The most recent safety digital camera to hit the market comes from Abode, greatest recognized for its modern safety system. The brand new Abode Cam 2 can work (form of) as a standalone system, however Abode customers will much more get extra bang for his or her buck by tying it into the broader Abode ecosystem.
The digital camera is tiny, a dice simply two inches on either side. The bottom contains a telescoping and swiveling arm that lets you place the digital camera in nearly any path. The general measurement and look make it look distinctly just like the Wyze Cam v3—and each are rated IP65 for both indoor or out of doors use—though Abode’s is arguably a contact extra fashionable. There’s no battery included, so that you’ll want to rearrange to maintain the Abode Cam 2 plugged in always. A microUSB connection does the job right here; a cable and A/C adapter are each included within the package.
This assessment is a part of TechHive’s protection of the very best house safety cameras, the place you’ll discover opinions of the competitors’s choices, plus a purchaser’s information to the options it’s best to think about when searching for one of these product.
Christopher Null / IDGA thumbnail view provides you fast entry to clips the place movement was detected.
At $35 a pop, the specs are consistent with the expectations of a digital camera at this value degree. The lens has a 121-degree discipline of view, and it presents 1080p decision and a Starlight night-vision sensor for low-light situations. (The digital camera mechanically shifts into infrared mode when issues get very darkish.) Connectivity is by way of Wi-Fi (2.4GHz solely), and the digital camera helps two-way audio. If in case you have a video-compatible Alexa or Google Dwelling system, the Abode Cam 2 will work with both.
I examined the Abode Cam 2 with Abode’s Iota good house system and it arrange shortly, connecting to my Wi-Fi community and Abode’s app in a matter of minutes. After a fast firmware replace, I discovered managing the digital camera within the app to be slightly simple, providing a fairly clear however unremarkable reside video stream together with a modest assortment of options that embrace the flexibility to report a video clip, snap a nonetheless picture, or scroll again in time to assessment earlier recordings. (Observe: Cloud-based recordings are solely accessible with a subscription; particulars beneath.)
One of many digital camera’s important promoting factors is that it doesn’t simply report clips when movement is detected, it presents the choice of 24/7 video recording for 10 straight days. (This may be toggled on and off as desired.) All clips are saved to the cloud; there’s no onboard storage possibility. Whether or not or not you’ve gotten the 24/7 possibility enabled, Abode populates a timeline with any clips captured the place movement was detected, making it simpler to seek out clips of specific curiosity. As an possibility, customers can activate an possibility that overlays a blue field round any “areas of curiosity” in recorded clips.
Sadly, I discovered Abode’s motion-sensing to be pretty low in sensitivity, to the purpose the place it missed out on some apparent exercise in entrance of the lens. (There’s no solution to modify sensitivity within the app.) Low-light and no-light clips look positive, however as normal the black-and-white infrared clips had been a lot clearer than the “full shade” ones. Once more, there’s no solution to drive the digital camera into IR mode; it’s all computerized.
As famous above, you’ll want considered one of Abode’s two paid subscription plans to do something besides view a reside feed. Each present for cloud storage (there is no such thing as a native storage possibility) of motion-triggered video recordings from an infinite variety of Abode cameras on a 10-day timeline, however crucial variations between the 2 plans are associated solely to Abode’s broader smart-home/home-security ecosystem. The Abode Customary plan is self-monitored and prices $6 monthly. The Abode Professional plan prices $20 monthly, however most of its worth is expounded to the addition {of professional} monitoring and mobile backup for an Abode hub. These options wouldn’t be of curiosity to a camera-only consumer.
AbodeThe pint-sized Abode Cam 2 is likely one of the smallest safety cameras we’ve seen.
Subscribers can add 24/7 recording to both plan for an extra $9 monthly. With this selection, all Abode cameras on the community will constantly report video to the cloud, storing as much as 10 days of historical past there. Movement-detection occasions are marked on the 10-day timeline, making it simpler to seek out recordings of curiosity, however you’ll be able to see all the things and scrub by the timeline in case movement detection missed something of consequence.
Other than the price of recording video, my solely actual criticism with the Abode system is its tendency to lose its community connection steadily. My app’s timeline is plagued by notices of when the digital camera disconnected and reconnected to my community, typically inside a couple of seconds of one another. This clearly wreaks some quantity of havoc on the system as an entire, and I typically got here to the app to seek out it unable to entry my digital camera feed or in any other case offline. Which may be partly as a result of my crowded Wi-Fi community, but when the large promoting level is 24/7 recording and the digital camera’s not cooperating on a 24/7 foundation, some customers will doubtless discover that irritating.
Up to date August 11, 2021 to make clear our description of Abode’s 24/7 digital camera recording possibility and the variations between the corporate’s Customary and Professional subscription plans