AOV Cameras Explained: What "Always-On Video" Means When You Source Solar 4G Units

AOV means Always-On Video — and it is a category, not a brand

If you searched "aov videomonteur" and arrived on a security-camera page, here is the direct answer: in the surveillance hardware trade AOV stands for Always-On Video — a camera that records continuously, 24 hours a day, rather than waking up only when a PIR motion sensor trips. It has nothing to do with video editing, post-production or an editing suite; the initials collide across industries and languages, which is exactly why buyers searching the term land on the wrong kind of page. AOV is also industry-generic: it is not a trademark, not proprietary to any one supplier, and most Shenzhen factories now list AOV models. What differs enormously between them is the battery and solar panel pairing sitting behind the claim, because "always-on" is a power-budget promise before it is a feature. SolaGuard's catalogue carries 49 AOV SKUs, wholesale prices quoted per order, across four series, all 2K, all IP66.

What the camera is actually doing

An AOV camera keeps its image pipeline in a low standby state and runs on-device AI scene analysis to decide what to encode, what to push over the 4G LTE link and what to discard. That is the whole trick: continuous capture, selective retention and selective upload. A PIR-triggered camera does the opposite — it sleeps until a passive infrared element registers a heat differential across its detection cone, then spends the opening moments of the event waking up. For a consumer doorbell that trade is fine. For a farm gate, a container yard or a construction perimeter, it is where the footage you needed goes missing.

AOV versus PIR triggering: the failure modes buyers actually report

The honest counterweight: continuous operation costs energy every hour of every day, including the overcast ones. This is the single reason a distributor should never treat "AOV" as one spec tier. Two cameras can both be AOV, both be 2K, and behave completely differently in November because one carries roughly two and a half times the cell capacity and nearly double the panel.

The 49 AOV models: four series, and where they diverge

Read the two dual-lens rows side by side, because that is the most instructive comparison in the range. Eighteen variants run the dual-lens optic on 8000mAh and an 8W panel; sixteen run the same optic class on 20000mAh and 15W and cost meaningfully more. Same picture, different endurance. Of the 49 AOV SKUs, 33 sit on the 8000mAh / 8W pairing and 16 on 20000mAh / 15W.

That gives a procurement rule of thumb worth more than any marketing sheet: specify the higher-capacity pairing for sites with partial shade, high winter latitude, short daylight, heavy vegetation over the mounting point, or a site visit cycle measured in months. Specify the 8000mAh / 8W pairing for open, sunny, regularly attended installations where the unit cost per point matters more than worst-case autonomy.

Concrete entry points for a trial order: SG-C41G-10T66-V1 (single 2K lens, 8000mAh, 8W), SG-D42G-10F66-V1 (dual lens, 8000mAh, 8W), and SG-D42G-15F66-V1 (dual lens, 20000mAh, 15W), with wholesale prices quoted per order. The full catalogue — 150 SKUs, AOV and PIR both — is on the product pages.

Storage, ingress and the figures a datasheet must not inflate

This is where sourcing goes wrong, and it goes wrong in a way that only surfaces after the container lands.

Storage. Standard across the range is microSD up to 128GB; larger capacities are a custom-order question, not a catalogue default. A continuous recorder fills a card faster than a triggered one, so plan retention against your actual overwrite policy rather than against the headline capacity. If a competing quote lists a card size well above what the housing and firmware were validated with, ask specifically which capacity was tested — not which capacity physically fits.

Ingress protection. Every one of the 49 AOV models is IP66. If a supplier offers you a higher ingress rating on an outdoor solar camera, ask for the test report for that exact housing, not for a sibling model. Ingress claims are among the easiest things to copy across a product line and among the hardest for an importer to disprove before a rainy season.

Resolution. 1080p to 2K is the standard band. 4K exists only as a custom or OEM build, and pricing and lead time for it come from a person, not from a web page.

Certification. The manufacturer is Shenzhen Leksell, established 2012, certified by TÜV Rheinland, with CE, FCC and RoHS on the range. Ask any supplier which certificate covers which model number — a factory-level certificate is not the same as a model-level one.

Order mechanics: MOQ, margin and lead time

The five-to-ten-minute install figure matters more to a distributor's economics than it looks. With no grid connection and no WiFi provisioning, a two-person crew can commission a multi-camera site in an afternoon, which is what makes rural and peri-urban deployments — farms, ranches, yards, remote warehouses — commercially viable at these hardware prices. Terms, incoterms and volume pricing are set out on the wholesale page.

OEM and private label

Private label is available on every model in the catalogue, the 49 AOV SKUs included, from a 100-unit MOQ: your brand on the housing, the packaging and the app-facing identity. Higher resolution, larger battery and panel combinations, expanded storage and custom firmware behaviour are all build-to-spec questions. Quantity, price and lead time for anything custom always come from a salesperson — treat any website that quotes you a custom build automatically with suspicion. Tier structure and onboarding are on the dealer page.

A due-diligence checklist for any AOV quote

Before you sign a PI with any factory, get written answers to these:

• Which battery and which panel, per SKU? Not per series. Series-level specs hide exactly the divergence shown in the table above.
• Does "AOV" mean continuous encoding, or scheduled snapshots? Some suppliers market timed capture as always-on. Ask what happens between events.
• What is the documented ingress rating for this housing? Model-level, with the report.
• Which card capacities are validated? Supported and tested are different words.
• Which certificates cover which model numbers?
• What is the sample lead time versus the bulk lead time? A supplier who cannot separate the two is reselling, not manufacturing.

For quotations, sample requests or OEM enquiries, write to info@solaguard.net. The Vietnam office is in Ho Chi Minh City.