I Vision Electronics, set up in Shenzhen, China, in 2006, manufactures professional surveillance cameras. Starting as a trading company, I Vision understands buyer concerns for quality and chose to manufacture excellence for its own solutions.
I Vision Electronics was established in 2006. Its development can be divided into three phases, each representing the company’s adjustment to new challenges from the market. “We went from trading to manufacturing and then moved to IP-based solutions,” said Jessica Yan, Director at I Vision.
I Vision Electronics, set up in Shenzhen, China, in 2006, manufactures professional surveillance cameras. Starting as a trading company, I Vision understands buyer concerns for quality and chose to manufacture excellence for its own solutions.
I Vision Electronics was established in 2006. Its development can be divided into three phases, each representing the company's adjustment to new challenges from the market. “We went from trading to manufacturing and then moved to IP-based solutions,” said Jessica Yan, Director at I Vision.
Manufacturing Excellence
I Vision was founded as a trading company. However, it soon realized that possessing core competence in technology was a better long-term business strategy. “We spent a great deal of time understanding the market's needs,” said Yan. “Overseas buyers are concerned about quality first. Therefore, if we do not have the key in our hands, how do we provide quality products for our customers?” However, starting up a production line was not easy. The company began migrating to manufacturing in 2008, Yan said, which took nearly a year to undertake all the necessary steps to become a true manufacturer. Yan said I Vision faced extra challenges during its transformation to manufacturing, due to the global financial recession in 2008. “It was hard, but it proved to be the right timing, in order to secure our core assets and differentiate ourselves from dozens of suppliers,” Yan added. As a trading company, I Vision's sole concern was profit and nothing else. Now as a manufacturer, it needs to consider more production issues, such as sourcing electronic components. “From key components to peripherals like wiring, it took great effort and we learned from many hands-on cases how to manufacture sophisticated cameras,” Yan said. “Most of our components, including CCDs, DSPs and lenses are all from Japan, as providing high quality product is always our core value.”
Dedicated to Low-Light Cameras
The company's starlight technology amplifies and maximizes ambient light to generate pictures in extreme darkness. Its proprietary technology produces better low-light images without actively relying on visible light. In developing its starlight technology, I Vision combined existing technologies and techniques for a unique solution. Yan pointed out that infrared cameras have been used for low-light surveillance for years, but this technology has known limitations. Overcoming these limitations gives installers more reliable and higher quality images, which was the impetus behind developing the starlight series. The performance of infrared cameras can be affected by a lack of illumination or excessive light. This either reduces the camera's range of view, or results in a noisy and unusable image. With the starlight cameras, they are capable of viewing of areas that are kilometers away. Because the technology does not use an active light source, the camera's circuit board produces minimal heat, which results in a long product life span for the camera's electronics.
Next Phase — Migrating to IP
As IP and HD attract buyer attention, the company has plans to launch new camera models. “We are actively finding talented individuals with related know-how in R&D,” Yan said. “So far, we have strategic partners who have in-house design capabilities to provide IP-related products. We aim to provide a wide range of network cameras from 1.3-, 2- to 5-megapixel models, for a cost-effective solution combining good service and technical support.”