What Does "AOV Installation" Mean? How to Install a Solar 4G Continuous-Recording Camera

What "AOV installation" means

AOV installation is the mounting and commissioning of a camera that records continuously, 24 hours a day, instead of waking up only when a sensor trips. AOV stands for Always-On Video: the image sensor stays awake the whole time and AI scene analysis decides what to keep and when to alert you, at a standby draw low enough for a solar panel and a battery to sustain it where there is no grid power and no WiFi. That is why installing an AOV unit is not just bolting on a bracket — you have to site the camera, aim the panel and prepare the 4G SIM so continuous recording never runs out of power or signal in the middle of the night. The term is industry-generic, not anyone's trademark; what is worth checking on any given unit is the battery, the panel, and what the camera does when charge runs low.

In the field, an AOV install comes down to five decisions: where the pole goes, at what height and angle the camera ends up, which way the panel faces, which mobile operator has coverage at that exact spot, and what happens to the recording through a week of overcast. The physical mounting takes 5 to 10 minutes per camera. Those five decisions take longer, and they are what decides whether the system is still useful to you in six months.

AOV vs PIR cameras: why the install is different

A PIR camera wakes when a pyroelectric sensor registers a temperature change inside its detection cone. It works reasonably well for a person walking head-on and close by. It fails exactly where you need it most: slow movement — someone crouching along the fence line — movement tangential to the edge of the cone, a vehicle that stops just outside the configured zone, or livestock drifting out of the paddock. And it fails silently: there is no file to review, because nothing was ever recorded.

With AOV the video is always running, so the event is on record even if the AI never classified it as an alert. That changes three things about the install.

The practical upshot: with PIR you fight false negatives; with AOV you manage power. If you want the full contrast against a wired, DVR-based system, it is worked through in the battery, solar panel and installation guide.

Where to mount it: the site decides, not the catalogue

Height and angle

Mount the camera out of arm's reach from the ground — and also from the bed of a pickup parked next to the pole. That second detail is the one forgotten on construction sites and in yards. Tilt it down far enough that the top edge of the frame sits just above your line of interest (the gate, the loading ramp, the water trough, the turning area) and you are not wasting half the frame on sky. Sky carries no information, and it forces the sensor to expose for a very bright area, which darkens everything happening below.

Avoid pointing straight into your own floodlight or into the headlights of arriving vehicles: at night that blows out faces and plates. Sit at about 45° to the path of travel rather than head-on.

Which way the panel faces

The panel and the camera do not always want to face the same way, and when they conflict the panel wins — a perfectly aimed camera with no charge records nothing. In the northern hemisphere the panel faces south; in the southern hemisphere, north, tilted so water runs off and dust does not settle. Check the shade across a full day, not just the hour you turned up to install: the branch that is harmless at 10 a.m. can cover the panel all afternoon, which is when the day's charge is recovered.

Cleaning the panel twice a year is, in practice, the only recurring maintenance on dusty sites or sites with birds.

How many cameras, how many lenses

Before multiplying poles, check whether one high point can cover two frontages. The SolaGuard AOV catalogue has single-lens, dual-lens (2.0MP×2) and triple-lens (2.0MP×3) models for exactly that: a track junction or the corner of a warehouse is solved with one dual-lens unit instead of two installs, two SIMs and two panels. Standard resolution is 1080p–2K; 4K exists only as a custom build.

Power: the budget that keeps 24/7 recording alive

This is where the install is won or lost. Recording continuously draws more than waiting for a trigger, so the panel–battery pairing has to be sized for the worst week of the year, not for a sunny day. The catalogue holds 150 SKUs, of which 49 are AOV models, across four series:

Field rule: if the spot gets clear sun for most of the day in a dry climate, 8000 mAh with the 8 W panel is enough. If the pole takes partial shade, if you are in a region with a long wet season, or if the camera will see a lot of night-time activity, go to 20000 mAh with the 15 W panel — the SG-D42G-15F66-V1, for example — and leave yourself headroom. The full calculation, including how to verify that the panel actually replaces what the camera spends, is in AOV power budget.

It also pays to know what the bad scenario looks like before you install: as charge falls, the unit does not cut out all at once, it steps functions down. Understanding that order is what stops you diagnosing a "faulty camera" that is in fact managing its power — the same ground is covered, alongside panel and wiring checks, in the solar panel CCTV field guide.

4G SIM, coverage and storage

Coverage is measured at the exact spot on the pole, not at the farm gate or at the house. Take a phone with a SIM from the same operator you intend to use, climb to where the camera will sit, and look at the signal up there; a couple of metres of height sometimes turns an unusable signal into a stable one. If two operators have presence in the area, test both before you buy the plan.

On data use: continuous recording is stored locally on microSD up to 128 GB in a loop, and what travels over the mobile network is alerts, thumbnails and the video you open live. That is what makes a sensible data plan workable. The cost of the plan is the local carrier's and varies by country, operator and plan — get it from your carrier rather than estimating it. What you do control is how many times a day you open the live view, which in practice is the single biggest data expense. If you need more local storage than standard, that is settled as a custom-spec order.

The 5–10 minutes: mounting sequence

The short time is real, but only if you prepare the unit on the bench before you climb the pole:

1. Insert the microSD and the 4G SIM with the unit powered off.
2. Power up, pair with the app, and confirm you have mobile signal and video.
3. Mark and fix the bracket to the pole or wall.
4. Aim the panel at the sun and check it is shade-free across the whole day.
5. Point the camera, check the frame on your phone, and tighten.
6. Set detection zones and notifications on site, looking at the real scene.

Every AOV model is IP66, so rain and dust are not the problem; the most common mistake is leaving the cable gland or the compartment cover improperly closed. For the step-by-step technical version, with acceptance criteria per installed point, see installing solar 4G AOV cameras.

When something goes wrong

Write down the model and install date for every point; on remote sites that alone saves trips. Every product carries 24 months of warranty, with no tiers and no extensions to negotiate. The procedure starts with remote diagnosis from the video and the unit's telemetry — a good share of cases turn out to be new shade across the panel, a SIM out of credit, or a microSD at the end of its life — and once a manufacturing defect is confirmed, replacement parts or a replacement unit are sent at no cost. Production is at our factory partner Shenzhen Leksell, TÜV Rheinland certified and operating since 2012, with CE, FCC and RoHS.

If you are equipping several points at once, catalogue orders start from around 10 units, samples are available at 7–10 days by air, and quantity, lead time and pricing are confirmed by a person: message us on WhatsApp, email info@solaguard.net, or see the terms on the wholesale page.