Knowledge Base

How does Aura Vision work?

Aura Vision turns your existing CCTV cameras into anonymous, privacy-safe behaviour analytics. A small on-premise computer — the APU — runs the AI locally, so video never leaves the store. Only aggregated metrics are sent to the cloud.

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Aura Vision sits quietly on top of the CCTV infrastructure you already have. Cameras you already own feed video into a small computer in the back office. That computer does all the AI work — counting visitors, recognising staff, mapping movement — and then sends only the resulting numbers to the cloud. Nothing leaves the store that could identify a person.

The APU

Every store runs one APU (Analytics Processing Unit) — an edge computer about the size of a paperback book. It plugs into the same network switch as the cameras, with one cable for the cameras, one for the internet, and one for power.

Because the AI runs on the APU itself, full-resolution video stays inside the store. Every frame is processed and discarded in milliseconds. There is no facial recognition, no biometric ID, and nothing that could be used to single out an individual ever leaves the building.

The pipeline

The same four steps happen behind the scenes for every store, around the clock:

  1. Camera. Your existing IP, RTSP or ONVIF cameras stream to the APU over the local network — no new cabling, no new cameras.
  2. APU. On-device AI counts, classifies and aggregates in real time. Video is processed and immediately discarded.
  3. Cloud. Only anonymous, aggregated analytics are uploaded — under 50 Kb/s per camera, well within any retail backhaul.
  4. Dashboard. Your team queries any time-grain, from 15-minute intervals up to multi-year trends, via the web dashboard or REST API.

What this means for you