Self-serve trial
Test it on your own camera in about five minutes
No install, no hardware, no call with sales. If you have a camera or NVR that can hand out an RTSP or HLS address, you can point it at Surveillant and watch what the AI finds.
The free plan covers one camera so you can run this end to end before paying anything.
Find your camera stream address
In your camera or NVR admin panel, look under Network, RTSP, or Streaming. You want a line that starts with rtsp:// — most vendors show it right there. Hikvision, Dahua, Amcrest, Reolink, Axis, Ubiquiti and anything ONVIF-compatible all expose one. A custom port is fine.
rtsp://user:[email protected]:554/stream1
The address has to be reachable from the internet. A LAN address like 192.168.1.50 only works inside your own network, so use your public address or a port forward.
Paste it on the home page and say what to look for
Put the address in the stream field and describe what matters to you in plain English — "person", "people and vehicles", "someone near the loading dock after 10pm". There are no rules to configure and no zones to draw. Press Connect & Analyze and Surveillant pulls a short clip and analyses it.
You will get results in under a minute. No account is needed for the first run.
Create the account to keep the camera connected
The one-off test shows you the quality of detection. To keep a camera monitored around the clock, create a free account — email and password, a code arrives by email, and that is it.
Run guided setup
Open Setup and the wizard walks you through the whole configuration in three steps: connect the camera, tick the alerts you want, and choose whether we email you a summary. Every option is written in plain language, so there is nothing to look up.
Alerts on offer: someone enters the area, someone loiters, an object is left behind, a crowd forms, people or vehicles appear, or anything you describe yourself.
Let it watch, and read the summary
From then on every connected camera is analysed continuously, once a minute, day and night. Alerts land in your inbox the moment something matches. If you asked for reports, a daily, weekly or monthly recap arrives with the counts and every event raised.
If something does not work
The feed will not connect
Almost always the address is private rather than public. Check whether it starts with 192.168., 10., or 172.16-31. — those only resolve inside your own network. Use your public address with a port forward, or the cloud/relay URL your NVR vendor provides.
Nothing was detected
The prompt is doing the work, so try describing it differently — "person" instead of "intruder", or "people and vehicles" instead of "suspicious activity". The model answers honestly when nothing matches rather than inventing a hit.
The clip looks dark or grainy
Detection runs on the stream as it arrives. If the camera is on a low-bitrate substream, point Surveillant at the main stream instead — the address usually differs only in the last digit.
I want more cameras
The free plan covers one. Starter at $49/month covers one with continuous monitoring, and paid plans go up from there. Nothing is billed until you choose a plan.
Still stuck? Send us the stream address and what you expected to see.
[email protected]