hey guys I'm Ben from authentech and today we're checking out a smart
garage door opener that we can control from our phone and it has a security
camera built-in as well this is the garager 2 from Alcidae huge thanks
to those guys for sponsoring today's video first we'll start with a quick
unboxing then installation which the setup is a cinch I really like it we'll
cover its main features the pros and cons and then I'll do a bit of a
comparison versus the Chamberlain my Q system I've personally had that running
for about fourteen months now and I have a good idea of how the systems compete
oh and as always all the links for pricing and more info will be down below
in the box includes the main garage or two unit USB cable and power adapter a
magnetic base with sticky mount screws and the garage opener cable that up was
fast and easy which I really appreciate I feel a little nerdy but I really like
magnets and inside the base of this garage a unit has this super-strong
magnet it's genius design since I'm assuming most if not all garage door
openers have at least some parts or places with metal thus you might not
even need to use that magnetic plate for mounting it's nice to have the
flexibility of options the camera has the smooth tilting angle so wherever you
place the base it should have a good angle of the door or your whole garage
more on that later the camera is powered through microUSB and thankfully most
openers have an outlet already nearby to power the motor so this is where I
plugged in after powering up I downloaded their app create an account
add new device add to home Wi-Fi network then it'll auto search for the nearby
device and once it pops up tap add name the device and that's it for the camera
setup to add the control of your door the install is fast and easy here as
well they say it's compatible with most garage door opener brands and models
like Chamberlain and Liftmaster but make sure you contact their support if you're
unsure of your make and model they include a nice long wire cable for your
opener and this is helpful if you're running the camera a farther distance
from your opener or wall switch my only complaint
we had to strip down the wires ourselves they don't come pre strips not a big
deal and it just takes a couple seconds if you have a pair of wire strippers
laying around if you have a knife or scissors that should work as well we
stick the wires into the slots with the low push tabs on both the opener and the
camera and then in the app we test the garage or unit the first couple tries
nothing happens so you keep tapping try again
then on the third or fourth try it opened right up installation complete
easy-peasy now yes if you'd like to control two garage door openers well
then you're gonna need two of these units it's a little bit of a bummer and
it'd be cool to see in the future if we could buy one camera unit that controls
two different openers at the same time that might be a hot seller it's sort of
this same idea with the myq unit you can have one hobbit but in order to control
more than one door you need to purchase additional sensors I received two units
to test and I liked how easy the setup was then when viewing in the app we can
view both cameras next to each other and single tap to control either door now
anywhere I'm located I can conveniently open or close the garage door at any
time plus I can check the status of my garage by viewing a live camera feed I
know you're probably like me and how many times have we gone out left home
but then I forgot if we close the garage door or not well those days of turning
around and driving back home to double-check they're finally over some
of the other key features and specs the camera unit itself is compact with
minimal design it has a field of view of 127 degrees ultra wide-angle it records
1080p video plus night vision there's a motion sensor speaker and microphone for
two-way audio hey how's it going audio test one two that's pretty clear
let's live authentic the sound coming out of the garage a unit is actually
quite clear and loud which is sweet oddly enough the recording of the audio
is pretty garbled on my end when it's recorded
and it's out of sync we look at this squeezing them the whole maybe an update
can fix this as for video quality I'd read it like a b-minus with potential to
be even better photos look nice and sharp with good quality the video when
watching live looks really great too however I think when we're saving the
video clips locally onto my foam it's as if there's some heavy compression going
on from the cloud or something I'd also say that the dynamic range sometimes
looks great but then it's also fairly limited range like when I open the
garage door the super bright outdoors are often blown out and it's hard to see
details it's a tough exposure as the inside of your garage can often be dark
so an HDR camera would be a perfect fit in this situation the night vision looks
pretty good overall it's well lit at night and can see lots of details in the
dark even with cars driving by outside again pick those up clearly probably one
of my favorite features of the cameras though is the ultra wide-angle I'm
always preaching the same message if you have security cameras you want as high
quality and as wide-angle as possible I'm Way too often seen security cameras
with the field of view of like 80 maybe 90 degrees that's simply just a right
angle not enough in my opinion with these cameras being 127 degrees now
we're talking and it's squeezing a lot more into camera framing as a little
experiment I place one of the cameras far up into the garage corner and funny
enough it magnetically stuck onto my other security camera which does not
have as wide of a viewing angle and what the long cables included I was fairly
easily able to view my entire garage with just this one shot both my doors
and my interior entry door from one angle now it's like having a full-on
security camera capturing your whole garage space and having remote control
of the opener all from the same app I like the idea of that there's both
motion and sound alerts and notifications that we can turn on or off
plus a few levels of sensitivity when these notifications pop up on my phone I
wish a hard press would offer me a preview clip of the video captured but
instead we the notification and then ill load the
clips which then we can record and save locally if you'd like
now there's a cloud service that is required to view any and all motion or
sound detection clips currently they offer a free 30-day trial now I
personally have the wishlist item that maybe they'd offer a free 24 hour cloud
recording service plan then pay subscription model for may be saved
clips beyond that or offer a local storage option as well that'd be cool to
see my contact told me that they're currently working on a free plan and I
think it's in development so that's awesome to hear I look forward to seeing
more details on that another feature they offer is Amazon
Alexa and Google home integrations closed garage door okay
I was able to open and close the garage doors with voice control which is pretty
fun
so those are most of its key features now on to a few wishlist items I found
and how I think it compares to the myq hub first the obvious my queue does not
have a camera built-in like the garage er it's really only about opening or
closing your garage door from your phone or from your computer now this brings me
to my first wishlist item on the garage er I wish they had a desktop web app for
both viewing of the camera and control of the door second key difference the
myq has these tilt sensors that you stick on to the door and this is how you
know remotely if the doors open or close I like the idea of seen with a camera
inside my garage just to make sure that there's nothing or nobody in the way of
the door let's say a small child just in case before I close it remotely
safety is a big deal with these smart controllers one feature I like on the
Mike you that I don't think the garage has yet our reminder notifications say I
left the door open for X minutes I'm not sure if garage er could do this since it
doesn't have the tilt sensor on the door but I'm thinking with a little machine
learning I'm sure the camera could learn if the
door is open or closed with customize alerts both devices let you easily share
control with other people and one of my major complaints with Mike you they
charge you a fee for simple integrations with Google assistant and if this than
that thankfully these are free on the garage er though if isn't out yet
hopefully coming down the road I think my last big wish for the garage is
continued app development and stability I have the app crash on my iPhone 10 us
a couple times sometimes the cameras would be offline or slow to load even
when scrolling on the cloud footage that sometimes have a sticky timeline that
one in scroll right or it would just take forever to load once I hit record
to save a clip record it for about a minute and a half then went to save it
locally which i think is a goofy unneeded second step and the clip was
just one second long it's these little bugs that I'd like to see ironed out as
for pricing while the garage or two I believe is at 149 but then I also see it
on amaz Prime right now at 129 or you can bundle
them together and save more money the my queue is cheaper but if you bundle it in
with the Amazon Cloud cam well now it's more expensive at 162 I'm sure you could
find a cheaper camera solution but then there's something to be said of having a
security camera and the door opener all from the same app which again is a
fantastic safety feature all the links will be down below and leave me any
questions down in the comments thanks so much for watching guys and until next
time let's live