Dropcam Wi Fi Wireless Monitoring Camera
What a cool product! Corky the Corgi, also known around here as "Bottled Lightning", does figure eights around the living room when I talk to him over the new Dropcam. :)
The apps (we use both - one on my iPhone and one on my husband's Android) are really convenient, fast, and well designed. You can even toggle the recording on and off remotely. The video is great during the daytime and pretty good at night -- already caught a few nocturnal Corgi adventures to share with our friends (no, Corky, the scary new coat rack in the entryway is not coming to steal your humans tonight!).
We also used the Dropcam as a security camera while the whole family was on vacation last week, no prowlers or burglars to speak of (thank God!), but it was nice knowing our place was safe the whole trip! Great job Dropcam!
BalasHapusLength:: 1:06 Mins
BalasHapusOur house got burglarized yesterday. I was working 30 miles away from home when I received a dropcam alert on my iPhone informing me that my dropcam was disconnected. When I checked the online recording, it showed the face of the thief who disconnected the dropcam. When I got home, I gave the police officer a copy of the intruder's face. Using the photo, the police officers made an arrest on the same night. Our stolen property has been recovered and we will be retrieving them from the police station where they are being photographed for evidence in a few days. My 2011 Dropcam echo has been so effective I am definitely getting a second Dropcam HD to monitor the interior of our house.
I spent some time researching the different options (Logitech, foscam, dropcam, adt, x10, cisco, ...) in this product category. I decided to try out a DropCam HD. So far (3 days of use), I'm delighted. The product does everything it promises.
BalasHapusIt took me about 5-10 minutes to complete the full setup process (open the box to getting video streams online). In fact, it took me longer to figure out where I was going to put it.
Other solutions require special software to be installed and/or a PC/Mac system to be running to capture the video. I don't want to keep a computer on while I am away on travel + have to maintain/update the software. The DropCam HD solution removes all this extra effort/time/pain.
pros
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- easy to setup (5 minutes of work)
- can view online or via android/iphone
- can share your camera with friends securely
- motion tags allow you to jump to interesting sections
- no need for special software or a PC running to capture all the data
- surprised by 2way audio feature. Fun to use while you are away.
cons
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- monthly dvr pricing for saved streams (free if you just want live views)
still testing
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- low light/night video capture
What a cool product! Corky the Corgi, also known around here as "Bottled Lightning", does figure eights around the living room when I talk to him over the new Dropcam. :)
BalasHapusThe apps (we use both - one on my iPhone and one on my husband's Android) are really convenient, fast, and well designed. You can even toggle the recording on and off remotely. The video is great during the daytime and pretty good at night -- already caught a few nocturnal Corgi adventures to share with our friends (no, Corky, the scary new coat rack in the entryway is not coming to steal your humans tonight!).
We also used the Dropcam as a security camera while the whole family was on vacation last week, no prowlers or burglars to speak of (thank God!), but it was nice knowing our place was safe the whole trip! Great job Dropcam!
For $149 you can't beat it. The video quality is very good in bright light. Mine has a slight purple tint when the light's dim, but not dark enough for the infrared to kick in. The infrared works well, just don't expect high quality video. Viewing on a laptop is very good. It's great to be able to view the video feed on my adroid phone and my wife's iphone. Like the laptop, the interface for the iphone allows you to talk through the camera, but the android app doesn't. The video alerts to movement come as emails for me since i have an android, but iphones can accept a direct notification bypassing email.
BalasHapusSet up actually took about 2 minutes.
It runs HOT. I don't know if this is normal or if it's the one I happen to get.
The audio picks up sound well. When there's no sound, you hear what sounds like distant traffic noise.
The motion detection is very sensitive. If a bug flys by at night the sensor detects motion.
It says it pans and zooms. That's a bit of a stretch. What it actually does is allow you to zoom in on one of 5 areas of the video (live). With its 107 degree field of vision, this emulates pan and zoom. I think they were slightly misleading about this in there promotional material.
Still, I'm very pleased.
I've never had a technology product install go so easily! We view Dropcam data on our iPhones and PCs. The only catch is if we haven't updated our iPhone app after an update, then we sometimes have issues connecting to one of the cameras. We have two dropcams in our house - one for each of the kid bedroom. No more worrying about finding or charging the monitor. I can listen, watch, and SPEAK to my child from my phone, which is usually always with me and charged. It's also nice to be able to check on my child while I am at work - usually mainly out of curiousity of how he is napping for a babysitter. Voice-only baby monitors probably do a slightly better job with voice because you can hide them better and closer to a child. The dropcap is mounted further away to keep it visable yet away from little hands. Looking forward to using this with our newborn soon! But, with a slightly older child, it's still so nice to know what that loud "bang" was upstairs and to know what is going on when he/she is supposed to be going down for a nap. I can think of uses for this product outside the baby/child monitor arena as well!
BalasHapus