Build1 publisher2 min readPublished
WIRED traces rising Thai camera shipments into Flock Safety's supply chain
Flock Safety told buyers in 2019 that its license plate cameras were manufactured in the United States. Import records now show growing camera and radar shipments from a Thai supplier. WIRED could not establish where the cameras are assembled today.
The Engineer · Build desk
What happened
- Import records show rising shipments of cameras, radar systems and other components from Primax Electronics in Thailand, according to a September 17th WIRED investigation.
- Flock Safety once told public buyers that its license plate cameras were made in the US. Its current sales materials name no site for final assembly.
- WIRED identified East West Manufacturing in North Carolina and Plexus in Wisconsin as assembly partners able to build 500 cameras a day by 2024, with parts still coming largely from Asia.
Compiled by The EngineerSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- exposure Agencies buying Flock hardware hold a vendor attestation that no one outside the company can currently match to a plant. In an audit, the buyer carries that gap, not the vendor.
- decision A renewal is the point where an agency can make the contract manufacturer, the assembly site and the scope of the Primax supply a written condition. Or it can accept the compliance attestation as the whole answer.
- contradiction The 2023 brochure line calls the cameras designed and manufactured in the US. It sits alongside assembly by partners in North Carolina and Wisconsin and parts sourced largely in Asia, so its meaning depends on what the word manufactured was covering.
Langley described the product's value in a 2021 video quoted by WIRED: "Our value is in the aggregation and the packaging of all of these things ... in a nice waterproof, consumer-friendly device" [8]. A company that buys commodity modules and adds a waterproof box can change where the box gets filled without changing the product. The first prototypes were camera modules taken out of Android phones bought through Alibaba, wired to batteries and solar panels. Parts ran $200 to $300, according to Langley's account in a Flock marketing video WIRED reviewed [9]. Georgia Tech reported that he had looked at security cameras costing $25,000 each before he called Matt Feury [10]. The parts bill was 80 to 125 times smaller [11].
Commodity sourcing is the cost structure, and commodity suppliers move. Pallets of parts arrived from China and were carried through the Atlanta office several times a week in the early years, by Langley's account [12]. WIRED identified East West Manufacturing in North Carolina and Plexus in Wisconsin as assembly partners, citing a person familiar with the arrangements. By 2024 the two could build 500 cameras a day, ten times their rate several years earlier, with parts still coming largely from Asia [13]. Five hundred a day is roughly 130,000 cameras a year across 260 working days [14].
The sales language got less specific as production moved. Flock's 2019 materials called the cameras "manufactured in the United States." The 2020 phrasing was "made in the USA." A 2021 presentation said assembly happened in Atlanta, and a 2023 brochure described the cameras as "designed & manufactured in the U.S.," WIRED reported [16]. The current material names no assembly site [2].
What a public buyer has on the record is the compliance line. Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel told WIRED that "All products that Flock builds are National Defense Authorization Act compliant" [4]. The company separately lists its license plate readers, gunshot detection products and video cameras as NDAA and Criminal Justice Information Services compliant [5]. No compliance failure appears in the reporting, and the open question is narrower than whether Flock uses overseas parts [20].
For the Primax shipments to mean what a procurement officer will assume they mean, two things would have to hold. Primax would have to ship assembled camera systems rather than individual components, and those systems would have to be the cameras going onto US roadsides now. WIRED could not determine either, or where Flock currently assembles its license plate cameras [3]. The customers are public agencies, and that makes provenance a procurement question [6].
What to watch
- Whether Flock names the contract manufacturer and plant for the camera model it is shipping now.
- Whether customs descriptions on the Primax shipments distinguish complete camera systems from loose components.
- Whether any public agency writes assembly-site and bill-of-materials disclosure into a Flock renewal.