Gabe Turner: Hey, folks. This is Gabe at Security Baron. Today, we're reviewing the Abode Iota
all-in-one home security system.
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Gabe: In today's review of the Abode Iota, we're going to go into what you get in the
package, the setup and convenience, the professional monitoring options, the customer support before
finally delving into that mobile application, the Abode App, to make sure you have all the
information you need to make the right decision.
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Gabe: If you'd like to see a list of our favorite home security systems, google, "Security Baron
best home security systems." If you have a question about today's review, leave us a
comment, and I'll get back to you.
Let's kick off today's review of the Abode Iota all-in-one home security system by checking
out what you get in the packet. The main piece is the Iota Gateway. This serves as your security
hub, motion sensor. It's got a microphone and speaker built in, and even a 1080p, high
definition security camera.
In order to get this to function properly, of course, you need your power adapter and
an Ethernet adapter to start the process of getting it onto your home's Internet, but
you won't always need that. Finally, you've got your mini door and window sensor and key
fob.
Now, one thing with the Abode Iota that's pretty great is the fact that the security
camera is built in. The best way to evaluate that is to put it through the Security Baron
Necessary Features Test.
Here at Security Baron, we think that every home security camera should come with stellar
video quality, two-way audio, night vision, local and cloud storage, smart platform integration,
and artificial intelligence.
Stellar video quality is a Security Baron necessary feature. We like to see at least
1080p, high definition video and at least 120-degree field of view. Now, fortunately,
the Abode Iota is bringing that. It has 1080p, high definition video and a 127-degree field
of view.
Unfortunately, there are no digital zoom capabilities, but generally speaking, the Abode Iota cam
has a pretty respectable video quality.
A Security Baron necessary feature is two-way audio. Two-way audio means that you can not
only hear what's going on in your space where your device is located, but also speak and
have them hear you back. Fortunately, with the Abode Iota, it does come with two-way
audio. We're very happy to see that.
Night vision is a Security Baron necessary feature. Typically, with night vision, we
like to have an infrared LED illuminate that darkness.
Now, fortunately for us, the Abode Iota cam does come with an infrared LED that actually
gives us a pretty clear and solid perspective, even in darkness. We're pretty pleased with
the night vision that comes with the Abode Iota cam.
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Gabe: Well, hold on. Quick break. I hope you're enjoying today's review of the Abode Iota
home security system. If you want to be kept up to date on the newest in password managers,
VPNs, and smart home security, subscribe to our channel. We're dropping content weekly.
All right, let's get back to the video.
Local and cloud storage is a Security Baron necessary feature. You want to be able to
store your footage locally or throw it into the cloud so you can access it from anywhere.
Fortunately, the Abode Iota cam does come with a local storage option. You can just
slide an SD card right into a slot in the back. Or you can just decide on which cloud
storage plan you'd like.
We're really pleased to see that it comes with both local and cloud storage.
Smart platform integration is a Security Baron necessary feature. The Abode Iota does well
here. It does integrate with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. It doesn't stop there. It
also integrates with a number of the most popular smart home devices, including Nest,
LIFX, Phillips, Hugh, Yell, and QuickSet, just to name a few.
We're overall pleased with the ability of the Abode Iota to integrate with some of our
favorite smart devices.
Artificial intelligence is a Security Baron necessary feature. Artificial intelligence
typically refers to facial recognition, person detection, vehicle detection, package detection,
things that help you to cut down on the number of notifications you get throughout the day,
or alerts to your phone. Unfortunately, the Abode Iota does not come with any of those
capabilities.
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Gabe: Now that we've seen everything that's included in your Abode Iota Home Security
System, let's talk about the actual setup process, which is really straightforward and
simple. I think I was done within 15 minutes. Now, you're going to want to place your Abode
Iota near your home's router and a power outlet.
You're going to plug it in, you're going to take your Ethernet cable, make sure it's plugged
into your router, and plug it into the back of your Abode Iota, and then you're going
to go the bottom and activate your battery backup by just shifting this button forward.
From there, you're going to want to download the Abode App onto your mobile device, and
it will walk you through the rest of the setup process. What does that mean? It means you're
going to go in, download the app, put in your activation code which is a six-digit alpha-numeric
code, and then you'll be ready to go.
From there, you have to note that your key fob and mini door/window sensor are already
paired with your Abode Iota. So you have nothing left to do regarding your gateway and these
devices, other than wait for your phone through that setup process to tell you when to pull
the battery tab for your mini door and window sensor.
Then you take the 3M adhesive that comes included with the system, and place it directly onto
your door, with the larger part going onto the door frame and the smaller part going
onto the door itself so you can know when it's opened and closed.
The app will walk you through naming each of the devices and you're set. Overall, less
than 15 minutes. Really easy set up with the Abode Iota home security system.
Let's jump into the professional monitoring options for your Abode Iota home security
system. At Security Baron, we think that everyone should have full professional monitoring and
cellular backup.
Fortunately, with Abode, you can get that professional monitoring, that cellular backup,
and 90 days of cloud storage with their secure plan, and that's $20 a month. If you'd still
like to self-monitor, but know you need that cellular backup in case that Internet goes
out, you can get the connect plan, which is eight dollars a month.
That'll also give you 14 days of cloud storage. Right out of the box, the Abode Iota comes
with three days of cloud storage, and the ability to self-monitor with the basic plan,
which is free. Overall, what's interesting about Abode Iota is the contracting options.
You can go month to month, or you can lock in your rate with an annual plan.
If you want a full breakdown explaining all the elements and details and factors that
make up the distinctions between the connect secure and basic plans for the Abode Iota,
you can check it out at securitybaron.com. Look at the link below.
Let's check out the customer support for the Abode Iota.
One thing that we love is that they seem to have really made a marked improvement in the
levels of customer support that they're giving. They have, of course, an online help center.
They even have a blog.
All these things have helpful FAQs and guide for helping you set up and resolve any issues
you have with your Abode Iota.
Beyond that, you can send them an email. You can live chat, or even give them a call.
When it comes to the actual quality of the service, there seems to be a bit of a mixed
bag. If you look at Amazon, Abode has a 3.6 out of five star rating. If you look at the
particular reviews that mention customer support, you see a mix of responses. You see some people
saying, "Hey, they were responding to my emails pretty timely, pretty quickly."
Then you have other people saying that they didn't feel the customer service representatives
were particularly knowledgeable. It seems to be a bit of mixed bag in terms of people's
experiences with the customer support team.
We're really happy to see that they've made some improvements in terms of their customer
support, even if it doesn't seem to be a uniform experience overall.
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Gabe: The final thing I want to delve in today is the mobile application for Abode, the Abode
App. You can use your Abode with your web interface on your computer, but if you're
anything like me, you're going to be spending most of your time right here on your mobile
device.
This is where you're going to be live streaming your footage, setting up, and connecting up
to 160 devices, and just generally putting in the work for your Abode Iota.
When it comes to the Apple App Store, it does pretty well. It has a 3.4 out of five star
rating. When it comes to the Android Google Play store, it does even better, where it
has 4.1 out of five stars.
Let's go ahead and check it out on my iPhone 7 Plus. Here I am looking at the Abode App
on my iPhone 7 Plus. You'll note that there's a lot happening on this screen. You've got
in the top left-hand corner, stand by. In the top right-hand corner, alerts.
Below that, you have three tabs for timeline cameras devices, and at the very bottom, you
have actions, status, and settings.
If I want to look at the timeline, I can just scroll, and it tells me when I open and close
my doors. It tells me what gateway I've disarmed or armed. It even tells me the last time my
alarm was activated. Let's go ahead and look at the cameras itself.
The one thing I want to note about this particular camera is that it takes a long time sometimes
for it to actually begin loading the video. Oh, that was actually pretty quick. You'll
see here, we've got the actual live footage of me. My head, it's cut off a little bit
so I'll say, hi, there.
Below that, you have a history and a timeline of all the things that have been captured
today. You have night vision. You have any picture that I wanted to take on purpose,
or anything that I set up with our actions.
Let's go ahead and jump out of here. Before I do that, I actually point out at the very
bottom, you've got your microphone icon, your camera icon, and your record icon.
What those allow you to do is to speak to whoever's on the other side, using the two-way
audio, capture an image or record video. I hit capture like this, it says, "Taking a
photo." If I hit recording video, now it's recording some video. Now you see that those
will populate in the timeline or the history tab right below the video itself.
Let's go ahead and jump right back into the rest of the app. When we jump out of cameras,
you'll note that we can go to the far left tab, which is timeline. The timeline is what
you saw below the live feed in terms of history, but for everything.
If we want to look at a timeline, we go to all the times that open my door, I clicked
on the images we captured, when my perimeter alarm was activated.
Let's go and look at a video I captured earlier of just me sitting on the couch. That was
the video. You see the ability there to just check that out right in the timeline. Hit
that play button, and boom, we're in it.
If you go to the far right, you can actually look at all the devices in their present capacity.
Now my door is open. It's called "puertas" opened. The motion sensor is online. You see
that, and that's in the all-in-one, and the streaming camera is up and running. Finally,
the very bottom says, "Access Control." That is my key fob.
One thing that I think it's really cool about the Abode Iota is its ability to really integrate
with the host of different systems and setup various actions. If I go to the bottom left
tab, hit actions, you'll see here that I created one called Open door video record. The way
that basically works, is it allows you to setup small time IFTTT trigger.
I put when the puerta has been open for longer than five minutes, puerta being the name of
my window and door sensor, then turn the iota cam on. That's just a useful thing. You can
even go further telling it to record a clip, or anything of that nature.
Setting up automation with your abode can be a really useful element of the system.
The final thing I want to show you, is actually arming and disarming the Abode Iota. In the
top left hand corner, you see where it says, "Standby." I like the status. I hit standby,
you'll see that I have the away home and standby option. If I hit, "away," it's going to tell
me, "Oh, your door is open." I can still continue to arm it. I hit "Continue to arm."
[alarm]
Gabe: Now, it is giving me a countdown to how long I had to get out of the home. I don't
want that to go off so I'm going to go back to standby. Hit standby.
If you hit home, it will just turn off elements of it. If you hit standby, it turns off the
entire system altogether.
If you tap on the right hand corner, you can look at alerts. I have no pending alarms,
because I'm in the standby setting. But if I go to history, I can look at some of the
alarms that have gone off. Tells me here's what happened and they took a picture for
me.
Overall, you get a lot of flexibility and options with your Abode Iota Home Security
System. The Abode App is a pretty convenient and intuitive way of looking at all those
options.
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Gabe: Here I am checking out this stellar video quality on the Abode Iota. Let's see
here, it looks pretty good. You can capture what's going on in this room pretty well.
I'm about six feet away from the Abode Iota, which is on a bookshelf. One thing we'll do
is our classic globe test. You'll note here that typically this is where I would zoom
in.
That's just not an option with the Abode Iota. Of course, the 127-degree field of view is
nice and the 1080p HD is nice, but it'd also be nice if we could zoom in. That's how I
looked at the stellar video quality on the Abode Iota.
Here I am checking out the night vision on the Abode Iota cam. The iota cam is pretty
solid night vision, about six feet away, while it's not the clearest or crispest that we've
seen, considering we only think there's about one infrared LED on the cam, it's doing a
pretty good job.
I go and do a little bit of a globe test here. You can see pretty well and distinguish the
different continents that you've got. It has some ocean so that's hard to see. Move it
over a bit. You'll see that you can capture what's going on. Once again, there's no zoom.
Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the night vision on the Iota cam.
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Gabe: We've gone over a lot today with the Abode Iota but you're saying, "OK, Gabe, just
tell me. Is it the right one for me?" I'm going to say this, "If you want to have a
super easy DIY installation with the minimalist design aesthetic and that affordable, flexible
contracting, take a look at the Abode Iota.
However, if you are someone who really wants the most advanced features in your Home Security
Camera, or wants a company with a huge reputation for great customer support, you might want
to look somewhere else. Overall, if you're really looking to jump into the DIY Home Security
and Home Automation Game, I do think the Abode Iota is a solid start.
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Gabe: That concludes our view of the Abode Iota all in one Home Security System. If you
appreciate it today's video, give us a like, hit that subscribe button. As always, this
is Gabe at Security Baron. Be secure.
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