I am starting a new series looking at home security & surveillance monitoring cameras.
My fist blog in this series will be on the Uniden Guardian which we have been using at home (the G755) for a few years now, and I installed a newer version in the office building where I used to have AltamontCowork (the G955). That post will be coming soon, so check back.
In the meantime, I have been visiting local stores (Best Buy, Costco, Staples, etc) to see what home security cameras are available. There are a few, and some look like they meet most, if not all, of my requirements.
What are my requirements you ask?
Requirements for a Home Security Camera (according to TechyMike):
1. Wireless (ideally power would be wireless too, but, that is a few years in the future)
2. Works on your home’s WiFi.
3. Local video / audio recording storage using an SD card or micro-SD card.
4. Ability to see at night or in low light conditions (we used to monitor our late Yellow Lab, Sunny, to make sure he was ok in the house)
5. Apps for Android and IOS (Apple)
6. Continuous recording (meaning the thing records over the memory when it runs out)
There are some other features that are nice, but, I will get to them when I look at the individual products. UNFORTUNATELY, the only way to REALLY get to know how a device works is to live with it. I cannot afford to buy these products, so my research will be limited (unless I can find a benefactor or get demo units) to what I find online, and much of the time, that information is lacking. For example, Uniden does not say that spider webs or flying bugs at night really f**k up their camera….nor do they say that when you run out of memory in the G755 you have to re-format the SD card for it to record more…how stupid!
But, that aside, I still think this is an interesting exercise and could be useful to many who just don’t have the time to look around at the various products.
Here is the feature chart I will fill in for each product so when all the products are done, you have an apples-to-apples comparison for at least some features.
NEXT UP: Uniden Guardian G755 and G955
Some products I took pictures of, and, will cover in the weeks ahead:
D-Link Outdoor HD Wireless Camera
D-Link HD Pan / Tilt Day Night Network Camera
Samsung SmartCam Home Monitoring Camera
Lorex Wireless Video Surveillance System
I will look for more. If you know of any, please comment below.
Here is a video our G755 Guardian took of some rats stealing a battery I had ready to go back to Sears:
TechyMike: Technology Made Easy 