New WiseGuard Smart Sensor Delivers Always-On, Ultralow Power Edge AI Vision For Security, Monitoring and IoT applications
Himax Technologies, a global supplier of smart sensor and edge AI technologies, today announced that its WiseGuard smart sensor evaluation kit is now available for pre-order through DigiKey, a global online distributor of electronic components
.
Built on the same core hardware platform as the WiseEye technology, WiseGuard smart sensors combine ultralow power consumption, a wide field of view and long-range detection capabilities. They enable always-on human and object detection and AI-based classification directly at the edge, without the need to continuously stream images to the cloud. The compact 13mm x 11mm WiseGuard module integrates Himax's ultralow power sensor NPU, a high-performance vision sensor, a trained human detection AI model and an optimized image compression engine, allowing for easy integration into IoT devices. Together, these capabilities enable accurate human and object detection while minimizing false alarms, reducing data transmission requirements, and reducing dependence on cloud-based processing. This makes WiseGuard well suited for security, monitoring, and IoT applications.
"The availability of evaluation kits and module samples marks an important step in bringing WiseGuard to market, enabling customers to accelerate product evaluation and integration," said Samuel Kuo, VP of Smart Sensing Business at Himax. "With up to 5 years of battery life, high-precision human and object detection capabilities, minimal maintenance requirements, and privacy-preserving on-device AI, WiseGuard is well suited for remote monitoring in both indoor and outdoor environments. Its always-on sensing and on-device event detection capabilities also enable connected AI systems to respond proactively to real-world events, supporting next-generation Agentic AI solutions."
WiseGuard Smart Sensor Key Features:
- Ultralow Power Sensing: Enables always-on Edge AI classification with over 5 years of battery life on a single CR123 battery
- High Detection Accuracy: Achieves up to 98% human detection accuracy, minimizing false alarms and unnecessary power consumption
- Optimized Compression Engine: Dynamically crops and compresses image data to transmit only relevant information, optimizing power consumption and bandwidth usage for remote event verification
- Edge AI Intelligence: Goes beyond conventional binary motion sensing with multi-class AI classification, generating contextual metadata that enables Agentic AI applications to make informed decisions without continuously transmitting large image streams
- Data Privacy & Security: Processes images locally at the edge, minimizing the transmission of sensitive visual data. Arm® TrustZone® isolation, PUF-based device authentication, and image masking and encryption help protect data privacy and support secure device operation.
An AI agent can't intelligently respond to the physical world unless something tells it what's happening. WiseGuard provides that context. For example, WiseGuard detects that a person entered a restricted area → generates metadata describing the event → an AI system/agent decides what action to take.
"We are already seeing WiseGuard progress from evaluation toward commercial deployment, gaining traction across commercial surveillance and monitoring, indoor occupancy sensing and smart building and IoT sensing applications," said Steve Chen, Head of U.S. Sales and Business Development at Himax.