Showing posts with label home security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home security. Show all posts

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Withings Home Wi-Fi security camera

This blog post contains affiliate links.

The Withings Home Baby Bundle - Wireless Video Baby Monitor is a great Wi-Fi security camera with a lot of embedded perks: video streaming, air quality monitor, push notification alerts for motion activity and cloud storage of video footage. The Home packs a 5 megapixel HD camera with infrared night vision that has a field-of-view of 135 degrees which is pretty wide without looking like a wide angle camera. It has sensors for sound, motion and air-quality which will be able to alert you via the companion iOS app (iPhone, iPad, AppleTV or Apple Watch).

The product is great because it has two-way audio with “push-to-talk” option via the iOS app that let’s you speak to whoever is in the room. They also have a baby bundle package which pairs the camera with two covers: one blue and one pink which slip over the woodgrain finish.

We think this product is a great option for families who are looking for a baby monitor or just a plain security camera. The two-way audio is a great way to soothe your baby to sleep from anywhere by just using your iPhone and the camera. You also have the option to turn on a Lullaby mode which turns on an LED light and sound program to lull your child back to sleep.

Priced at $199, it offers quite a few bells and whistles to help ease parents’ anxiety. The air-quality monitor is really nice because it can warn you when carbon-based Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in parts-per-million go above a specified thresh-hold and also tracks the data so you can try and figure out if it’s a one-time occurrence or something that needs to be looked in to. 

The Apple Watch integration is really nice because you can also be notified when there is motion and just glance at your watch to see an image of what’s going on.

I can’t believe it (and I know you won’t be able to as well) but the great folks at Withings have offered us a Home security camera to give away to one of our lucky readers… Enter through the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

NOTE: I received a Withings Home to facilitate this review. All opinions are my own. There was no promise given of a positive review, but this camera rocks! Winner must be 18+. This blog post contains affiliate links.

Monday, June 3, 2013

SimpliSafe: A unique home alarm system

We were fortunate enough to be able to review the SimpliSafe alarm system. This easy-to-setup system is easily expandable to fit any house situation. The kit we received included a base-station, three sensor units for doors and/or windows, a wireless keypad and a keychain remote which doubles as a installation USB flash drive for your computer.

To start, we opened the box and followed the instructions for setting everything up which was very easy. All of the pieces came with the appropriates batteries. I went around and figured out what we wanted to alarm and tested out each sensor as I connected it. One great thing about the system is you can set it to make a chime noise when one of the sensors are triggered. This happens when someone opens or closes a door, which is a great bonus feature since we have a two year old who can find her way out of the house easily now.

The setup process for the base station was easy and works with any web browser and computer. We set up a few codes for ourselves, a master password and some codes that we could give out to contractors. The base station connects to the internet and SimpliSafe has a monitoring company that will watch for notifications from the base station if anything is triggered and the alarm isn't disabled. The monitoring service starts at $15/month and goes up to $30/month at the high end which includes the ability to enable and disable the system from an iOS app.

This system is great and unique because you install it yourself so people don't need to be traipsing around your house putting in tons of equipment and wires. It is also wireless and in addition to the internet connectivity, has a cell-phone network backup (which is included in the $15/month monitoring cost) in case your phone/internet lines get cut. If the power happens to go out, the system has a battery backup that will last for a few hours so your house will stay monitored even if someone tries to cut the power and phone lines to your house or rob you in the event of a natural disaster.

The best thing about this system is that it is fully removable (they use special double stick tape that doesn't appear to damage walls) so if you move apartments or houses, you can take it with you. This is great for people and families who live in apartments, condos, houses, really any living situation.

NOTE:  We received a base-station kit from SimpliSafe to facilitate this review. We did not promise a positive review, but rather an honest review. All opinions are 100% our own.