First issues first: Samsung’s newest safety digicam, merely dubbed the SmartThings Cam, is to not be confused with its older SmartThings Camera or the varied merchandise in Samsung’s SmartCam HD Pro line. This newest cam is extra succesful, extra streamlined, and, most significantly, reasonably inexpensive at lower than 90 bucks, with no service plan required. (That stated, preserve studying for the high-quality print on the optionally available subscription plan.)
Designed as a part of Samsung’s push to construct up its SmartThings model, the SmartThings Cam doesn’t require the SmartThings Hub to work. But SmartThings customers will respect with the ability to combine an indoor digicam into that ecosystem and utilizing the identical app to regulate it. This is a full Wi-Fi digicam that may join on to your Wi-Fi community (connecting on both the two.4- or 5GHz frequency bands, refreshingly).
The {hardware} is discreet and enticing, with the digicam’s physique connected to a small arm that sticks up from a plastic base. A hinge permits you to pivot the digicam lens up or down, however not left or proper. The design advantages from a intelligent concept that lets the skinny energy cable snake by means of a small hole on the base of the arm, maintaining the cable out of the best way and serving to to make sure it might probably’t be simply knocked out of the socket on the digicam correct.
Ultra-sharp video—1080p decision with HDR—is one in every of Samsung SmartThing Cam’s high promoting factors.
A speaker is constructed into the again of the digicam; when mixed with the built-in twin microphones, you should utilize two-way audio to converse with anybody noticed on video. Finally, the underside of the bottom pops off, exposing holes that can be utilized for wall mounting if desired (the {hardware} for doing so is included).
Setting up the SmartThings Cam entails putting in the SmartThings app in your cellphone. Setup was seamless in my testing. The course of entails scanning a QR code on the bottom of the unit, after which connecting the digicam to your Wi-Fi community throughout the SmartThings app. This pairing course of took me lower than a minute.
Within the SmartThings app you’ll be requested if you wish to activate SmartThings Home Monitor—and also you in all probability ought to to take advantage of out of the system. This permits you to use the digicam as an advert hoc safety system, full with “stay” and “away” modes, and it additionally permits you to tie in different SmartThings-compatible sensors, together with movement, door/window, water-leak, and smoke sensors. If a type of sensors is triggered, the digicam—relying on the place it’s situated in your house—can present a take a look at what triggered it. The digicam will even document video when movement is detected whereas armed (in “away” mode), and it streams a dwell video on demand whether or not it’s armed or disarmed (in “stay” mode). You’ll have to activate the away mode within the app.
Operationally, the digicam works fairly effectively. The movement detector is spot on and its sensitivity is pretty hair-trigger, however a helpful motion-detection zone system permits you to outline areas the place you particularly do and don’t need to look ahead to motion. (Be warned: Jostle the digicam just a bit and the zoning turns into inaccurate.) With a 145-degree area of view, the lens gives a really vast view of its environment, and a succesful night-vision mode kicks in mechanically when it’s darkish. The total picture high quality (captured in 1080p decision with HDR) was distinctive in my testing, although the crackling and popping on recorded audio left a lot to be desired. The different bummer: Clips are restricted to simply 10 seconds every.
It’s necessary to notice that the digicam doesn’t, in and of itself, represent a safety system. There is not any onboard siren or skilled monitoring plan, whilst an possibility. And when the digicam detects movement, it delivers a regular notification in your app—there’s no e-mail or textual content message. If your notification settings are dialed down, you’ll be able to simply miss the information that somebody’s strolling round in your lounge. If you occur to have the app open, SmartThings gives a way more detailed notification, full with a thumbnail picture of the potential intruder. If you’re in search of a safety system, you may be higher served by Amazon’s Ring Alarm system.
Christopher Null / IDGThe Samsung SmartThings app permits you to outline zones the place movement can be ignored.
SmartThings retains a really verbose historical past of all of this, though it’s saved in two separate places: Within the Home Monitor portion of the app, you get a digest of all alarm set off occasions. Over within the administration system for the digicam, you get a historical past of each time that movement, sound, or an individual (versus another form of movement) is detected—in addition to when these issues cease being detected. It’s not probably the most helpful listing of goings on, as a result of a single day will usually comprise a whole bunch of occasions, however these with excessive want for element would possibly discover some worth right here.
Of significantly extra utility is the truth that the SmartThings Cam gives free 24-hour cloud-based storage of your video clips for as much as 4 cameras per account. Accessing these clips is fast and simple, though it may be complicated and non-intuitive to maneuver across the varied parts of the SmartThings app. Some issues are simpler to handle within the extra holistic SmartThings Home Monitor. Some are simpler to take care of in case you deal with the digicam like another good system and handle it independently.
Again, all options word above are utterly free, however you’ll be able to improve your service for $7.99 per thirty days. A paid subscription gives 30 days of storage (as a substitute of only one), help for eight cameras (as a substitute of 4), and clips are as much as 60 seconds lengthy (as a substitute of simply 10). That lattermost profit is arguably probably the most enticing, although $79.99 per 12 months (when paid yearly) feels awfully steep for such a modest improve.
Overall, I had no important hassle with the Samsung SmartThings Cam in each day operation, and in case you’re prepared to slog by means of an sadly convoluted interface to work with it, it deserves consideration—particularly in case you’re utilizing SmartThings to regulate different components of your good dwelling and also you don’t want the options that require a subscription.