Network for Professionals in Imaging and Machine Vision
Is the smart camera dead ?
This is of course a provocative title and supposed to be taken with a grain of salt.
However, for years on end we listened now to prospected growth rates of smart cameras and are confronted left and right with the question, if the PC based system ist going to die out because smart cameras will take over the majority of applications.
Now I would like to turn the tables on this question.
Lets be honest, all in all and over the years the growth rate of smart cameras is much smaller than expected and the absolute number of smart cameras sold is far from our expectation level.
In recent months we hear more and more often from machine builders and end users that they are going back from using smart cameras to using PC based systems again. Cost decreased, user comfort is higher both in GUI and in maintainability.
So let´s re-phrase the question: is the smart camera hype over ?
However, for years on end we listened now to prospected growth rates of smart cameras and are confronted left and right with the question, if the PC based system ist going to die out because smart cameras will take over the majority of applications.
Now I would like to turn the tables on this question.
Lets be honest, all in all and over the years the growth rate of smart cameras is much smaller than expected and the absolute number of smart cameras sold is far from our expectation level.
In recent months we hear more and more often from machine builders and end users that they are going back from using smart cameras to using PC based systems again. Cost decreased, user comfort is higher both in GUI and in maintainability.
So let´s re-phrase the question: is the smart camera hype over ?
Views: 4
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Koenraad Van de Veere on -
In order to have a hype, the subject (smart camera) sales numbers have to show exponential growth. The market buzz has been exponential on 'smart camera's', but I'm not sure if 'related sales numbers' ever were.
Personally, I tell my customer :'why buy a smart system if you're a smart engineer/entrepreneur ?'. 'A mini ITX industrial motherboard, connected to a camera selected out of the range of one of the bigger manufacturers + and Intel optimized library like Halcon gives you more 'compact size' performance and scalable flexibility for less money vs. any smart system'. Also, certain system builders considering smart camera's, have in some cases enough volume to 'design and produce' their own 'smart camera', because after all, these 'smart' systems are mostly expensive next to 'limited in functionality' vs. changing application needs and 'slow'. And the exceptions which are 'fast' are in most cases hard to program. -
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Created by M. Caspari Jun 24, 2008 at 2:49pm. Last updated by M. Caspari Oct 8, 2009.
© 2012 Created by M. Caspari.
