Hey y'all, it's Rose, and today we're going to take a look at five indoor home security
cameras.
All of the cameras we're going to look at offer a Full HD resolution, geofencing, person
detection, and at least a smidge of free cloud storage and Amazon Cloud Cam fits right in.
When motion triggers a clip, the camera will continue to record until motion stops with
a maximum clip length of 5 minutes.
Next, Arlo Q, which is Arlo's wired camera. It offers customizable clip lengths which can
be set between 15 and 120 seconds, or you can set the camera to record until activity
stops with a maximum clip length of 5 minutes.
Third, I kept Canary in the mix.
At CES 2018, Canary launched Canary View, which offers the same video quality as All-in-One.
Today, we're testing All-In-One.
For free, clips are 30 seconds in length.
If you pay, clips can be as long as 10 minutes.
If you don't pay, clips are only viewable from the mobile app and you can't download
them.
Fourth, Logi Circle 2. Circle 2 is one of two HomeKit ready cameras currently sold.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the maximum clip length is, but I had a couple of clips
that were 4 minutes long.
Finally, Nest Cam offers useless snapshots for free which almost disqualified them from
this list, but it's hard to do an indoor camera compare without Nest.
If you pay, the camera will record continuously.
Nest Cam and Arlo Q are the only two cameras on this list that are capable of continuous
video recording.
All five cameras also offer night vision, and all five cameras will automatically swap
to night vision mode when needed.
To differentiate them, I tested two things.
One, overall quality.
Two, how the cameras reacted to a bright light.
Performance wise, Logi Circle was the worst.
Do you see the ghost trail behind me?
That's a night vision no no.
Next, we have Arlo Q. The video quality wasn't on par with the others.
It looked okay, I guess, until I stuck my face in front of the lens, and noticed I was
no longer recognizable.
Canary's night vision performance was solid when unchallenged, but it was completely blinded
by the light and it's the only camera of the bunch that doesn't allow you to turn night
vision off.
So, in second place, I'm calling Nest call.
Nest also looked pretty good, and it was the only camera that stayed on night vision mode
when I tried to trick it with the light, but the quality of the night vision faltered after
spotlighting the camera.
The night vision winner is
Cloud Cam.
It took the light challenge like a champ and my face wasn't washed out like it was when viewing through
Arlo and Logi Circle 2.
Let's talk a little more about free versus paid features.
All of the cameras, except for Canary, offer two-way audio for free.
Okay, so serious question, how much wood would a
woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Thoughts on that?
Anyone?
How bout Sally?
All of the cameras also offer geofencing for free and some cloud storage.
Cloud Cam, Canary, and Circle 2 offer 24 hours of cloud storage.
Nest Cam offers 3 hours of snapshot storage.
Pulling away from the pack, we have Canary and Arlo.
Canary includes zones, bookmarks, and person detection for free.
The All-in-One offers Home Health sensors and a manually triggered siren.
But it's Arlo Q that takes the cake here.
Arlo Q offers 7 days of cloud storage for 5 cameras, zones, two-way audio, and modes
for free so a paid plan isn't necessary.
If you want more, all five companies will sell you more.
I first tested the cameras without a paid plan, and all five cameras sent at least some
false alarms whether it was my lamp turning on or my dumbbot, as I like to call it, vacuuming
the floors so I paid to see if accuracy would improve.
Well, except for Arlo, because after starting this video review, Arlo yanked their paid plan, Arlo Smart,
which will relaunch this Spring.
If they match beta pricing, Arlo Smart will cost $3.99 per month per camera and add person
detection, snapshot alerts, and e911.
Of the cameras I did test, Circle 2 came in last.
Circle 2 plans start at $3.99 per month per camera but to get person detection and zones, you'll need to pay for
the $9.99 per month per camera plan.
In testing, Circle 2 consistently marked person events as motion events.
In third place, Canary.
Canary provides person detection for free though paying $9.99 per month adds a 30 day
video history, two-way audio, video downloads, and other valuable features.
Canary's performance was fairly consistent, which is impressive considering that the feature
is in Beta.
What landed Canary is third place is that you can't turn motion detection or person
detection on or off.
In second place, Cloud Cam. $6.99 per month adds person detection and zones for up to
three Amazon Cloud Cam Cameras.
While Cloud Cam outperformed Circle 2, they shared a similar problem.
Cloud Cam also marked a couple of person events as motion and thus failed to send an alert.
However, it was more consistent than Circle 2, sent faster alerts, and provided a more
consistent experience.
The winner?
Nest Cam.
Nest Aware starts at $10 per month per camera with multi-camera discounts available.
Person detection is a paid feature and it works great.
Plus, if you opt for the more expensive Nest Cam IQ, person detection is free and you can
pay to add person recognition.
Another feature all of the cameras offer is free mobile app access.
Arlo, Nest, and Logi also offer free web access.
Canary charges for web portal access.
And yet, the web portal lacks features.
You can't delete videos, swap modes, or control notifications using the web app.
Cloud Cam doesn't have a web app at all.
Instead, you can use your Amazon Drive to view and download clips.
Clips that record to your Amazon Drive will stay until you run out of space.
The list of what the mobile apps can and can't do is pretty long so I narrowed it down
to usability features.
1. Only Arlo Q will let you record on-demand.
2. Arlo Q and Nest Cam also offer sound detection.
You can choose to turn sound detection on or off.
3. For free, Logi Circle lets you create a timelapse.
Nest Cam has a timelapse feature too but you have to pay for it and it's only accessible
via the web app.
4. They can all send alerts, but only Nest and Arlo can send bonus alerts via IFTTT.
5. Only Arlo and Nest allow you to create a schedule.
6. They all support geofencing, but only Nest, Arlo Q, and Canary support multi-user geofencing.
And finally,
I had to slide this one on the list. It's not really usability, but
Circle's app only works horizontally, which drives me bananas.
The winner here?
Arlo and Nest.
There's simply no way for me to breakdown all the ways that I compared these cameras,
but in the description below, there's a link to my written review, and it is very, very detailed.
In short, I do have a favorite and I have a least favorite.
When it comes right down to it, Logi was my least favorite.
It’s confusing to use and it felt invasive when used indoors due to lack of automated
privacy features.
Drum roll please, Arlo Q is my top pick.
Arlo offers modes and zones for free plus seven days of free cloud storage which means
that you can pluck it off the shelf, plug it in, and expect it to protect your home.
But guess what?
I'm probably going use Arlo Pro indoors.
And for some of you, I might recommend the same.
I'm not going to bore you with the reasons why, so I'll type up an explanation and drop it in the comment section
where we can discuss if you like.
And, who knows what I'll recommend in a month or six months from now.I think
this is a year where the camera market is really going to change.
We've already seen Ooma purchase Butterfleye, Amazon's purchased Blink, Piper
and Piper nv are no longer sold, and LG is bricking LG Smart Security in February.
So lots of changes already happened, lots of changes to come.
If y'all have any questions about indoor home security cameras let me know
and I appreciate you all spending time with my today, and I will see you soon!