Solar Cameras for Farms: What Wholesale Buyers Should Specify

What farm buyers are actually asking for

A solar camera for a farm is a 4G LTE camera that runs entirely on its own panel and battery — no mains cable out to the fence line, no WiFi reaching the far end of a plot. For the farms and ranches your customers operate in Vietnam and Latin America, the working specification is: 2K resolution, an 8000mAh or 20000mAh battery matched to an 8W or 15W panel, an IP66 housing, microSD storage up to 128GB, and AOV (Always-On Video) recording rather than PIR-only triggering. SolaGuard builds 49 AOV models to exactly that specification, with wholesale prices quoted per order, across four series, all of them available for OEM or private label. The rest of this page is how to choose between them and how to price them into a deal.

Why PIR-only cameras come back from farms

On agricultural land, the event that matters is rarely a person crossing a doorway. It is a gate left open, a truck idling at the edge of a field, livestock drifting through a broken fence, or someone walking slowly along a boundary at the far side of the frame. PIR-triggered cameras are tuned for the doorway case: they wake when a heat signature crosses a narrow detection zone. They miss slow movement, they miss anything outside the zone, and because the clip starts after the trigger fires, the first seconds — the part that shows how it began — are simply not on the card.

AOV, or Always-On Video, is the industry-generic term for the alternative. It is continuous 24/7 recording held at low standby power by AI scene analysis instead of by a motion switch: the sensor is always recording, and the processing decides what is worth flagging. AOV is not proprietary to any one brand — several factories build it, and buyers will see the term in competing quotes.

For a distributor this is a commercial argument, not a technical one. It didn't record it is the most common reason a farm camera is returned, and it is a warranty claim you cannot win, because the customer is right. AOV removes that whole category of complaint from your after-sales load.

The 49 AOV models, by series

Those four series are the complete AOV range: 49 SKUs inside a wider catalogue of 150. Variants within a series differ in configuration, so quote by exact model number rather than by series — the full per-SKU sheets are on the product pages.

Three models worth knowing by heart, because they cover most farm conversations:

• SG-C41G-10T66-V1. 2K, single 2.0MP sensor, 8000mAh, 8W, IP66. The perimeter-count model: when a farm needs eight viewpoints rather than two excellent ones, this is what keeps the bid affordable.
• SG-D42G-10F66-V1. 2K dual lens (2.0MP×2), 8000mAh, 8W, IP66. Dual lens lets one pole cover a wide approach and a detail view — gate plus driveway, yard plus equipment shed.
• SG-D42G-15F66-V1. 2K dual lens (2.0MP×2), 20000mAh, 15W, IP66. The autonomy model, for sites where recharge conditions are the binding constraint.

Sizing the battery and panel to the site, not to the budget

The single mistake that generates field complaints is choosing the pairing by price. Both pairings run the same 2K AOV imaging; the larger one does not produce a better picture. What it buys is reserve.

A practical rule for your sales team: ask how many consecutive overcast days the site sees at the worst point of the year, and whether the mount can be aimed freely. If either answer is unfavourable, quote 15W. The price difference is small against a truck roll to a farm two hours from the nearest town.

Storage, connectivity and the housing

Storage

Stock models take microSD up to 128GB. Higher-capacity cards are a custom-order conversation with the factory, not something to promise from stock. Quote cards, never days of retention — how long a card lasts depends on scene complexity and bitrate, so any retention figure printed on a datasheet is a guess dressed as a specification.

Connectivity

These are 4G LTE cameras. There is no dependency on farm WiFi, which on most properties does not reach past the house. Each camera needs its own SIM, and that recurring data cost belongs on the quotation as a visible line item — importers who bury it lose the renewal conversation later.

Housing

Outdoor models are IP66: dust-tight and protected against powerful water jets from any direction, which is the rating that actually corresponds to wind-driven rain, irrigation spray and dust off a dry access road. We do not list a higher ingress rating on stock models. If a buyer's environment genuinely demands one, that is an engineering discussion with the factory rather than a box to tick on an order form.

Who builds them, and the paperwork that follows

Manufacturing is by Shenzhen Leksell, established 2012 and TÜV Rheinland certified, with CE, FCC and RoHS on the product line. For an importer this is not brand decoration — it is the documentation your customs broker and your national telecom regulator will ask for on a 4G radio product, and it is the part of a supplier that cannot be improvised after the container is already at sea.

Commercial terms

The 10-unit trial exists so a distributor can put cameras on real farms in their own climate before committing to a container. Full terms and the tier structure are on the wholesale page, and the margin schedule with territory terms is on the dealer page.

OEM and private label are available across the catalogue, including all 49 AOV models, at a 100-unit MOQ — your logo on the housing, your branding in the app and packaging.

Installation economics, which decide whether you win the bid

Installation is 5–10 minutes per camera: mount the bracket, aim the panel, insert the SIM and card, scan to pair. No trenching, no electrician, no NVR cabinet, no network drop.

That number is worth more to an installer-distributor than any imaging spec, because it changes the shape of the quotation. A wired system on a 20-hectare property is priced around the trenching; a solar 4G system is priced around the hardware. It is also what lets a farm start with four cameras and add six more next season without re-engineering anything — which is how most agricultural accounts actually grow.

Before you quote a farm, collect this

• Number of viewpoints, and which need one wide view versus a wide-plus-detail pair (dual lens) or three-way coverage.
• Worst-case consecutive overcast days, and whether mounts can be freely aimed — this picks 8W or 15W.
• Mobile coverage at each mount point, not at the farmhouse.
• Who pays the SIM data, and whether the buyer wants it bundled.
• Whether the deal needs private label — that moves the MOQ to 100 and the timeline to bulk production.

Get those five answers and the model selection is nearly mechanical. For a quotation against a specific site list, write to info@solaguard.net with the viewpoint count and the site conditions above.