SwamCam review: Monitor your swimming pool from anywhere

Price When Reviewed

$499.00 (different combos with extra or fewer equipment are additionally obtainable)

Best Prices Today: SwamCam Camera Pool Alarm System with WiFi Repeater

With a reputation like SwamCam, you would possibly have already got an inkling of what this product is designed to do. If you guessed it’s designed to control your swimming pool, congrats! That stated, my expectation is that a few of SwamCam’s performance will shock you—as will its price ticket.

At its easiest, SwamCam is a digicam designed with pool security—notably kids who won’t be water-safe—squarely in thoughts. The rectangular machine is a fundamental 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) digicam with a fisheye digicam with a 160-degree area of view and normal LED evening imaginative and prescient.

You mount the digicam on a wall, fence, or elsewhere (varied {hardware} is included, together with a 20-foot energy twine—a 50-foot twine is accessible at extra value) and purpose it instantly at your swimming pool, the place it retains a watchful eye on goings-on.

The digicam carries a weatherization ranking of IP65, which our IP code guide tells us means it’s impervious to mud ingress and that it may well face up to water jets coming from any course (wanting a strain washer). Also within the combine are two-way audio, an built-in alarm system, and a button that permits you to shortly dial 911 do you have to spot one thing amiss.

A safety digicam that doesn’t file on movement detection

Christopher Null/Foundry

What the SwamCam does not do is file video routinely, and formally the corporate says it isn’t designed to be “a historical data security system.” The movement detection system within the machine watches for human motion at a spread of as much as 35 ft away, and (if armed) sounds an alarm if it detects any. That alarm retains sounding till the movement stops.

The SwamCam cellular app sends you a push notification, at which level you possibly can take a look at a dwell video feed, however, once more, video is just not recorded except you manually provoke it (which in flip requires a subscription plan; I’ll get to that in a bit). A dwell video feed is accessible for viewing any time, whether or not the alarm is sounding or not.

Performance

Christopher Null/Foundry

Over a number of weeks of testing, I discovered the machine to be responsive, performing effectively at its major job: detecting people in and across the pool. I positioned it alongside a regular Vivint safety digicam and didn’t see any actual distinction within the alert charges—or false positives, with occasional alerts popping up when a pool robotic lumbered into view. Live video was fast to load in my testing, and the alarm sounded instantly—and sustainedly—after I had the system armed.

The SwamCam app is a curiosity that deserves its personal evaluation. The primary web page could be very easy, providing solely a Live View button and a separate button for arm/disarm actions. It actually couldn’t be less complicated, which is completely the purpose of the machine. Tapping the gear icon, nevertheless, takes you to an oddball settings web page, which is organized as a grid of haphazardly organized capabilities.

Everything else you are able to do with the digicam is positioned right here, from setting movement sensitivity and your movement detection zone, an arming timer and scheduling system, a customized emergency name quantity (should you don’t need 911), and even the video playback system. It’s bizarre to dig round in a settings menu to search out recorded movies, however I suppose it’s one thing you’ll get used to.

SwamCam isn’t only a single machine however moderately a part of an ecosystem that’s offered in quite a few bundles and configurations, together with bundles that comprise a number of cameras, so you may get a have a look at your pool from totally different angles, together with varied equipment you possibly can add to the combo. (The app helps a most of three cameras and a complete of 20 equipment.) The equipment embody an indoor alarm (with or with out an built-in Wi-Fi repeater) and a numeric keypad that can be utilized to arm and disarm the SwamCam alarm. The keypad can be utilized indoors or out, because it’s rated IP65 for cover from mud and liquid ingress.

Christopher Null/Foundry

The equipment connect with the SwamCam by way of Zigbee. I examined the model with the included Wi-Fi repeater, and whereas it guarantees to work at a spread of as much as 100 ft (from the SwamCam digicam), I used to be unable to get it to connect with the digicam at a spread of 40 ft, ostensibly as a result of interference between the 2 units. The digicam solely works on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks.

Once I moved the indoor alarm/repeater to only a few ft away from the digicam (however nonetheless inside the home), I used to be capable of get a powerful, dependable sign. The inside alarm is extraordinarily loud and ear-piercing (; a voiced various can be obtainable. When it went off, I knew, even when I used to be on the opposite aspect of the home.

The numeric keypad is simplistic in each design and performance. The chunky machine, powered by two AAA batteries, can arm and disarm the system after coming into a PIN you create within the app. Tapping any digit on the keypad causes it to mild up and point out with a small LED whether or not the system is armed or disarmed. Most of the time, nevertheless, the lights are all off, so you possibly can’t readily inform with out tapping it whether or not the system is armed or not.

The value conundrum

As a fundamental alarm system that may provide you with a warning if somebody falls into the pool, SwamCam does what it guarantees, and I really feel moderately snug understanding that if a toddler wanders into my yard whereas the SwamCam is armed, the siren on the digicam (80dBA at 10 ft) and/or the Wi-Fi extender (91dBA at 10 ft) will fireplace off and let me know.

Christopher Null/Foundry

On the opposite hand, I’m equally snug that my present digicam system—or any of a variety of different extra standard safety cameras—would do the identical job. But they might additionally file video of the incident. That stated, my different safety cameras are usually not ASTM-certified pool alarms.

The huge catch is that every one these items could be very, very costly. The SwamCam bundle I acquired, together with one digicam, the inside alarm (with Wi-Fi repeater), and the keypad prices a jaw-dropping $499. Standalone merchandise are additionally dear. A alternative digicam is $299. The inside alarm is $149, or $129 with out the repeater. The keypad is $99.

Those sorts of costs boggle the thoughts given their restricted function set, and I don’t know of any DIY safety system that may come anyplace near costing that sort of money. (For tough comparability, SimpliSafe’s “The Beacon” package with base station, keypad, two outside cameras, and 4 sensors is at present $367.)

And it bears repeating that these different methods will be set to file video on movement detection. The SwamCam won’t.

You may also be stunned to study you’ll have to subscribe to SwamCam’s premium service in order for you lots of the system’s options; particularly, the flexibility to file and share movies, to set customized detection zones, create multiple keypad code, and extra. With a paid subscription, video is saved for 30 days on SwamCam’s cloud service.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Clips generally is a most of 10 minutes when you’ve got one digicam, or 5 minutes when you’ve got two.) The service prices $4/month or $40/yr. SwamCam suggests prospects would possibly need to subscribe just for the months of the yr when their pool is in lively use. A 30-day trial subscription is included with buy.

This evaluate is a part of TechHive’s iin-depth protection of the best home security cameras

I did encounter one drawback with recorded video: While the guide recordings I made firstly of my testing have been instantly playable, more moderen recordings by no means turned obtainable for playback, displaying a “Video failed to load, please try again later” error—even after greater than a day had handed since they have been ostensibly created.

Should you purchase a SwamCam?

Listen: Pool security isn’t any joke, with some 4,000 people drowning every year based on the CDC, most of these in swimming swimming pools. It’s additionally the leading cause of unintentional death for kids ages 1 to 4. As a pool proprietor, I take security severely, together with fencing and round the clock digicam surveillance, and I like to recommend the identical to different pool homeowners.

But whereas SwamCam’s coronary heart is in the suitable place—and there’s one thing to be stated for its being an ASTM-certified pool alarm—its pricing merely is just not. I simply can’t get my head round any calculus that may persuade me {that a} near-$500 buy (plus subscription charges) is warranted for the very fundamental performance the SwamCam presents—irrespective of how good a job it does.