I’ve decided to join the ST family after days of research. Now I get to point to select my home security cams to connect to my ST.
I’ve read some reviews about different brands and wanted to choose dropcam or nest cam because the HD live cam, however I do think their monthly fee are ridiculously expensive.
Any recommendations you folks? I am looking for something with night vision + decent resolution (doesn’t have to 1080p but decent) + recording function
I was just thinking, if it’s possible to connect a storage device or a little computer device between dropcam/ nest cam and the hub so then it can record footage locally instead of paying the monthly fee to get the cloud storage.
What do you think?
Samsung Smartcam. Great picture, night vision, audio is very good. Local storage on SD card. Good price as well. I leaned this way initially because of the possibility of further integration of ST. However, the samsung app is best for now. No fees.
Thanks for your reply
I heard Samsung will still charge monthly fee in 2016 tho, but yet we don’t know how much that would be.
However it is a good recommendation because it’s cheaper than nest cam and dropcam!
I still use the dropcam with the photo Burst app. I don’t get recordings but I have it set to take photos when there is vibration at the doors and windows as well as when they are open. I’m not getting rid of dropcam yet as I am interested to see how the “works with nest” ends up.
Monthly fee is for cloud storage. Helpful if you want it but you indicated an interest in local storage…you can do that with this seamlessly. No fees are charges will apply because it is a standalone system other than the app (and if no competitors charge for their app, Samsung will not). Likewise, it is possible to use the camera via other apps with enough work.
I also looked at Nestcam. Also looks good but ultimately Smartcam won out and I am pleased so far.
I should also note that there are other threads on this, including one started by me before I purchased. We are using in the Nursery which would require the highest standards. I got a lot of feedback (about all IP cameras) about dropped signals, bad audio, poor usability and a lot of other concerns. So far none of them have played out. When using on an iphone and ipad…the uptime has been 99.9% (why wife accidentally unplugged the router) and it functions the same as the top baby monitors. But that is probably not what you are looking for…
I think the recording feature is more important in my opinion, I don’t really mind they have poor audio but yes I am going through your post to find out more, thanks!!
If it is helpful…The smartcam app allows you to draw up “zones” with selected sensitivities that alert you when there is movement. It also has sound notifications. I have not played with this in particular but it does appear that you can trigger a recording each time one of these events happens.
I do have a vary narrow routine setup in ST where the nursery cam is triggered to record for 2min if the smoke/CM alarm goes off. Was very simple but obviously limited in use. Both avenues are easy to setup…very intuitive. I cannot yet speak to the reliability of it. I played with the zones and movement sensitivities with the dog and it can be very sensitive. I have to take it down pretty low so as not to trigger something every few seconds.
Hope that helps a bit. I was in the same place a few weeks ago (although looking for slightly different application) and it was helpful to get feedback from others. Not many had any feedback on the Smartcam.