Edge AI in retail: why in-store processing matters
Edge AI analyses camera images on a device in the store. Why that matters for privacy, speed and offline resilience, its trade-offs, what to ask.
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- Offline test
We pulled the internet cable: what kept working
What happens to the screens and the numbers when a store loses its internet? We unplugged the store device's cable during a test session and checked both, from the device's own log and the cloud records.
The short answer
For 7 minutes 43 seconds without internet, every product shown reached the screen, and every record of it reached the cloud once the cable was back, with the time it really happened. Three showings, three on screen, three recorded. Only the sync to the cloud waited.
7 min 43 swithout internet
3 of 3showings reached the screen
3 of 3records reached the cloud afterwards, with their real times
4 September 2026, GoTrack's test setup. Method below.
The records
| Showing | On screen (Türkiye time) | Record reached the cloud | Waited on the device |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13:15:52 | 13:24:41 | 8 min 50 s |
| 2 | 13:16:13 | 13:25:07 | 8 min 54 s |
| 3 | 13:18:54 | 13:23:26 | 4 min 32 s |
| Online showings the same morning | 1–4 s |
The internet was out from 13:15:39 to 13:23:22: the store device logged the moment it reached the cloud again, 463 seconds after losing it.
How we measured
- Setup: GoTrack's test setup in presentation mode: one store device, two cameras and one screen.
- The outage: the store device's ethernet cable was unplugged, then plugged back in. The device's own log records when it lost and regained the cloud.
- The showings: a product was held up to the camera three times during the outage while the operator watched the screen.
- The records: each record carries the time the showing started on the screen, and the cloud stores when the record arrived. The difference is how long it waited on the device.
Why nothing was lost
Recognition runs on the store device, and the product content and the decisions about what to show are kept on it in advance, so a showing never waits for the internet.
Records are written on the device first and sent when the connection returns, carrying the time they happened. Reports therefore show the outage as ordinary activity, not as a gap followed by a burst.
What is not included
- Screen speed was not timed offline. The operator saw no difference from online; the timed measurement (median 0.35 s) was made online.
- One product, three showings, one outage under eight minutes. Longer outages and more products have not been measured in a lab note yet.
- What waits for the internet: the panel, the reports and changes made in the panel reach the store when the connection returns.
Questions
What happens if the store's internet goes down?
Recognition, screens and event recording carry on in the store. Screens play their stored content, and events wait on the device and are sent with their real times when the connection returns. In our test on 4 September 2026, every showing during a 7-minute outage reached the screen and its record reached the cloud afterwards.
Are images processed in the store or in the cloud?
In the store. Images are analysed on a device in the store and are not sent to the cloud for analysis. Only product events and device health reach the cloud, which is also why recognition and screens keep working without internet.
How quickly does the screen change when a product is picked up?
In our test measurement on 30 September 2026, the screen acknowledged painting the product within 0.71 s of GoTrack deciding which product was in hand, in all 24 acknowledged fires: a median of 0.35 s with one product and 0.51 s with two. One of the 25 fires sent no acknowledgement. The time from the lift itself to that decision is not included and not yet measured separately. Method: the reaction time note.
Further reading
Stores with unreliable internet?
Tell us about your connections; GoTrack keeps working without them.
or write to info@gotonom.com