Competitor Feature Comparison¶

Analysis of features from Unifi Protect and REKOR compared to Chaverim ALPR Platform.

Date: 2025-12-30 Purpose: Identify feature gaps and evaluate which can be added to our platform.

Feature Matrix¶

Detection & Recognition¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
License plate capture	✅	✅	✅	Core feature
Confidence score	✅	✅	✅
Direction of travel	✅	✅	✅
Full scene image	✅	✅	✅
Plate crop image	✅	✅	✅
Vehicle make detection	❌	✅	✅	AI/ML required
Vehicle model detection	❌	✅	✅	AI/ML required
Vehicle color detection	❌	✅	✅	AI/ML required
Face recognition	❌	✅	❌	Future consideration
Paper/temp plate reading	❓	❓	✅	Depends on camera
High-speed capture (120mph)	❌	❌	✅	Hardware dependent

Search & Query¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
Exact plate search	✅	✅	✅
Partial/wildcard search	✅	✅	✅
Fuzzy/OCR-aware search	✅	❌	✅	Our advantage
Time range filtering	✅	✅	✅
Location filtering	✅	✅	✅
Vehicle attribute search	❌	✅	✅	Requires make/model data
Proximity search	✅	❌	❌	Our advantage
Autocomplete	✅	✅	✅

Alerts & Notifications¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
Custom watchlists	✅	✅	✅
Real-time WebSocket alerts	✅	✅	✅
Telegram notifications	✅	❌	❌	Our advantage
Push notifications (mobile)	🔜	✅	✅	Post-MVP
NCIC integration	❌	❌	✅	Law enforcement only
Shared hotlists (cross-org)	❌	❌	✅	RPSN network
Priority levels	✅	✅	✅
Alert expiration	✅	❌	❓
Webhook API	❌	❌	✅	Easy to add
Quiet hours	✅	❌	❓

Visualization & Tracking¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
Detection timeline	✅	✅	✅
Route visualization (map)	✅	❌	✅
Live tracking map	✅	❌	✅
Active pursuit mode	✅	❌	❌	Our advantage
Live detection feed	✅	✅	✅
Video playback	❌	✅	✅	Storage intensive
Geofence alerts	🔜	✅	❓	Post-MVP

Investigation Tools¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
Co-travel detection	🔜	❌	✅	Post-MVP
Pattern analysis	🔜	❌	✅	Post-MVP
Network visualization	🔜	❌	❓	Post-MVP
Incident report builder	❌	✅	❓	Medium effort

Integration & Automation¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
REST API	✅	✅	✅
Webhook API (outbound)	❌	❌	✅	Easy to add
Physical access (gates/doors)	❌	✅	❌	Unifi Access only
PTZ camera triggering	❌	✅	❌	Camera dependent
Home automation	❌	❌	✅	Low priority
Audio classification	❌	✅	❌	Different domain

Mobile & Apps¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
Responsive web UI	✅	✅	✅
Native mobile app	🔜	✅	✅	Post-MVP
Handheld ALPR (phone camera)	❌	❌	✅	Rekor Go app

Data & Storage¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
Self-hosted option	✅	✅	❓	Our advantage
7-year retention	✅	❌	💰	Our advantage
WORM protection	✅	❌	❓	Our advantage
Audit trail	✅	✅	✅
Evidence export (PDF/ZIP)	🔜	✅	✅	Post-MVP
Privacy framework	❌	❌	✅	Patented by REKOR

Edge & Hardware¶

Feature	Chaverim	Unifi Protect	REKOR	Notes
Multi-vendor camera support	✅	❌	✅	Our advantage
Offline buffering	✅	❌	✅
Edge processing	❌	✅	✅	Limited by Pi hardware
Dedicated ALPR hardware	❌	✅	✅	We use existing cameras

Gap Analysis & Feasibility¶

✅ Easy to Add (Low Effort)¶

Feature	Effort	Value	Recommendation
Webhook API	1-2 days	High	Add to MVP - reuse notification queue pattern
Incident report builder	3-5 days	Medium	Post-MVP - PDF generation with detection summary
Evidence export (PDF/ZIP)	2-3 days	High	Post-MVP - consolidate images + metadata

Webhook API Implementation: - Add webhooks table (user_id, url, events[], secret, is_active) - Add webhook as notification channel alongside Telegram - HMAC signature for payload verification - Retry logic already exists in notification queue

⚠️ Medium Effort¶

Feature	Effort	Value	Recommendation
Video clip capture	1-2 weeks	Medium	Requires camera integration changes
Geofence alerts	1 week	Medium	PostGIS + polygon storage
Native mobile app	4-6 weeks	High	Already planned post-MVP
Handheld ALPR (phone)	4-8 weeks	Medium	Requires mobile app + on-device OCR

Video Clip Capture Considerations: - Storage: 5-second clip @ 1080p ≈ 5-10MB per detection - At 100K detections/day = 500GB-1TB/day (10x current) - Would need to be optional/configurable per collector - Requires camera API support for video retrieval

🔬 Requires ML/AI (High Effort)¶

Feature	Effort	Value	Recommendation
Paper/temp plate reading	2-3 weeks	Low	OCR tuning

Vehicle Make/Model/Color:

Requires self-hosted ML model (no budget for external APIs): - Train on vehicle dataset (Stanford Cars, CompCars) - Run on central server GPU - Requires ML expertise, GPU hardware, training data - Moved to Future Consideration due to complexity

🔮 Future Consideration¶

Feature	Notes
Vehicle make/model/color	Requires self-hosted ML model and GPU
Face recognition	Requires per-Chaverim member vetting

❌ Not Feasible / Not Recommended¶

Feature	Reason
NCIC integration	Requires law enforcement credentials/partnership
Cross-org data sharing (RPSN)	Legal complexity, privacy liability
High-speed capture (120mph)	Hardware limitation, not our use case
Physical access control	Requires Unifi Access hardware ecosystem
On-device edge AI	Pi resource constraints
Audio classification	Different sensor domain, not relevant
Privacy framework (anonymization)	REKOR has patent; also not our use case

Recommended Roadmap¶

Post-MVP Phase 1 (First 3 Months)¶

Feature	Justification
Webhook API	Low effort, high integration value, enables external alerting systems
Native mobile app	Already planned, high user value
Evidence export (PDF/ZIP)	Low effort, high prosecution value
Geofence alerts	Medium effort, high operational value
Incident report builder	Medium effort, professional output

Post-MVP Phase 2 (6+ Months)¶

Feature	Justification
Video clip capture	High storage cost, make optional
Handheld ALPR	Requires mobile app foundation first

Future Consideration¶

Feature	Notes
Vehicle make/model/color	Requires self-hosted ML model and GPU
Face recognition	Requires per-Chaverim member vetting

Not Planned¶

Feature	Reason
NCIC integration	Law enforcement only
Cross-org sharing	Legal complexity
Physical access	Hardware ecosystem lock-in

Competitive Advantages to Maintain¶

Features where Chaverim excels over competitors:

Advantage	vs Unifi	vs REKOR
Self-hosted, no cloud	✅ Equal	✅ Better
Multi-vendor cameras	✅ Better	✅ Equal
7-year retention (free)	✅ Better	✅ Better (they charge)
Fuzzy/OCR-aware search	✅ Better	✅ Equal
Telegram notifications	✅ Better	✅ Better
Active pursuit mode	✅ Better	✅ Better
Proximity search	✅ Better	✅ Better
WORM data protection	✅ Better	❓ Unknown
Cost (free/self-hosted)	✅ Better	✅ Much better

Sources¶

Unifi Protect: - AI-LPR Setup Guide - AI Detections & Face Recognition - License Plate Unlock

REKOR: - Rekor Scout Software - Rekor Edge Pro - Rekor Edge Max - Rekor Go Mobile App - Privacy Framework Patent

Status: Draft Next Steps: Review with stakeholders, finalize MVP scope decisions