Longwatch, Inc.

Originally developed for a major oil and gas company to monitor remote wells in North America, the Longwatch XLP Low Power Video Surveillance System is powered by solar cells and batteries. The system hibernates in a low-power standby mode until an external sensor, such as a motion detector or intrusion alarm, or a command from the central control room sends it a signal to wake up. The system immediately records a short “video alarm clip,” transmits it to a remote operator at a central HMI/SCADA system, and continues to record video on its disk until commanded to return to hibernation.

Longwatch, a supplier of video monitoring hardware and software products, was named by Wonderware as a Certified Software Partner.

In a 10 x 10 ft booth under the escalator at the 1984 ISA Show in Houston, Texas—25 years ago this past October—Steve Rubin, president of Intellution, Inc., and two of his engineers, Al Chisholm and Jim Welch, introduced The FIX: The Fully Integrated Control System, the world’s first configurable PC-based HMI/SCADA software program. They revolutionized automation and process control.

Longwatch, Inc. announced support of the Wonderware ActiveFactory trend chart object. This enables users to link plant video directly with Wonderware’s graphical data trend charts automatically. The result is the ability to see exactly what was happening in the plant when trend pens were in a particular condition.

Longwatch announces the Operator’s Console Recorder, a software module that automatically records images being shown on multiple HMI or SCADA operator’s displays. The module takes its signals directly from each HMI screen’s video software driver, so it records the actual video being sent to the HMI. The software can accommodate video signals from an unlimited number of HMIs to show what operators were watching at the time of an event, alarm or process upset.

Longwatch, Inc., signed Industrial Network Systems as its distributor and systems integrator in Illinois, Indiana, Western Kentucky and Eastern Missouri.

Longwatch added new features and functions to its Video System Version 5.0 to make it easier for users to integrate cameras in local and remote areas, combine video data with a wide variety of plant information, and enable operators to access video data from HMI terminals, cellphones or on a PC via the Internet.