If you feel like a cheapskate when purchasing a Raspberry Pi 5 16GB for only $305, there’s now a solution to avoid embarrassment. Meet the $3,640 AIS-1000 AI Surveillance Station, pairing a Raspberry Pi 5 with a Hailo-8L AI accelerator and a 1TB NVMe SSD, all housed in a metal enclosure.
Jokes aside, the device from Planet Technology is real, and users mostly pay for NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) and TAA (Trade Agreements Act) compliance for use in AI-enhanced surveillance applications for government, critical infrastructure, or other high-security applications.
Planet AIS-1000 hardware specifications:
- SBC – Raspberry Pi 5 (only advertised features listed)
- SoC – Broadcom BCM2712
- CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor @ 2.4 GHz
- GPU – VideoCore VII GPU @ 800 MHz with support for OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.2, 4Kp60 HEVC decoder
- System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4X-4267 SDRAM
- Networking – Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port via Broadcom BCM54213PE transceiver
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports
- SoC – Broadcom BCM2712
- Storage – 1TB NVMe SSD
- AI accelerator – Hailo-8L (13TOPS)
- Video support
- H.264, H.265, or H.265+ codec
- Live RTSP streaming up to 8 channels at 704 × 576 resolution at 10 FPS (Sub-stream)
- Video Recording – Up to 1080p at 25/30 FPS per channel
- Misc
- Recessed power button for under 10-second shutdown
- Power LED
- Power Supply – 5V/5.1A via USB-C port on Pi 5; up to 27W power consumption
- Dimensions – 88.7 × 68.2 × 41 mm (metal enclosure)
- Weight – 287 grams
- Temperature Range – 0 to 50°C
The solution works as an NVR handling up to eight RTSP IP cameras. AI video analytics functions include parking management (illegal vehicle intrusion / idle timeout detection), human detection (line crossing, area intrusion, crowd counting), pet detection for cats and dogs, face recognition with whitelist and blacklist support, industrial safety detection to check for helmet and vest wearing, and fire & smoke detection. The software also implements an intelligent video search system using an LLM.
Management is performed through a web interface running on the Raspberry Pi 5 to handle system configuration, real-time display, AI search, AI model upload/update, user access, historical data, and so on. While the company talks about the “centralized management platform”, that’s just for the eight IP cameras, and as I understand it, there’s no additional cloud-based web dashboard to manage a fleet of AIS-1000 devices. In other words, each has its own web interface.
You’ll find more details, including a datasheet and a user manual for the web interfaces, on the product page, where you can purchase the AIS-1000 AI surveillance station for $3,640 with free shipping within the US. I estimate an equivalent hardware-only solution would sell for $400-$500, so the main costs are NDAA and TAA compliance and custom software development. The niche market for this type of solution also requires a higher-than-usual profit margin per device. Additional information may also be found in the announcement.
Thanks to TLS for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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