Primax shipments deepen questions about where Flock Safety assembles cameras

Why it matters

Flock Safety sells networked surveillance hardware to public agencies, making component provenance and final assembly relevant to procurement. Flock Safety says its products are NDAA compliant, while WIRED could not determine where its current license plate cameras are assembled or precisely what Primax supplies.

Garrett Langley's Flock Safety once told public buyers that its license plate cameras were made in the US. Its current sales materials no longer identify where those cameras receive final assembly, while import records show increasing shipments of cameras, radar systems and other components from Primax Electronics in Thailand, according to a September 17th investigation by WIRED.

The unresolved procurement question is narrower than whether Flock Safety uses overseas parts. Flock Safety built its cost advantage around commodity hardware from the global smartphone supply chain. Buyers still lack a current account of where Flock Safety's roadside cameras are assembled and whether Primax supplies individual components or more complete camera systems.

Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel told WIRED that "All products that Flock builds are National Defense Authorization Act compliant." Flock Safety separately lists its license plate readers, gunshot detection products and video cameras as NDAA and Criminal Justice Information Services compliant. WIRED nevertheless could not determine where Flock Safety currently assembles its license plate cameras.

Langley, Matt Feury and Paige Todd founded Atlanta-based Flock Safety in 2017. Langley, a 2009 Georgia Tech electrical engineering graduate, had previously helped build the car-subscription service Clutch and the mobile live-events business Experience, which Cox Enterprises acquired. Flock Safety says that Experience sold for $200 million in 2014.

Langley started working on Flock Safety after car break-ins in his Atlanta neighborhood exposed the limited value of conventional security footage. Georgia Tech reported that Langley considered security cameras costing $25,000 each before calling Matt Feury, a fellow Georgia Tech graduate and member of the computer science class of 2011. They combined commodity hardware with machine learning that could identify a plate and vehicle characteristics.

The first prototypes used camera modules removed from Android phones purchased through Alibaba, then connected them to batteries and solar panels. The parts cost between $200 and $300, according to Langley's account in a Flock Safety marketing video reviewed by WIRED.

Todd supplied the early sales motion after five years at Home Depot and previous startup work with Langley. She recalled to Georgia Tech that she cold-called 20 neighborhoods and sold two of them immediately, with the customers transferring money to Langley's personal bank account. The first product was effectively an Android phone in a waterproof enclosure.

That origin explains both Flock Safety's cost advantage and the scrutiny around its supply chain today. Langley's thesis put the value in integration, software and packaging. The underlying image sensors, processors and other hardware could remain commodities. "Our value is in the aggregation and the packaging of all of these things ... in a nice waterproof, consumer-friendly device," Langley said in a 2021 video quoted by WIRED.

The disclosed assembly trail ends

Flock Safety initially assembled cameras in Langley's home, then inside an Atlanta office where employees also attached solar panels and mounts. Pallets of parts arriving from China had to be moved through the building several times a week, according to Langley's account.

Flock Safety made explicit domestic-production claims during those early years. Materials from 2019 described Flock Safety's cameras as "manufactured in the United States." The phrasing became "made in the USA" in 2020. A 2021 presentation said Flock Safety handled assembly in Atlanta, and a 2023 brochure called the cameras "designed & manufactured in the U.S.," WIRED reported.

Production later moved in part to contract manufacturers. WIRED identified East West Manufacturing in North Carolina and Plexus in Wisconsin as assembly partners, citing a person familiar with the arrangements. By 2024, those partners could reportedly produce 500 cameras per day, up tenfold from several years earlier, while parts continued to come largely from Asia.

Flock Safety's more recent sales material does not identify a final assembly location for the license plate cameras. East West also removed Flock Safety from its online customer case studies in mid-May 2026 as public opposition to the surveillance network intensified. A 2021 video describing the manufacturing relationship remained online.

ImportGenius records reviewed by WIRED showed increasing shipments from Primax, a Taiwan-headquartered electronics manufacturer with factories in Thailand, China and other countries. The shipment descriptions included commodity cameras, radar systems and other components. ImportGenius analyst Lynn Hughes told WIRED that the descriptions appeared to indicate Primax may manufacture complete security-camera systems and that several shipments included "Radar." The records do not establish precisely what Primax supplies to Flock Safety.

Flock Safety's published compliance description covers its license plate readers, gunshot detection products and video cameras. Neither that description nor Lewbel's statement identifies the current final assembly location for the roadside cameras.

Scale raises the procurement stakes

Flock Safety has grown far beyond the neighborhood camera project its founders assembled by hand. In March 2025, Flock Safety announced a $275M financing led by Andreessen Horowitz at a $7.5B valuation. Greenoaks, Bedrock, Meritech, Matrix, Sands Capital, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Tiger Global and Y Combinator also participated. Fortune reported on August 24th, 2026 that Flock Safety had since raised $500M at an $8.3B valuation.

Flock Safety said in March 2025 that annual recurring revenue had passed $300M, up 70% year over year, and that its products served more than 5,000 US communities. Flock Safety's current FAQ says it has 12,000 customers, including neighborhoods, cities, counties and businesses. Those figures are reported by Flock Safety.

Flock Safety does not publish a standard camera price. Its pricing materials say costs vary by technology, sensor count, software package and property size, with hardware, installation, software, maintenance and support bundled into an annual subscription. That model turns the physical camera into the entry point for a recurring software and service contract, increasing the importance of replacement capacity and supplier continuity.

Public buyers can compare Flock Safety with products from Axon, Motorola Solutions' Vigilant, Rekor and Genetec AutoVu. Camera performance and search software are only part of that evaluation. Agencies also assess component provenance, data processing, access controls, interoperability and each supplier's ability to maintain deployed hardware.

Flock Safety did open a 97,000-square-foot facility in Smyrna, Georgia in April 2025. Flock Safety says the $10 million site assembles solar panels, refurbishes devices and produces its drone system. That announcement does not identify the facility as the final assembly site for Flock Safety's roadside license plate readers.

The manufacturing questions arrive while Flock Safety is already under pressure over how its network is accessed and what its devices collect. RuntimeWire reported on September 17th that sales and testing accounts operating through a fake police department searched live camera networks. Earlier in the month, we documented AI watchlists that let officers search for people by written description.

Physical hardware provenance also matters to procurement teams assessing supply-chain trust and device security, as a separate WIRED examination of a removed Flock Safety camera demonstrated.

Langley's commodity-hardware approach helped turn a costly category into a recurring-service product that local governments could deploy widely. Scale changed the burden attached to that decision. Buyers purchase access to a connected surveillance network while placing physical devices along public roads. Component suppliers, assembly locations and maintenance capacity consequently become part of the vendor evaluation.

Flock Safety has supplied a compliance answer. Its original US-made pitch gave public buyers a broader account of the hardware's origin. The current supply chain still lacks a specific public explanation of where the roadside cameras are assembled and what Primax ships to Flock Safety.