ISC West is a premier venue for technology and what’s new in the industry. Three products stand out in my mind. The first is a consumer product from FLIR that was introduced during the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Thermal camera. FLIR ONE is a powerful thermal camera that connects to an iPhone 5 or 5S. With FLIR ONE’s ability to see in the dark, people have a powerful new tool to help them protect their homes and families. If something goes bump in the night, they can simply point the device in the direction of the noise to see if someone is there, and see what they are doing. I’ve also been informed that FLIR ONE has the ability to tell whether a child is running a fever. Being a newly-anointed grandfather, this feature appealed to me because nothing is too good for my granddaughter.

720-degree camera. IC Realtime is redefining highspeed video with its new 720-degree camera. This duallens camera’s test bed happens to be on top of the Scuderia- Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia No. 63 car.

Why put a camera on a race car? The camera was spec’d for automobile racing because, as Matt Sailor, IC Realtime CEO said, “It is one of the most extreme grounds we can get our hands on.”

From the car top, highdefinition is streamed to mobile devices, though it is only used during practice laps. Still, at 100 miles per hour, that’s pretty cool.

Here’s how it works: Using an iPad, the end user can access the camera and view an all-around scene. It is 360 degrees left to right and another 360 degrees top to bottom. The image is dewarped at the camera, and the two images are stitched together before the end user sees the image. It is pretty darn amazing.

Tomographic motion detection. From CES in January to ISC West in April, Xandem has introduced its tomographic motion detection product. This is a powerful web and mobile interface, capable of realtime monitoring and text/email alerts. There is a lot of stuff like this out there; Xandem is the real deal.

A youthful Ph.D. from the University of Utah, Joey Wilson, demonstrates that the product has easy adjustment of sensitivity and other parameters from one’s phone or web.

Even better, the company’s research team has been hard at work developing a new system for SWAT teams to safely locate the position of people on the inside of a building. The product literally senses through the entire floor plan of a typical home to give commanders a real-time tool for critical decisions.

I always get this question at a tradeshow: “What have you seen that is truly amazing?” Here are three of a host of brilliant technologies from ISC West. I’m sure we’ll be talking about more of them as the year moves along, and as time and space permits.

Quick Focus on Biometrics

I’ve watched biometrics bloom, then wilt, and then bloom and grow throughout my years in the security industry. Right now, biometrics is blossoming.

When HID Global does something, such as buy another company, it is worth paying attention. Not long ago, HID Global bought the assets of Lumidigm, a company dedicated to enabling convenient, secure and reliable identification of people, products and credentials. Real-world performance is a priority, which is why Lumidigm fits so well with HID Global.

During ISC West, I spoke with Bill Spence, Lumidigm vice president of sales, North America. He told me that the company’s innovative software and biometric fingerprint sensors allow the customer to know “who” or “what” to a high degree of certainty, making them especially suitable for industrial, commercial and transportation applications.

The company and its strategic partners have met challenging authentication requirements in banking, healthcare, entertainment and government services. Spence told me a story during our visit regarding how the Lumidigm product is being used in Africa to register babies and small children to match up with a medical initiative for giving inoculations. Healthcare officials were having trouble getting parents, mothers especially, to bring their children to the clinic, and the biometric device seemed to make it easier and more welcoming.

Upon departing the Sands Convention Center after the ISC West event and heading to the airport, my supposed smartphone was misplaced. I returned to Dallas without my communications device, needing a new phone. Visiting the Apple store, I upgraded to the newest iPhone, the 5S, which comes biometrically-enabled.

I’ve not had a personal story to tell about biometrics until now. From here on out, I do not have to remember a passcode. All I need is my finger. Hoping it stays attached for quite a long time, my finger and cell phone have become best of friends. It is an amazing technology that, so far, has worked every time.