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It's tough to choose a good security camera nowadays. Hundreds of brands are releasing their own and almost all of them offer a similar featureset. What I look for, personally, is integration with other smart home systems — namely Google Home — and whether or not a monthly fee is required to get the basic features. For those two reasons, the Logi Circle 2 has been on my watchlist for a long time, and its temptation is getting harder to resist with these two discounts.Today, you can grab the wire-free version of the Circle 2 for 9.90, $70 off its MSRP, and the wired version for 9.99, $40 off. Both are great discounts, though we've seen the wired model go this low before.If you're wondering what you'll get with the Circle 2, here's a quick rundown: 1080p video with a 180-deg field of view lens, night vision, and weatherproof build on the hardware front. From a software standpoint, two-way conversation are supported, you'll get a time-lapse briefing of your day, and smart alerts get sent to your phone when motion is detected. The two requirements I mentioned at the start of the article are there: the Circle 2 works with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit, and you can use it for free if you're OK with 24hrs of cloud storage. Upping that to 14 days costs $3.99/month, whereas 31 days with support for person detection and motion zones will net you $9.99/month.The difference between the wired camera and wire-free one is that the latter comes with a three-month rechargeable battery and has been less favorably reviewed overall. If you're interested, grab either one from the links below.Source: Logitech Circle 2 wire-free (Amazon), wired (Amazon, Best Buy)
Gather 'round for some happy news, Arlo owners. If you've been envious of Nest's integration with Google Home and Assistant, the wait might be drawing to a close. Arlo has a landing page where it's promising that the Google Assistant integration is "coming soon" for its connected security cameras.
You know what users like even less than a company that takes features away from them? It's a company that doesn't seem to make up its own mind about what it wants and doesn't want to offer them.
In her review, Rita called the Blink indoor home security camera "an interesting proposition that falters in execution." In spite of its shortcomings, one of the Blink's virtues was its battery life. Both the original Blink and the outdoors-ready Blink XT run on two AA lithium batteries, with two years of battery life under normal use. Now Blink is doubling down on that strength without hampering its cameras by enabling three video recording modes: Saver, Standard, and Best.
If you're looking for a way to secure your home or small business or if you already have an Arlo system in place and want to expand it, there's a nice deal over on Amazon for a 2-pack of the Arlo Q 1080p cameras.These are AC-powered security cams with 130deg wide-angle lenses, night vision, motion detection and activity zones, optional 24/7 recording, 7 days of free storage (upgradable), 2-way audio. They're not weather-proof and can't work without power, so you will be limited a little in where you place them, but they should do the job indoors. The cams can be scheduled to arm and disarm, but if you want more flexibility over their control, you can integrate them with SmartThings, Wink, IFTTT, Stringify, and Telguard.Last month, we spotted this 2-pack at $280 on Amazon, but today it's down $20 more to $260. The MSRP is $350 so this is a nice savings of $90. If you take into account how much a single Nest or Canary camera costs, this 2-pack is an even sweeter deal. You can check it out at the link below.Source: Amazon
Connected cameras are everywhere nowadays. From Dropcam and Nest, to Canary, Logi, Arlo, Blink, Piper, a lot of companies are trying to make a great security camera for indoor and outdoor — and maybe business — use, but they all rely on their own proprietary software and lock you into their ecosystems and apps. Amcrest is part of a different breed of cams that cater more to the DIY crowd.Sure, you can use Amcrest's own Connect app on Android with motion alerts and live streaming, but the camera still has a MicroSD slot for local storage and is compatible with ONVIF NVR, Blue Iris, and FTP uploads. So instead of relying on another company's solutions, you could locally store your videos and use something like tinyCam Monitor, or connect it to Synology's Surveillance Station with the DS Cam app to monitor and save everything to your own server.If you're interested and want to try it out or if you already have your own rig and want to add another camera, the Amcrest IP2M-841 ProHD cam is being sold for $64.90 on eBay right now. It has 1080p recording at 30fps, a 90-deg lens with pan and tilt, InfraRed night vision, two-way talk with a microphone, and wired or WiFi (only 2.4GHz) connectivity .The seller is highly rated on eBay and is providing these units new in unopened boxes and shipping them free. Their MSRP is $109.99 but they're selling for .99 on Amazon right now, which makes this a 22-40% off deal, depending on how you want to look at it. Heck, Amazon is selling the 720p version for .99, a whopping 9 cents more than this 1080p version on eBay. If you're interested, the link is below.Source: eBay
Blink, the company that makes affordable and portable home security cameras (see my full review), has been on a bit of a roll over the past few months. First, it added Alexa support to arm and disarm the system and inquire about the latest recorded videos, then it announced an outdoor camera, the Blink XT, with weather-proofing, 1080p video, and an IR night vision sensor. Now it's releasing a whole host of upgrades and gear to complement its system.
Blink has an interesting proposition as a connected security system: one sync module that plugs into MicroUSB for power but connects to your network over WiFi, and 1 to 10 completely wireless cameras that you can place anywhere without worrying about power or connection cables. They only get triggered by motion and record short clips (max. 60sec) then go back to idling. When I reviewed the system last week, I found the idea promising but complained about the slow app and the missing hardware features: no weatherproofing and no night vision were big deal-breakers for me, and the 720p resolution was limited too.
I recently reviewed Canary's home security and connected camera system and was pleasantly impressed by most of its features, especially the auto-arm/disarm based on geofence. Now the Canary app is receiving an update to add a couple of interesting features for Android users.
When I first heard about the Blink security cameras, I was immediately impressed and intrigued. Having tried both the Piper and Canary in my pharmacy, to more or less mitigated results, the Blink seemed like the perfect solution.Piper (full review) suffers from one major flaw: the camera doesn't turn itself back on after a power failure if the back-up battery is empty (and since we have lots of blackouts here in Lebanon, I got tired of buying new batteries every two or three weeks). It also doesn't have a native scheduled arm/disarm feature; I really shouldn't have to manually arm and disarm my cameras when a simple time-based schedule is easy to implement. Canary (full review), on the other hand, is quasi-perfect, if it weren't for one little quirk: I sometimes have to leave the pharmacy during work hours, and my phone's geofence triggers Away mode so I get notified of every movement that happens. I could add my assistant as a member to the Canary and have it stay in Home mode when she's working, but the problem is she lives in the same building the pharmacy is located in, so based on her phone's geofence, Canary would never auto-arm.On paper, Blink would solve all of my issues. Here was a bundle of 3 cameras that cost just a tad more than a single cam from competitor brands, but that gave you total freedom over where you placed them. Being wireless and functioning over battery power meant that I didn't have to worry about wires or black-outs; I could even place the cams on the shelves right next to products. Their short recorded clips promised to be perfect for my slow connection by not requiring a lot of bandwidth. The scheduled arm/disarm feature made more sense than geofencing for my small business with specific open/closed hours. And the newly added Alexa integration was a big bonus since it would allow me to control the cams from my Echo Dot.The reality though, now that I've been testing the Blink cameras for about two months, is a little more sobering. The live view and recorded clips are often too short to be usable, the cameras resolution and quality is mediocre, the lack of night vision is a big letdown for what is supposed to be a security cam system, and the Android app is sloooooooooow.
Canary review: A connected security camera that nails the essentials, stumbles on the bonus features
You don't understand the feeling of violation that a theft causes until you open the door to your home and see everything moved, turned, tossed, and the muddy footprints of a stranger everywhere on your floor, your kitchen cabinets open, and even your bedspread removed and balled up in the garden. That happened to my family's mountain house many, many years ago, and I still remember the feeling of disgust over the scene as well as helplessness with all the police procedures that followed. The perpetrators were never caught, just like any minor theft that occurs in Lebanon — they only took small appliances — and we ended up installing gates and locks on all the windows and doors.I dread ever reliving that experience so when I opened my pharmacy, one of the essentials was a security system that could help me identify any perp and at least give me clarity over what happened in my property while I was not there. Partly to reduce the feeling of violation and partly to feel like I still have some control. Soon I discovered that if I wanted to properly bring my very expensive multi-camera and DVR security system online, I'd need a dedicated IP address and separate ADSL line (because our regular connection sucks here), which are quite expensive, so I kept it off the grid.I came across Canary on Indiegogo and was smitten. Here was a camera that could stream when needed on my existing connection and thus complement my local security system, without much fuss. Somehow, I ended up winning a Canary through a referral program and thus began the wait for the project's fulfillment. Months turned into years, and in the meantime, I got a Piper camera (here's my review), learned that there's something called Dropcam and then Nest (though I didn't buy any), discovered all the different companies making smart connected cameras, and almost forgot about Canary until my unit was shipped to me sometime in 2015. There were hurdles in getting it up and running, but now that it is, I love it. Are there issues that I wish could be ironed out? Definitely. Are they deal-breakers? Maybe for someone else, but not for me.
I love crowdfunding projects that work well, especially when the product delivers relatively on time and with most of the features working as promised. Piper's home monitoring / security system is one of these success stories, but despite the product's hardware being great, I have been letdown by its poorly designed software and that didn't change since September 2014 when I first reviewed it. But Piper has been growing up in the meantime, releasing a night vision hardware version, adding Life360 integration, and offering several accessories like sensors and lights, and now it's ready to graduate its software and automation too.
When I was in the process of opening my small pharmacy more than 3 years ago, I contacted a security firm and installed several thousands of dollars worth of surveillance and alarm equipment. It works reliably, but it's a huge pain to change any setting in the system (there's no user interface, just a bunch of wires and keys) or get any footage out of it. It feels antiquated compared to today's more modern Internet-connected smart solutions with simplified experiences, but that was the most appropriate choice at the time.