Everyone likes to know that their home is secure and that everything and everyone is safe while we’re gone. In years past, that meant using a CCTV system to record, but few had remote access or alerts. Now you can buy a Wi-Fi connected camera which you can view from your phone.
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Latest entry: Smanos UFO
Unlike the so-called IP cameras of old, which required a computer science degree to install and configure for access over the internet, modern home security cameras are very easy to set up. Some use cloud storage, so any evidence is save online and is safe from thieves who might steal your camera.
To help you choose the best security camera, we’ll explain the key features to consider.
Whether you’re looking for an easy way to check on your children and pets, or a motion detection system for intruders, you’ll find the right camera for your needs.
Most home security cameras perform the same basic functions – they detect an event, record the event and send you an alert – but they don’t all do it in the same way.
Certain cameras go beyond those basics and some can be mounted outdoors. Don’t forget to read our reviews to find out how each camera works in practice and whether its day and night video quality is good or not: don’t rely on a manufacturers specifications or claims.
Alerts: You should get notifications on your smartphone when your camera detect events. Without watching the live feed constantly, this is the only way to keep tabs on your home in relative real time. Depending on the camera, it may send text alerts when it detects motion, sound, a face (known or unrecognised), or all three. Some can send alerts to multiple people, usually anyone else in the household using that product’s app; others will send emails in addition to text messages as a fail-safe in the event you can’t access your mobile device.
Cloud recording: Many manufacturers now offer cloud storage plans with their camera. They record video to a server in the cloud and store it for 24 hours to a couple of weeks. Sometimes offered free, these cloud plans typically require a monthly subscription, but may be worth it both for their convenience and if you want constant 24/7 recording. Some subscription services record video only when motion is detected and they’re not infallible and may miss an event. With 24/7 recording, like CCTV systems, you can rewind and watch any point in time (back the limit of your subscription). Bear in mind that some cameras — Nest in particular — only allows recording if you subscribe. If you don’t you can’t record anything and you’ll get only alerts.
Facial recognition: Netatmo is the only manufacturer we know which offers facial recognition. It does work, but not as well as you might hope. It can also take a long while before the camera can accurately identify people. It’s used to alert you when specific people are home — useful for keeping tabs on kids — and also avoiding unnecessary alerts as it can warn you only when an unknown person is seen.
Local storage: Some cameras include memory card slots so you can store video on the device. We like this option as it can eliminate the cost of monthly storage fees. The downside (if there isn’t any cloud storage option) is that if a thief steals your camera, he takes the video evidence with it.
Apps: All the lat est cameras can be accessed (some even set up) via a smartphone or tablet app. In addition to offering a way to view the camera’s live feed, apps often let you adjust settings and turn on and off recording, motion detection and more. Often you’ll only be able to customise notifications, adjust motion and sound detection sensitivity, and set detection areas via the web portal, but it’s great if you can do this in the app.
Motion detection: Motion detection is one of the most desirable features in a security camera. Built-in sensors pick up movement within the camera’s field of view and trigger video recording. Because these sensors are sensitive to any movement – event a shift in lighting or leaves blowing outside a window – it’s important the system also offers the ability to narrow the range of detection, adjust the sensor’s sensitivity or otherwise customise this feature to cut down on false alerts. Some don’t offer this and, generally, should be avoided.
Night vision: Most burglaries happen after dark, so this feature is nearly as important as motion detection. Technically, most home security cameras support infrared LED illumination, versus true night vision based on image intensification or thermal vision. Some camera’s will switch to night vision automatically in low-light conditions, while others allow you to customise when and how it should be activated. This won’t work through windows, as you’ll just see a reflection of the infrared LEDs.
Pan Tilt Swivel : Most security cameras – including all those reviewed here – can be manually tilted and swivelled to focus on a certain viewing area, but this is a purely set?it-and-forget it feature. A true pan/tilt camera is equipped with a motor so that you can move its lens – or even follow a moving object if you’re watching a live feed – using its app or browser-based app.
Resolution: No amount of security video will help you if it’s blurry, jittery or otherwise distorted. Look for a camera that offers the highest possible resolution. Most currently offer 720p (often referred to as ‘high definition’ or HD), but some newer cameras are coming out with 1080p (often referred to as ‘full HD’). Keep in mind higher resolution cameras use more internet and Wi-Fi bandwidth and battery life. Many cameras also offer a software zoom feature (which is not the same thing as having a physical zoom lens).
Scheduling: Scheduling features allow you to tell the camera to turn on and off, detect motion, and/or send alerts at specified times. This is useful when you, for example, only want to be notified when your children get home from school or just want to monitor your home when you’re away. It also reduces the amount of false alerts.
Two-way audio: While the idea of a security camera implies eyes-on monitoring, the ability to also hear what’s going on gives you a more complete picture of what’s happening on the home front when you’re away. It can also alert you to something occurring out of the camera’s field of vision. This feature can also allow you to speak through the camera, a great tool for remotely commanding an unruly pet or startling an intruder in the act, but be aware that you might need to plug in a powered speaker for this feature to work.
Viewing angle: The camera’s field of view determines how much it can see. As you’re probably monitoring a single room, you want a wide viewing angle. Most current cameras fall in the 130-degree range. These wide angles can sometimes cause image distortion at the edges in the form of a fish-eye effect, particularly when used in smaller rooms, but it’s not like you’re going to use a security to capture snapshots for your photo album.
Web client: Many cameras can be accessed through a web browser as well. This is handy when you don’t have access to your phone or a wireless connection. The web app should closely mirror its mobile counterpart, so you don’t need to learn a whole new set of controls. It may even offer extra features, such as the ability to download video clips.
There are some great apps which let you re-purpose that old iPhone or Android phone which would otherwise just sit in a drawer unused.
One of the best is Manything, which is free for iOS and Android (it’s in beta on Android — only a small number of devices are supported). We tested out Manything over a couple of weeks using an iPhone 5 and it ran flawlessly. The setup process is amazingly quick and simple: install the app and create a free account with an email address and password. Then, install the app on your main phone and you’ll be able to log in and view a live video feed using your old phone’s camera. Manything offers a lot of the features described above, including the ability to select an area to monitor for motion, and it will send you an alert when motion is detected so you can check the feed to see what’s going on.
Clips of the motion are automatically recorded and saved to the cloud and you can download these on your phone for safekeeping. There’s a free subscription option which lets you use one phone and keeps motion recordings for four hours. But if you pay a small monthly fee, you can get a longer video history (including continuous recording) and use more phones to get extra video feeds.
The app is brilliantly designed — the companies below could learn a thing or two about making a decent security camera app from Manything.
There are two disadvantages, though. First, your phone isn’t going to have infrared LEDs for night vision, so the system is only useful during the day or if you leave a light on at night. Second, video is recorded at only 480×360 pixels so while it’s enough to see what’s happening, it may not be enough to recognise an intruder or make out text on the side of a van or its registration plate.

© Source: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/digital-home/best-home-security-cameras-of-2017-uk-smart-home-security-cameras-3631664/
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By
Lewis Painter | 25 mins ago
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£149
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Following an explosion of smart home technology a couple of years ago, there are now a myriad of smart home security cameras that offer everything from 24/7 recording to a built-in siren to deter intruders, and everything in between. The unique design and claims of 360-degree coverage set the Smanos UFO apart from its counterparts when it was announced at the end of 2016, so how does it perform? Here’s our Smanos UFO smart security camera review. Read next: Best smart security cameras for use in the home
So, how much is the Smanos UFO in the UK, and where can you get your hands on it? First off, the Smanos UFO will set consumers back £149 in the UK, a rather standard price for a 1080p night vision-enabled smart home security camera without all the bells and whistles of high-end alternatives (built-in siren, etc). It’s similar in price to the likes of the Logi Circle , Netgear Arlo Q and the Canary smart camera.
In terms of availability, despite being announced back in October 2016 and having an official UK price tag, the Smanos UFO is yet to reach stores in the UK. We’ll update this section once the Smanos UFO becomes available to buy in the UK.
So, what makes the Smanos UFO stand out in terms of its design and build? Just by looking at the camera, you can easily tell that it offers something unique compared to other smart security cameras on the market. While most smart security cameras boast a similar design, the Smanos UFO, as the name suggests, looks somewhat like a stereotypical UFO you see conspiracy theorists shouting about (but don’t worry, it won’t abduct your livestock).
The Smanos UFO is circular and relatively flat as it was designed not to sit on a shelf or table, but to be attached directly to walls and ceilings whilst providing a low profile. The last thing you need is a bulky camera hanging from your living room ceiling, right? It’s small and inconspicuous measuring in at 106 x 106 x 36mm, meaning you can install it and forget that it’s there until it’s needed.
The benefit of attaching the UFO to the ceiling is that it can provide a 360-degree view of the room below, although this isn’t 360-degree viewing in the sense that it’ll record both the front- and rear of the camera. It’s something we’ll go into a little more detail below. However, the ceiling mount also makes the UFO less likely to be spotted by intruders, as it’s not at eye-level like many others are.
One noticeable feature is the inclusion of LEDs around the outer rim of the UFO. Why? The main purpose of the LEDs is to provide status updates to the user as the camera has no display. It features varying patterns, letting you know when the camera loses connection to Wi-Fi, whenever somebody is watching the live stream, etc. But if that sounds too annoying for you, don’t worry, as there’s an option to disable the use of LEDs from within the Smanos Home app for iOS and Android.
The Smanos UFO features a full HD (1080p) camera with a fisheye lens that Smanos claims is “surveillance-grade” although that sounds more like a marketing term rather than a sign of quality. Although with that being said, the image quality produced by the UFO is fairly impressive and we see no distortion due to the use of a lens (with a tell-tale sign being chromatic aberration around the edges of the image) and the included night vision provides relatively clear images, even in a dark environment.
You can view the camera stream via the Smanos Home app available for iOS and Android, although, rather strangely, there’s no web portal for those that don’t have access to iOS or Android. With it being a fairly standard feature amongst smart security cameras, we’re somewhat surprised that it isn’t offered with the UFO.
Within the app, users are presented with three views to choose from – birds-eye, panoramic and quad-view. Birds-eye provides users with the standard fish-eye lens view and is ideal for when the UFO is attached to a ceiling as it leaves no blind spot, while panorama provides users with a rather standard view for home security cameras and is best used when the camera is stood upright. The quad-view allows you to focus the camera on four parts of the room in one single view, more like a traditional security setup (albeit from one single camera). The one drawback of the quad-view mode is that the individual views cannot be tweaked on a per-user basis, with Smanos implementing a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Users can also set up motion detection from within the Smanos Home app, and specify times when it’s active – you don’t want to be notified about movement when you’re at home with your family, do you? You can also specify the sensitivity of the motion detection, with the option to choose between three distance settings – medium, near and far. Then, if you are notified of motion, you can use the two-way talk system to speak to whoever is in the room, from family members to your pet dog.
So, let’s talk about the 360-degree coverage because it isn’t like 360-degree cameras available for VR enthusiasts and doesn’t feature both front- and rear-facing cameras. In standard terms, it offers a 180-degree field of view as you can’t see behind or above it for true 360-degree coverage. It works well in ceiling mode because the camera offers something close to 360-degree coverage as you don’t need to see behind it, just in front of it. Get it? While it’s technically 360-degrees, it’s also not at the same time. Confusing stuff.
The Smanos UFO is one of very few smart security cameras on the market that offer local storage via MicroSD card. This means that unlike with most smart security cameras, you don’t need to pay a monthly fee for the cloud-based storage which, depending on the manufacturer, can be over £20 a month on top of the upfront fee for the camera. Cloud storage does have benefits, like footage being secure if the camera is broken or destroyed by an intruder, but consumers don’t like to pay monthly fees for a service that many believe should be included in the upfront cost of the camera. The Smanos UFO supports MicroSD cards up to 32GB, with the camera automatically rewriting old footage as it goes along.
Smanos claims it’ll also offer a paid cloud-based storage solution, although details of which are yet to be announced.
However, there is one rather fatal issue with the Smanos UFO that could undo all the hard work by the company – connectivity issues. During our time testing the Smanos UFO, there were occasions where we simply could not connect to the live stream despite the app claiming it was connected to the camera. We’d tap play to enable the live stream and it’d just sit there loading until the app crashed around a minute later. We’ve tried force-quitting the app, restarting our iPhones and toggling the camera on and off remotely, all without success. In fact, we can’t quite work out what the issue is as most of the time, it comes back online by itself.
We got into contact with Smanos about the connectivity issues, and the company reassured us that the issues were temporary and should be fixed within the next couple of weeks via a firmware upgrade. We’ll keep testing the camera over the next couple of weeks and keep you updated on our experience.
The Smanos UFO may not be the sleekest smart security camera on the market, but it’s perfect for wall and ceiling attachments with its low-profile design. While there may be other cameras on the market that offer slicker app interfaces for a similar price, the ability to host your storage locally via microSD along with optional paid cloud backup (coming soon) is unique to a small handful of smart security cameras on the market. If you don’t want to pay out for monthly storage fees and want 24/7 recording capabilities on a budget, the Smanos UFO is a decent option.
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© Source: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/review/security-cameras/smanos-ufo-smart-security-camera-review-3653329/
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