Home surveillance system is not as hard to setup as it looks like. It’s enough to have some skill to mount cameras and to connect those cameras with your router and then to the your very own personal home monitoring hub. And it doesn’t matter how many cameras you’re planning to mount and where. Whether those smart cameras will be indoors or outdoors, all of them will be connected to hub and controlled through one single application on your smartphone – Amazon Alexa or Samsung SmartThings. So, in our article we’ll talk about choosing the best cameras and will give you an example in the blog of them.
What are advantages of using smart cameras?
If you connect your smart cameras to the “smart home” system, even without using any other functions, you’ll get many advantages — they’ll check everything inside or outside your home and send any of the gathered data directly to your cloud storage. It’s a feature of smart cameras as part of a complex Internet of Things (IoT) system that will make your home literally smart if completed. Nevertheless, we won’t talk about other devices and will give you some info on smart cameras advantages.
- Smart cameras are smaller than its classic counterparts, and that allows you to install them in more places. Furthermore, you don’t have to install a DVR base system.
- Its software is really user-friendly by all means compared with classic DVR surveillance system software.
- All data gathered by cameras is sent to a cloud-based storage either independent or provided by manufacturer. Also, you can have a copy on your own cloud-based or physical storage as a backup just in case of emergency.
- Easy live streaming. You don’t need to configure an external access to your cameras in a hard way – for smart cameras it’s enough to use an application to get a video from your home smart surveillance.
- Output resolution. Smart cameras will give you a high-quality recording with overall output resolution from 720p HD and higher, even up to 4K. Even your real-time stream will be in a such quality.
So, when we stated some advantages, we’ll show you some great smart camera kits that are great for home usage even without full-fledged smart home ecosystem.
Netgear Arlo WireFree Pro
Full HD surveillance system that’s fully compatible with all current generations of smart home ecosystems from SmartThings to IFTTT. To provide this functionality, it comes complete with its own WiFi base that’s supporting up to 100 cameras and up to 6 cameras included in a single kit. In addition to its complexity it has a built-in two-way audio system, night vision IR LEDs and fully customizable AI monitoring system.
Wisenet SNH-P6415BN SmartCam
Smart camera with some very advanced features like Face Recognition and Human Recognition systems. Face Recognition is notifying you about the presence of designated people in sight, and Human Recognition is intellectually sorting non-human movement in sight to reduce the number of alerts caused by pets. Also, it has two-way mic and speaker and Wide Dynamic Range auto-adjustment for capturing clear video in different lighting conditions.
Useful guide on setting up the smart camera
If you have a smart camera that should be connected to a smart home cloud-based system, then just read its manual. It’ll allow you to understand how to integrate it into home surveillance system. But it is clearly obvious that almost no one likes to read manuals, so we will give you a short guide with Samsung SmartThings application as an example. Nevertheless, basic configuration routine for other smart home systems is just about the same, with only a slight difference.
So, to do the thing you should connect the camera to your network and open the SmartThings app. Then add a new device by clicking the “+” button and “Add Device”. Then select “Camera”, turn it on, wait for its indicator to flash, and then wait for the connection. Choose a place, select a room, scan the QR code of the camera and wait a second until the camera signals you about the established link. Actually, that was the last step, so everything should be running without any issues.
So, concluding all that was said above, when you think about buying yourself a smart cameras, you should think about storage device and which will suit you best – it will really depend on your needs – you should think not only about surveillance stability, but also about how long your recordings should be and how large your archive will be.
Security cameras that work with Amazon Alexa
An internet-connected home security camera is an excellent way to keep an eye on your house when you’re away. If you can locate a Alexa-compatible home security camera, monitoring your property becomes that much simpler.
Other possibilities include checking in on the animals while you’re at work, and telling your youngster that they’re supposed to be studying instead of playing video games if they have built-in microphones. You can connect your cameras to Alexa routines and smart light bulbs for additional home automation with these cameras by asking Alexa to display you what’s going on at any moment.
Arlo Pro 4
The newest Arlo Pro 4 is the best-performing, most versatile home security camera on the market. It’s waterproof and shockproof up to 65 feet, comes with a weatherproof mount, six days of battery life, 1080p video recording at 30 frames per second (as well as 720p and 960H) and night vision capability. You may use it without using a hub.
Google Nest Cam Indoor
The beautifully designed Google Nest Cam lets you live stream your home 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You’ll be alerted in the Nest Aware software, and you’ll be able to manage all of your Nest gadgets from one location. You’ll also get two-way audio and can hide it almost anywhere due to its tiny size.
Blink Outdoor
The Blink’s new Outdoor camera is reasonably priced for the feature set. With a two-year battery life and the option to extend it to four years with a battery pack attachment. The Blink Sync Module 2 allows you to save files locally, or you can use one of Blink’s affordable cloud storage alternatives.
Why Does Alexa Randomly Light Up
Do you have an Amazon Echo in your house? You may have noticed that Alexa occasionally blinks on its own without any indication. This might be perplexing, especially if you don’t know why it’s happening. We’ll answer the question “why does Alexa randomly light up” and give some suggestions for resolving the problem in this post. We’ll also look at some of the most common issues with the Echo and offer solutions for those problems as well.
Ring Spotlight Cam Wired
The Ring Spotlight Cam is the best choice for professional monitoring since it includes a Protect plan from Ring. These cameras also include live streaming and recording in full HD, two-way audio, and lifetime purchase protection from Ring. Furthermore, insurance covers stolen devices.
Kasa Cam Outdoor
With its wide-angle 2K HD live-streaming video, I’ve liked this wired surveillance camera because you may use it both indoors and outside, and you can record 24/7 and store it all to a microSD card. If you want cloud storage, Kasa includes that as well! You’ll also get a flood light to ensure that you get an excellent picture during the day or at night.
