How to stop tailgating in a 24/7 gym

Every tailgater is a membership you're not selling, and at 2am in an unstaffed gym they're something worse: an unknown person on the premises with nobody at the desk. If they hurt themselves on a machine, the first questions anyone asks are who they were and how they got in, and 'we don't know' is an uncomfortable answer to give an insurer. The leakage version is quieter but adds up the same way, one shared fob at a time.

Why the door log can't settle it

Access control is precise about badges and silent about bodies. The log shows one entry at 23:14; it can't say whether one person walked through on it or three. Hardware that physically prevents tailgating exists (full-height turnstiles, interlocked doors), but it's expensive, takes floor space, and most 24/7 sites have a glass door and a reader. So when a member swears they never shared their fob, the log can't argue either way, and the dispute goes nowhere.

Judge the doorway, not the badge

Tailgating is a sequence: the door opens, the first person badges through, a second slips in close behind without checking in. A single snapshot can't tell that apart from a queue, which is why the Tailgating Watch check judges a short window of recent frames together rather than one image at a time. When it reads that sequence on your entrance camera, it raises one alert for the event, with the frames attached; the same check firing again within two minutes is recorded as the event continuing, not a fresh alarm. Alerts land on screen, by email, or by JSON webhook into whatever your team already watches.

1. 01

   Point a camera at the door

   The one on the wall probably already does. Svid captures RTSP feeds on our side, so there's no new hardware; while you're deciding, a spare phone at app.svid.ai/live.html (sign in on the device first) will cover the entrance.

2. 02

   Sign up and turn on Tailgating Watch

   Create an account at app.svid.ai. Four questions, a suggested check bundle and watch level, then the price with its working on screen before Stripe checkout. For a doorway, the Precise level (a frame every second at 1080p) suits how fast the event happens, and the Store prices the check as the extra it adds at your usage.

3. 03

   Choose where alerts land

   Email suits a manager who isn't watching a dashboard; a webhook drops a JSON payload into the systems you already run. One event, one alert, either way.

4. 04

   Use the footage when it's disputed

   The clip behind every alert sits in your Library, and the search bar covers the folder recursively: 'two people entering together on Tuesday night' finds the moment. Your own door log, matched by timestamp, tells you whose fob it was.

What actually stops it

The alert doesn't stop tailgating; what you do with it does. You can't stand at the door of an unstaffed site, so the deterrent is consistency: every event flagged, every fob-holder contacted with a timestamp and a clip. Whether the friend buys a membership or just stops coming, the leakage is now something you can see and act on, which it wasn't before. For chains, the same check runs per camera across sites, and there's a separate guide on watching many cameras at once.

Will it flag two members who both badge in?

It judges whether the second person checks in themselves, read across the window of frames, not just whether two people entered. When something is flagged, the frames arrive with the alert, so telling a genuine tailgate from a polite door-hold takes a few seconds of looking, not a trip to the site.

Can it tell me who the tailgater is?

No, deliberately. There's no facial recognition or biometrics in Svid. You get a description of the event and its timestamp; matching that to a person is your access log's job, and your call.

Do I need new door hardware?

No. It works with the camera already covering the entrance, captured on our side over RTSP. If you were pricing an interlock or a full-height turnstile, this is a much smaller change: the door stays a door.

What does it cost?

Based on your own usage, minimum $9 a month, quoted with the arithmetic shown before you pay. Tailgating Watch is priced in the Store from your own profile, and motion gating keeps the quiet hours cheap.