Temporary Construction Security Cameras: A Sourcing Guide for Wholesale Buyers

The short answer: a camera that brings its own power and its own network

A temporary construction security camera is a unit that can be mounted, commissioned and removed without touching the site's electrical or data infrastructure — which on an active construction site usually does not exist yet. In practice that means three things: an integrated battery charged by an on-board solar panel, a 4G LTE modem with its own SIM instead of WiFi, and a weatherproof housing rated for outdoor exposure for the full duration of the build. Everything else — resolution, lens count, AI detection — is a specification choice on top of those three. A camera that needs mains power or a router is not a temporary camera; it is a permanent camera that someone will spend a day trenching cable for, then abandon when the fence line moves.

For importers and distributors, this is a distinct product category with its own buying logic, not a discount version of the fixed-site catalogue. The buyer is a contractor or an equipment rental firm who will move the same unit four or five times across different jobs. That changes which specs matter and which ones you can safely trim to hit a price point.

Why solar and 4G, specifically

Construction security has a sequencing problem. The period of highest theft exposure — bare ground, delivered materials, plant parked overnight, no site office — is exactly the period before grid power is connected and before any fixed network exists. Cameras that depend on either arrive too late to protect the phase that needs protecting.

Solar removes the power dependency entirely. Across SolaGuard's always-on range the panels are 8W or 15W, paired with batteries from 8000mAh to 20000mAh depending on the model. The 15W panel with the 20000mAh cell is the configuration to quote for sites with partial shading, short winter daylight, or a camera pointed at a high-traffic gate that will be recording and streaming heavily. The 8W/8000mAh configuration is the volume seller for perimeter and material-stack coverage in good sun.

4G removes the network dependency. Each camera is independent — there is no gateway, no mesh to survive, and no single point of failure that takes the whole site dark. It also means a unit relocated from one job to the next needs no reconfiguration; it comes back online wherever it has signal.

Installation is where the temporary use case is won or lost. These units mount in 5–10 minutes each: bracket, aim, insert SIM and microSD, done. A crew can deploy a full site perimeter in an afternoon and recover it just as fast when the job closes. There is no electrician, no conduit, and no permanent alteration to a structure the contractor does not own.

AOV versus PIR, and why it matters on a construction site

Most budget solar cameras are PIR-triggered: a passive infrared sensor detects a heat signature, wakes the camera, and recording starts. It is power-efficient and it is a poor fit for construction.

PIR misses slow movement, which is precisely how material theft happens — someone walking a generator to a gate, not sprinting across a field. It misses events at the edge of or outside the detection cone. And it produces a recording that begins after the event started, so the footage a contractor hands to an insurer or to police begins mid-incident with no approach and no plate.

AOV — Always-On Video — is the industry-generic term for continuous 24/7 recording held at low standby power through AI scene analysis rather than a motion trip. The camera is always recording; the intelligence decides what to flag. For an incident that will be argued over months later in an insurance claim, continuous footage is a materially different product from a clip library of triggers. Any serious factory can supply both; you should be quoting AOV for construction and keeping PIR models for lower-value residential lines.

What ships from stock, by series

SolaGuard's catalogue runs 150 SKUs, with wholesale prices quoted per order. The always-on range is 49 of those, in four series:

Standard resolution across the line is 1080p–2K; 4K is available only as a custom or OEM build, not from stock. Storage is microSD up to 128GB, which is the right question to raise early with a customer — retention depends on bitrate and how many streams a dual- or triple-lens unit is writing, so specify the card capacity in the quote rather than letting the end user discover it.

The three-tier logic for a construction quote is straightforward, with wholesale prices quoted per order. SG-C41G-10T66-V1 is the single-lens perimeter unit for covering fence runs at density. SG-D42G-10F66-V1 adds a second lens for wide-plus-detail coverage at gates and material compounds. SG-D42G-15F66-V1 is the 20000mAh / 15W flagship for the positions that cannot be allowed to drop — main access, plant parking, the shot that will be the evidence. Full specifications for all 150 SKUs are on the product catalogue.

Sourcing terms that fit a project-based business

Construction demand is lumpy. A distributor's order pattern follows tenders, not a smooth monthly curve, so lead time discipline matters more here than in most categories.

The Ho Chi Minh City office is the only in-region stocking point — there is no Hanoi or Bangkok warehouse — and the 7–10 business day window is what makes it possible to answer a contractor who needs units on site this month. For Latin American buyers, the 25–40 day sea window is the number to plan tenders around; committing to a delivery date inside that is how distributors end up air-freighting at a loss.

MOQ is 10 units for a trial order and 100 for OEM or ODM work. Margin is 20% from around 10 units and 30% from around 50. Private label is available across the whole catalogue, including all 49 always-on models — relevant if you are selling into equipment rental, where the hardware carries the rental firm's brand and the end customer never sees a manufacturer name. Wholesale terms and dealer tiers cover the commercial detail.

On the factory itself: Shenzhen Leksell, established 2012, TÜV Rheinland certified, with CE, FCC and RoHS. For buyers importing into Vietnam or Latin America, those marks are the documentation that clears customs and satisfies a corporate procurement audit — worth confirming are held by the actual manufacturer rather than a trading company in between.

The questions to ask before you place the order

A few checks separate a specification that survives its first rainy season from one that generates warranty claims:

• Ingress rating on the actual model. The outdoor units here are IP66. Ask for the rating per SKU, not per catalogue — a range quoted across a series usually means the cheap variant is the lower number.
• Battery and panel as a matched pair. An 8000mAh cell on an 8W panel behaves very differently from a 20000mAh cell on a 15W panel once daylight shortens or a tower crane starts casting shade. Specify the pair, not the battery alone.
• Band support for the destination network. A 4G camera is only as good as its LTE bands in the country it lands in. Confirm before the bulk order, not after.
• What is fixed and what is buildable. The catalogue is what ships from stock. Higher resolution, larger battery and panel, more storage and OEM branding are all buildable to spec — but quantity, price and lead time for a custom build come from a person, not from a web page. Get them in writing before you quote your own customer.

For project pricing, band confirmation or a sample order, contact info@solaguard.net.