AI Vision Systems: Real Costs and Time to First Result

Nobody in machine vision publishes prices. Everything is gated behind a direct sales process, so the two questions a process engineer actually needs answered, what it costs and how fast you can test it, are the two you cannot look up.

So we bought one. We went through the entire process with a Keyence IV4, which sits at the low end of the market and stands in fairly for the industry, and we tracked every euro and every day. The sensor was 3,800 euros net. Cables and a power over ethernet plug added 70. The configuration software is free but only runs on Windows, so a Windows PC added another 500. That is 4,370 euros before tax, and five weeks from the first enquiry to a live image, because the sensor ships from Japan.

Then we ran the same test on an iPhone. A new iPhone 16 is 849 euros at Apple list price, or nothing at all if you use a phone that is already in the building, and the software runs in a browser rather than needing a machine of its own. Fifteen minutes from signing up to a live image.

This video is only about cost and time to first result. It says nothing about which one detects better, which is the comparison most people actually want. That is coming next, where we put both on the same parts to count objects, read barcodes and run OCR.