AOV Storage Explained: How Always-On Video Cameras Record, and What Wholesale Buyers Should Specify

The short answer

An AOV (Always-On Video) camera stores its footage locally on a microSD card. Across SolaGuard's 49 AOV models the standard is a microSD slot taking cards up to 128GB, written as a continuous loop: once the card is full the oldest footage is overwritten and recording never stops. There is no mandatory subscription and no cloud dependency for the archive — these are 4G LTE cameras, so live view and event clips travel over the mobile network, but the recorded timeline itself sits in the camera. Higher-capacity cards are a custom-order conversation with the factory, not a stock option.

That is the answer most buyers came for. What follows is what your own customers will ask you the week after, and what you should settle with the factory before you quote them.

Why AOV changes the storage question at all

AOV is an industry-generic term — not a SolaGuard trademark — for a camera that keeps a 24/7 timeline at low standby power, using AI scene analysis instead of a PIR sensor to decide what deserves full-quality capture.

The distinction matters commercially because it is the single most common complaint about the previous generation of solar cameras. A PIR-triggered camera only writes to the card when the passive infrared sensor fires. It misses:

• Slow or parallel movement — a person walking across the frame rather than toward the lens often never trips PIR at all.
• Out-of-zone events — anything at the edge of the detection cone simply does not exist in the recording.
• The seconds before the trigger — you get the intruder leaving, not arriving.
• Hot-weather false negatives — PIR works on thermal contrast, which collapses on a 35°C afternoon in the Mekong Delta or a Sonoran summer.

AOV removes that failure mode by never stopping the encoder. The trade is that the card is under continuous write load and the battery is under continuous draw. Both of those are procurement decisions, not installer decisions.

Specify endurance, not just capacity

Because an AOV camera writes around the clock, the card is a wear item in a way it never was on a trigger-based unit. Source surveillance-grade or high-endurance microSD cards rated for continuous video, not the consumer cards sold for phones and drones — and format them in-camera rather than on a laptop. A distributor who bundles cheap cards with an AOV camera is buying a warranty queue. This is the most common avoidable cost in the category.

Why we do not publish a "days of retention" number

Every buyer asks how many days a 128GB card holds, and any supplier who answers with a single confident figure is guessing. Actual retention on the same card varies with:

• Stream configuration — recording at 1080p versus 2K, and what bitrate the installer leaves set.
• Lens count — a dual-lens or triple-lens model writing all sensors generates substantially more data than a single-sensor unit.
• Scene activity — a static warehouse yard compresses far better than a busy loading dock or a tree line moving in the wind.
• Day versus night — infrared night footage is noisier and compresses worse, so overnight hours consume more card than daylight hours.

The practical method for a distributor: bench one sample of the exact SKU you intend to stock, in the recording mode you will ship it in, for 48 hours, and measure. That number is defensible to your customer. An estimate copied from a datasheet is not. Ask us for the recommended configuration on a specific model and a person will answer — retention, price and lead time on this catalogue always come from a human, never from a spec sheet generator.

The four AOV series, and how storage load differs across them

All 49 AOV models in the catalogue run 2K (2.0MP) sensors, IP66 weatherproofing and the same microSD architecture. What changes between series is lens count — which drives how much data hits the card — and the power budget behind it.

Read that table as a pairing exercise rather than a price ladder. The multi-lens series produce more footage per hour and draw more power doing it, so the site that justifies a triple-lens camera is usually also the site that needs the larger power budget. The SG-D42G-15F66 series is the one that pairs dual lenses with 20000mAh and a 15W panel — the combination to reach for when the camera must hold a genuine 24/7 timeline through a monsoon week, a shaded mounting position, or short winter days. Full specifications for every variant are on the product catalogue.

Power is the real constraint on continuous recording

Continuous encoding, infrared illumination and a 4G radio uploading alerts all draw from the same cell. A camera that runs out of charge at 03:00 has no storage problem and no footage either.

• SG-C41G-10T66-V1, 2K single sensor, 8000mAh, 8W. The volume entry point for open, sunny sites.
• SG-D42G-10F66-V1, 2K dual lens, 8000mAh, 8W. Two fields of view where sunlight is reliable.
• SG-D42G-15F66-V1, 2K dual lens, 20000mAh, 15W. The specification for demanding continuous-record deployments.

Across the wider 150-SKU catalogue, the 49 AOV models sit at the upper end, with wholesale prices quoted per order. That premium over trigger-based units is almost entirely power and processing — the storage hardware is common.

What to lock down before you place the order

Storage decisions on an OEM or private-label run are firmware and packaging decisions, and they are cheap to set at the factory and expensive to fix in your warehouse.

• Default recording mode out of the box. Continuous or event-only, set before the units ship. Most end users never change a default, so this determines what your market actually experiences.
• Cards in the box, or not. Decide whether units ship with a card, at what capacity, preformatted or blank. Bundling removes a support call; not bundling lowers your landed cost.
• Card-full behaviour and overwrite policy, plus what the app tells the user when the card degrades.
• App and firmware branding on private-label runs, including the storage settings screen.

Commercial terms: MOQ is 10 units for a trial order and 100 for OEM/ODM, with private labelling available on all models including every AOV SKU. Dealer margin runs 20% from around 10 units and 30% from around 50 — the dealer programme sets out the tiers. Samples ship in 7–10 days by air, bulk orders in 25–40 days by sea, and stock held for the Vietnamese market delivers in 7–10 business days from the Ho Chi Minh City office.

Manufacturing is by Shenzhen Leksell, established 2012, TÜV Rheinland certified with CE, FCC and RoHS compliance. Installation is 5–10 minutes per camera — no grid power, no WiFi, no cabling — which is what makes a 50-camera rollout across a farm, a construction site or a port yard a one-day job rather than an electrical contract.

A short procurement checklist

Before you commit to an AOV line, confirm you can answer these for the exact SKU:

1. Which card capacity ships as standard, and does it meet a surveillance endurance rating?
2. What retention did you measure on a bench sample, in the mode you will ship?
3. Does the power budget of the model match the worst month of the installation site's weather, not the average?
4. Is the default recording mode the one your market expects?
5. Are your warranty terms clear on the card as a consumable versus the camera as hardware?

A distributor who can answer all five in a sales meeting closes against suppliers who can only quote a price. To spec a configuration for your market, see wholesale terms or write to info@solaguard.net — quantity, pricing and lead time come from a person who has seen your volumes.