
Kent could be finest identified in India for its vary of water purifiers, however the firm additionally sells a various set of merchandise throughout varied house equipment segments, together with kitchen home equipment, air purifiers, vacuum cleaners, and safety cameras. Speaking particularly in regards to the firm’s digicam merchandise, Kent has a small vary which incorporates safety and monitoring cameras for vehicles in addition to a Wi-Fi-enabled mannequin for properties. The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 Wi-Fi Safety Digicam is the product I am reviewing right here, and it’s priced at Rs. 2,999 in India.
Very like the Godrej Spotlight Pan-Tilt Home Security Camera, which I had reviewed earlier, the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 is supposed in your house, and guarantees fast and handy entry to a video feed utilizing Wi-Fi connectivity and a devoted app. You can even regulate the digicam angle to look throughout your property for extra flexibility, and there are various different options price speaking about, which I will elaborate on on this evaluation. Is that this the very best low-cost house safety digicam you should buy proper now? Learn on to seek out out.
Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 design and specs
The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 competes straight with the Godrej Highlight Pan-Tilt digicam, and provides an identical vary of imaginative and prescient and options. Nonetheless, its design is significantly totally different. The digicam sits inside a ball-like module that enables it digicam to search for and down, and your entire plastic casing can rotate on a hard and fast base.
The Kent CamEye House Cam 360 has a microphone and speaker, each of that are on the again of the system. This permits the digicam to not solely decide up audio together with the video feed, but in addition permits two-way communication, alert chimes, and an intruder alarm characteristic. The entrance of the digicam has a standing LED which signifies its energy and connectivity states.
The underside of the Kent HomeCam 360 is rubberised, and the digicam rotates on this fastened base
The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 has a hard and fast base with a rubberised floor for grip, and the remainder of the digicam’s physique rotates on that base. A socket on the underside means that you can mount this digicam on a tripod, wall, or ceiling. No package or bracket for mounting is included within the field and one must be bought individually. Within the gross sales package deal, you get a wall adapter and a USB Sort-A to Micro-USB cable to energy the safety digicam.
On the bottom, you will discover the Micro-USB port for energy, and a MicroSD card slot that helps as much as 128GB capability playing cards. The system has a 2-megapixel digicam sensor with assist for as much as full-HD video recording. The digicam has a horizontal rotation vary of 350 levels and a vertical rotation vary of 65 levels. The sphere of view is specified as 120 levels horizontally and 95 levels vertically. There are six infrared LEDs to allow visibility in darkness. The digicam connects to the Web utilizing solely 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, and the 5GHz band shouldn’t be supported.
Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 app and options
As with different Wi-Fi-enabled house safety cameras, the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 works with an app that enables customers to observe the video feed, management the digicam, entry saved footage, and extra. The Kent CamEye app is accessible for iOS and Android, and I used the previous platform to check the options and performance provided by the app. If in case you have a number of Kent CamEye cameras, they will all be managed and monitored collectively.
As soon as you’ve got registered and created an account by means of the app, you can hyperlink the safety digicam and get it linked to your property Wi-Fi connection. After this, tapping on the digicam icon will take you to its video feed, and you can regulate the digicam angle and settings, activate the speaker and microphone (both concurrently or individually), take a snapshot to save lots of to your smartphone, and extra.
The app may be very simple to make use of, and has most choices and features in handy locations. As an example, you possibly can simply activate two-way communication or take snapshots with a single faucet. The D-pad to regulate the digicam angle can be straight accessible, and it normally took simply two to 3 seconds to activate the digicam and present the video feed.
Going deeper into the menus and settings allows you to allow privateness mode, wherein the digicam doesn’t activate itself or report footage. You can even entry your saved recordings and pictures, and have a look at a listing of alerts generated by the digicam based mostly on movement or noise detection parameters. Usefully, the alert sensitivity is customisable. Turning on all settings generated dozens of alerts per day when the digicam was positioned in entrance of my major door, so it is good to have this type of management over the assorted features.
The Kent CamEye app controls the digicam, and allows you to view the stay feed or saved footage
The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 can add its footage, significantly event-triggered video clips, to the corporate’s personal cloud platform. It is a premium characteristic and costs for cupboard space begin at Rs. 150 per thirty days or Rs. 1,500 per yr. You’ll be able to retailer as much as seven days’ price of video clips triggered by some occasion, and these clips are round 12 seconds lengthy. The paid tiers go as much as Rs. 400 per thirty days or Rs. 4,000 per yr to retailer as much as 30 days’ of video historical past. A one-month subscription is included with every buy.
I used to be in a position to make use of the one-month plan for this evaluation, and it allowed me to retailer and think about older footage from the cloud. Even after the plan expired, I used to be in a position to view some clips throughout the app, and obtain them to my smartphone.
As per the knowledge on Kent’s web site, a paid subscription means that you can seize event-triggered recordings that are saved to the cloud, and in addition play them again straight from the cloud. Nonetheless, all different performance, together with reminiscence card recording and playback, stay streaming of the video feed in actual time, two-way communication, and privateness mode can be found even for those who aren’t subscribed to a paid plan.
It is attainable to hyperlink the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 to your Amazon Alexa account by means of a ability, which then allows you to entry the video feed from throughout the Alexa app or on an Alexa-enabled sensible show such because the Amazon Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen). This labored nicely for me, however I wasn’t in a position to regulate the digicam angle when utilizing the Alexa hyperlink.
Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 efficiency
An vital issue within the functioning of any house safety digicam is reliability; you want the system to work once you want it. The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 labored reliably for me on my 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connection. I used to be in a position to get it up and working in a matter of seconds every time I wanted it, and the app is nicely designed, placing vital options inside simple attain.
The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 information a full-HD video feed, which reveals in full color through the day, and in monochrome when it is darkish. The safety digicam is ready to routinely detect low-light situations and activate the infrared LEDs as required, and this labored reliably for me with most particulars and faces identifiable regardless of the shortage of color within the feed. There have been some events on which the digicam took a few seconds to react to lighting modifications and recalibrate the video feed, however this wasn’t actually a lot hassle.
The Kent HomeCam 360 has a speaker and microphone for two-way communication, which may be activated by means of the app
Full-HD footage captured by the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 was sharp and detailed in most situations if motion was occasional and sluggish, however fast actions did trigger some artefacts. This wasn’t actually an issue as there was nonetheless loads of element to be seen in faces, clothes, and small objects reminiscent of bins and packages.
You’ll be able to, after all, cut back the decision to HD or SD if mandatory, which could make the stream extra steady and detailed with slower Web connections, or for those who want extra hours of footage to be recorded onto a storage card. This largely tended to have an effect on the legibility of textual content on objects reminiscent of bins and packages, however faces had been nonetheless recognisable even at SD decision.
The digicam angle may be adjusted throughout a variety. With 350 levels of panning, it is attainable to look nearly throughout the place the digicam is positioned. The 65 levels of tilt vary mixed with the vast viewing angles of the digicam itself enable for loads of flexibility. Though the digicam took a few second to react to instructions from the app to regulate its angle, motion was simple and exact for essentially the most half.
The speaker on the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 is loud, getting fairly noisy and at its loudest after I activated the siren mode. The chimes had been additionally loud sufficient to be heard from totally different components of my house, and two-way communication was clear and handy when standing close to the digicam. The microphone picked up plenty of ambient sound, however was in a position to extra exactly seize speech when somebody was speaking close to the system. Usefully, you possibly can activate solely the microphone with out the speaker if wanted.
The digicam suitably captures video clips of human motion when it is set to detect this, however it can’t monitor a transferring object or particular person. Saved clips had been nonetheless clear sufficient to recognise faces and objects although.
Verdict
A great Wi-Fi safety digicam is an easy and environment friendly approach to arrange a house monitoring system, and the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 is a good possibility to contemplate for this. Though this system faces robust competitors from merchandise such because the Godrej Spotlight Pan-Tilt camera and Mi Home Security Camera 360, Kent’s providing units the benchmark by providing all-round expertise with no important flaws.
With companion app, helpful options reminiscent of two-way communication, a paid subscription cloud storage possibility for event-triggered video clips, and dependable efficiency, that is among the many higher fundamental Wi-Fi safety cameras you should buy proper now. It is nicely priced, and is unquestionably price contemplating in your house safety wants.
Worth: Rs. 2,999
Ranking: 8/10
Execs:
- Wide selection of movement for vast protection
- microSD and non-compulsory cloud storage for event-triggered recordings
- Works nicely in all lighting situations
- Wonderful, simple to make use of companion app
Cons:
- Mounting package not included within the field