If you've always dreamed of having a way to monitor your kids, pets, house, or all of the above from your mobile device or PC and haven't looked into Dropcam, you're missing out. And today, the company announced the newest member to the Dropcam family: the Dropcam Pro. Sounds fancy.
This Pro edition camera features quite a few upgrades from its predecessor (which isn't going away, by the way - it'll just be called "Dropcam" instead of Dropcam HD henceforth), including sharper image quality, 8x zoom, 130 degree field of view, and enhanced two-way talk. As impressive as that is, it's not everything.
- Stunning video quality. Dropcam Pro incorporates a six-element, all-glass lens, a first in the home monitoring category, and a larger image sensor to provide 2x sharper video during the day and 7x better performance in low-light conditions and at night.
- Wider field of view. Dropcam Pro supports an amazing 130-degree field of view – 20% wider than the prior-generation Dropcam.
- Zoom. Dropcam now offers pinch-to-zoom with an enhance feature that supports up to 8x zoom for Dropcam Pro and 4x zoom for Dropcam.
- Better audio. Dropcam Pro has a new microphone with double the sampling rate and a new speaker for sound that's louder and clearer.
- Mobile setup. Get up and running without a computer. You can now set up Dropcam Pro directly from your iOS device (iPhone 4S or later, iPad 3rd generation or later, and iPad mini).
- Dual band Wi-Fi. Dropcam Pro supports both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks for improved wireless connectivity.
- Activity Recognition (beta). Using advanced computer vision and machine learning technology, Dropcam Cloud Recording can now recognize motion patterns in your video stream and group together like activities. Customers can name these activities and customize alerts for them.
- Bluetooth LE. Dropcam Pro integrates a low power Bluetooth LE radio that is used for mobile setup and allows Dropcam to integrate with additional devices.
Booya. To go along with the new camera, the company has also released an update to its Android app that not only takes advantage of everything Dropcam Pro has to offer, but also brings a few new features and enhancements to the Dropcam:
What's New
New in version 2.5:
- Pinch-to-zoom (with enhanced features for Dropcam Pro customers)
- Updated browsing and camera management capabilities
- Improved playback latency for live cameras
So there you go. Dropcam Pro is available today for $199, while the original Dropcam continues on at $149. Head here to buy.