After-hours security for your car lot, from the cameras you already have

A dealership lot is open to the street, full of high-value stock and mostly empty between close and open. Police, insurers and the trade press keep describing the same few crimes.

• Catalytic converters. In 2023 the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) called its count of these thefts "a snapshot of an underreported crime" and says a converter can be removed in just a few minutes. Its data show about 14,000 thefts in 2024, 68 percent fewer than in 2023 (as reported by Consumer Reports), so the numbers have fallen a long way. An article for independent dealers from the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association (NIADA) still describes one dealership losing 16 converters to two people in under an hour, and says open lots that go unattended overnight put many units in reach at once.
• Wheels and tires. At a Chevrolet dealership in Slidell, Louisiana, thieves took 124 wheels off 31 vehicles overnight, working for about two hours. Police said the crew got past the locks, the alarms and the cameras.
• Keys. Marsh, the insurance broker, tells dealers to keep keys in a locked cabinet, key room or electronic key machine, on tamper-evident rings, and never inside a vehicle that is unattended. In January 2026, police in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, described a ring that cloned or swapped key fobs while posing as customers, then stole or tried to steal the same vehicles later: at least 20 vehicles in several states, worth about $2.4 million.
• Break-ins. Zurich, which insures dealerships, describes thieves who break a window, plug a programming tool into the diagnostic port and program a new key fob. In March 2025, masked thieves used a crowbar to get into a dealership in Arlington Heights, Illinois, overnight, pried a safe off the wall, took the key fobs and drove off three luxury vehicles. Police recovered one. Two were still missing when it was reported.

Most dealerships already have cameras. In Arlington Heights the cameras caught the whole break-in. In Slidell the loss was found the next morning and police worked from blurry video. Video tells you what happened. What was missing was someone knowing while it was happening.

That is the part we add. We do not replace your cameras, your fence, your key control or your insurance. We read the video your cameras already produce and tell you when something needs a person.

Our software runs on a Windows computer at your dealership and reads the video from the recorder you already have. These are the things it watches for.

• People on the lot after close, in zones you mark. Mark the front line, the back rows, the exit lane, the service entrance or the key room, on the cameras you choose. You set your closed hours once for the site. Anyone in those zones during closed hours becomes an alert with a photo, the camera and the time.
• Vehicles, with a rule in plain words. A lot full of parked cars is not a warehouse yard, so we do not alert on every vehicle in view. You can write a rule such as "tell me about any vehicle at the exit lane when we are closed", and we help you set it up on the cameras that cover your gates and drive lanes.
• A camera that has been covered or goes offline. If a lens is covered, sprayed, blacked out or knocked out of focus, we send a photo of what the camera now sees. If a camera stops sending video for about ten minutes, we send you a notice.
• Smoke and fire in the service bay and parts room. We check the cameras you connect for visible smoke and flame every few seconds, day and night, and send an alert with a photo. We train our own AI models in-house to find smoke and flame.

A service bay and a parts room hold stock, tools and electrical equipment that nobody watches after close. The National Fire Protection Association estimates 1,660 structure fires a year at motor vehicle or boat sales, service and repair properties, with about $121 million in direct property damage a year (2014 to 2018, in its December 2020 report). Its figures do not separate sales from service.

A fire that starts in the parts room at night can burn unseen from the street. We watch those cameras for visible smoke and flame and tell you with a photo. We are an early warning on top of your certified fire alarms and sprinklers, never a replacement. Fire rules depend on where you are, so ask your fire authority what applies to your building.

You choose who is told: the owner, the general manager, the service director, whoever picks up the phone at night. Calling the police, driving in or checking the lot is up to them. We do not send guards, dispatch police or run a monitoring center.

We are straight about timing. We check each event with a second, larger model before we alert you, so an alert is not instant. Some thefts are over in minutes. A crew that spends an hour or two taking wheels is a different case, and that is where an alert helps most.

An alert tells you someone is on the lot. It cannot tell you who. If your lot crew or detailers work late, set your closed hours to match, or tell us which cameras you want watched and we will set it up with you.

Our software installs on a Windows computer at your site in 60 seconds. It connects to the recorder you already have: Hikvision, Dahua, Axis, Hanwha, Uniview, TVT, CP Plus, or any camera or recorder that supports RTSP or ONVIF. No new cameras and no rewiring. Your recorder keeps recording as usual.

Detection runs on site. A second, larger model checks every event before it reaches you, which keeps false alarms down. Alerts arrive as a photo with the camera and the time, on Telegram or the Foreman app, and on WhatsApp for people, smoke and fire. Every day you get a plain-language summary.

Your recordings stay on site. What leaves is the photo and short clip of an event, and a small preview photo of each camera every few minutes. Event media is encrypted and deleted after 30 days. We never train on your video.

• We do not sell or install cameras. If a camera cannot see the lot at night, a better camera or better lighting fixes that. Software cannot.
• We do not provide guards, a monitoring center, police dispatch or talk-down speakers. We alert the people you choose, and they decide what to do.
• We do not replace key control. Tamper-evident key rings, a locked cabinet and an end-of-shift key count, which Zurich lists for dealers, are still your best defense against fob cloning. A camera will not catch a fob swapped at a desk in daylight.
• We do not replace your fire alarms, your sprinklers or anything your insurer requires.

Zurich lists the layers it suggests for dealerships: alarms monitored by a central station, fencing, on-site security, daily key counts and monitored video. Some commercial property policies also name protective safeguards you must keep in working order, and a change to your system can matter to a claim. Ask your agent what your policy requires before you change anything. We are one layer on top of those, not a substitute for them.