this camera measures
An alert says something is happening. The reading says how much.
- 14:07:32Time of the flash, to the second
- < 1 sHow long the flash lasts on camera
- 30 sVideo kept from before the flash
- 2 minSmoke in frame for
- 0People in the compound at that instant
The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client's measurement.
The rule
You decide once. IRIS applies it always.
If
an intense flash or an arc appears in the yard along with smoke in the same view
Then
- alert the control room right away with the camera and the exact second of the flash
- keep the video from half a minute before the flash
- mark on the picture the equipment the arc came from
The instruction that set it up«If a flash or an arc goes off in the yard, I want the video with the exact second and the equipment it came from, even if nobody is there.»
What changes
What changes for whoever answers for the plant
At seven minutes past two there was nobody in the compound; by three, the maintenance technician arrives and finds only smoke and a dead machine. From there on everything is reconstructed from logs and from what can be seen the next day. With the camera there is a video with the instant, the affected equipment and the seconds before, which are usually the ones that explain the arc. The investigation, the report and the spare-part order all come out of that answer. The difference between guessing and knowing is a few frames.
What people usually ask
Can IRIS prevent an electrical arc?
No. IRIS does not switch anything, does not trip anything and does not replace the site's electrical protection, which acts on its own and long before anyone looks at a screen. What the camera adds is what the protection does not store: the picture of the instant, the equipment the arc came from and the seconds before it. That is what is needed afterwards, to understand why it happened.
What if the arc lasts less than a single frame?
An arc leaves traces beyond the flash itself: the smoke, the spray of sparks and the visible change on the equipment. IRIS marks the frame of the flash and keeps the video from before it, so the later analysis has both the moment and the context. We do not promise to see everything that happens in a blink. We promise that whatever the camera did record is found right away, instead of being hunted for by hand through hours of video.
Do you need a thermal camera for this?
Not for the flash: an ordinary camera sees it, at night as well. Thermal is for what comes before, for reading heat build-up on a bushing or a connection while there is still no smoke or flame. If the substation already has thermal cameras fitted, IRIS works with them just like with the rest. In neither case does it replace the machine's own protection.
Other cameras
- CAM-340 · Someone is walking through a compound that is always empty
- CAM-341 · The fence is down and someone is coming through the gap
- CAM-342 · Eleven minutes parked where nobody ever stops
- CAM-343 · A cabinet is being emptied of its copper
- CAM-344 · Flame and black smoke on the transformer
- CAM-345 · A trail of oil under the transformer
Simulation · how IRIS works
Everything comes in. Only what matters gets through.
This sums up what IRIS does with one alert, from the moment it appears until it is closed. The real screen holds far more; this is the main thread.
- Checks the whole system
- Flags what is failing
- Puts it on one screen
See it somewhere else
Who sees the child who has fallen at the far end of the playground?
14 cases: 13 raise an alert when something happens and one only measures. You see each image as it is, and then with what IRIS understands on top.
Who is watching a site where there is almost never anybody?
44 cases, and in every one of them IRIS raises an alert when something happens. You see each image as it is, and then with what it understands on top.
And the best part
The rule does not decide anything.It just never forgets, and it tells the person who decides.
You write once what needs watching, and it holds at three in the morning just as at noon. What to do with the alert is still a person’s decision.
Tell us your problem and we will say whether IRIS understands it, or not yet.
We reply the same working day.