Smart home
Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 Wi-Fi Security Camera Review
Much like the Godrej Spotlight Pan-Tilt Home Security Camera, which I had reviewed earlier, the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 is meant for your home, and promises quick and convenient access to a video feed using Wi-Fi connectivity and a dedicated app. You can also adjust the camera angle to look all around your home for more flexibility, and there are many other features worth talking about, which I’ll elaborate on in this review. Is this the best low-cost home security camera you can buy right now? Read on to find out.
Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 design and specifications
The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 competes directly with the Godrej Spotlight Pan-Tilt camera, and offers a similar range of vision and features. However, its design is considerably different. The camera sits within a ball-like module that allows it camera to look up and down, and the entire plastic casing can rotate on a fixed base.
The Kent CamEye Home Cam 360 has a microphone and speaker, both of which are on the back of the device. This allows the camera to not only pick up audio along with the video feed, but also enables two-way communication, alert chimes, and an intruder alarm feature. The front of the camera has a status LED which indicates its power and connectivity states.
The bottom of the Kent HomeCam 360 is rubberised, and the camera rotates on this fixed base
The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 has a fixed base with a rubberised surface for grip, and the rest of the camera’s body rotates on that base. A socket on the underside allows you to mount this camera on a tripod, wall, or ceiling. No kit or bracket for mounting is included in the box and one will have to be purchased separately. In the sales package, you get a wall adapter and a USB Type-A to Micro-USB cable to power the security camera.
On the base, you’ll find the Micro-USB port for power, and a MicroSD card slot that supports up to 128GB capacity cards. The device has a 2-megapixel camera sensor with support for up to full-HD video recording. The camera has a horizontal rotation range of 350 degrees and a vertical rotation range of 65 degrees. The field of view is specified as 120 degrees horizontally and 95 degrees vertically. There are six infrared LEDs to enable visibility in darkness. The camera connects to the Internet using only 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, and the 5GHz band is not supported.
Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 app and features
As with other Wi-Fi-enabled home security cameras, the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 works with an app that allows users to monitor the video feed, control the camera, access stored footage, and more. The Kent CamEye app is available for iOS and Android, and I used the former platform to test the features and functionality offered by the app. If you have multiple Kent CamEye cameras, they can all be controlled and monitored together.
Once you’ve registered and created an account through the app, you’ll be able to link the security camera and get it connected to your home Wi-Fi connection. After this, tapping on the camera icon will take you to its video feed, and you’ll be able to adjust the camera angle and settings, activate the speaker and microphone (either simultaneously or separately), take a snapshot to save to your smartphone, and more.
The app is very easy to use, and has most options and functions in convenient places. For instance, you can easily activate two-way communication or take snapshots with a single tap. The D-pad to adjust the camera angle is also directly accessible, and it usually took just two to three seconds to activate the camera and show the video feed.
Going deeper into the menus and settings lets you enable privacy mode, in which the camera does not activate itself or record footage. You can also access your saved recordings and images, and look at a list of alerts generated by the camera based on motion or noise detection parameters. Usefully, the alert sensitivity is customisable. Turning on all settings generated dozens of alerts per day when the camera was placed in front of my main door, so it’s nice to have this kind of control over the various functions.
The Kent CamEye app controls the camera, and lets you view the live feed or stored footage
The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 can upload its footage, particularly event-triggered video clips, to the company’s own cloud platform. This is a premium feature and prices for storage space start at Rs. 150 per month or Rs. 1,500 per year. You can store up to seven days’ worth of video clips triggered by some event, and these clips are around 12 seconds long. The paid tiers go up to Rs. 400 per month or Rs. 4,000 per year to store up to 30 days’ of video history. A one-month subscription is included with each purchase.
I was able to use the one-month plan for this review, and it allowed me to store and view older footage from the cloud. Even after the plan expired, I was able to view some clips within the app, and download them to my smartphone.
As per the information on Kent’s website, a paid subscription allows you to capture event-triggered recordings which are saved to the cloud, and also play them back directly from the cloud. However, all other functionality, including memory card recording and playback, live streaming of the video feed in real time, two-way communication, and privacy mode are available even if you aren’t subscribed to a paid plan.
It’s possible to link the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 to your Amazon Alexa account through a skill, which then lets you access the video feed from within the Alexa app or on an Alexa-enabled smart display such as the Amazon Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen). This worked well for me, but I wasn’t able to adjust the camera angle when using the Alexa link.
Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 performance
An important factor in the functioning of any home security camera is reliability; you need the device to work when you need it. The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 worked reliably for me on my 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connection. I was able to get it up and running in a matter of seconds whenever I needed it, and the app is well designed, putting important features within easy reach.
The Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 records a full-HD video feed, which shows in full colour during the day, and in monochrome when it’s dark. The security camera is able to automatically detect low-light conditions and activate the infrared LEDs as required, and this worked reliably for me with most details and faces identifiable despite the lack of colour in the feed. There were some occasions on which the camera took a couple of seconds to react to lighting changes and recalibrate the video feed, but this wasn’t really much trouble.
The Kent HomeCam 360 has a speaker and microphone for two-way communication, which can be activated through the app
Full-HD footage captured by the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 was sharp and detailed in most conditions if movement was occasional and slow, but quick movements did cause some artefacts. This wasn’t really a problem as there was still plenty of detail to be seen in faces, clothing, and small items such as boxes and packages.
You can, of course, reduce the resolution to HD or SD if necessary, which might make the stream more stable and detailed with slower Internet connections, or if you need more hours of footage to be recorded onto a storage card. This largely tended to affect the legibility of text on items such as boxes and packages, but faces were still recognisable even at SD resolution.
The camera angle can be adjusted across a wide range. With 350 degrees of panning, it’s possible to look almost all around where the camera is placed. The 65 degrees of tilt range combined with the wide viewing angles of the camera itself allow for plenty of flexibility. Although the camera took about a second to react to commands from the app to adjust its angle, movement was easy and precise for the most part.
The speaker on the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 is loud, getting quite noisy and at its loudest when I activated the siren mode. The chimes were also loud enough to be heard from different parts of my home, and two-way communication was clear and convenient when standing near the camera. The microphone picked up a lot of ambient sound, but was able to more precisely capture speech when someone was talking near the device. Usefully, you can activate only the microphone without the speaker if needed.
The camera suitably captures video clips of human movement when it’s set to detect this, but it cannot track a moving object or person. Saved clips were still clear enough to recognise faces and objects though.
Verdict
A good Wi-Fi security camera is a simple and efficient way to set up a home monitoring system, and the Kent CamEye HomeCam 360 is a decent option to consider for this. Although this device faces strong competition from products such as the Godrej Spotlight Pan-Tilt camera and Mi Home Security Camera 360, Kent’s offering sets the benchmark by offering a good all-round experience with no significant flaws.
With a good companion app, useful features such as two-way communication, a paid subscription cloud storage option for event-triggered video clips, and reliable performance, this is among the better basic Wi-Fi security cameras you can buy right now. It’s well priced, and is definitely worth considering for your home security needs.
Price: Rs. 2,999
Rating: 8/10
Pros:
- Wide range of motion for wide coverage
- microSD and optional cloud storage for event-triggered recordings
- Works well in all lighting conditions
- Excellent, easy to use companion app
Cons:
- Mounting kit not included in the box
Amazon plans to charge $5 to $10 a month for its new “Remarkable” version of Alexa as it will use powerful generative AI to answer complex queries, while still offering the “Classic” voice assistant for free, Reuters reported in June.
But initial versions of the new Alexa using in-house software simply struggled for words, sometimes taking six or seven seconds to acknowledge a prompt and reply, one of the people said.
That’s why Amazon turned to Claude, an AI chatbot developed by startup Anthropic, as it performed better than the online retail giant’s own AI models, the people said.
Reuters based this story upon interviews with five people with direct knowledge of the Alexa strategy. All declined to be named as they are not authorized to discuss non-public matters.
Alexa, accessed mainly through Amazon televisions and Echo devices, can set timers, play music, act as a central hub for smart home controls and answer one-off questions.
But Amazon’s attempts to convince users to shop through Alexa to generate more revenue have been mostly unsuccessful and the division remains unprofitable.
As a result, senior management has stressed that 2024 is a critical year for Alexa to finally demonstrate it can generate meaningful sales – and the revamped paid version is seen as a way both to do that and keep pace with rivals.
“Amazon uses many different technologies to power Alexa,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement in response to detailed Reuters questions for this story.
“When it comes to machine learning models, we start with those built by Amazon, but we have used, and will continue to use, a variety of different models – including (Amazon AI model) Titan and future Amazon models, as well as those from partners – to build the best experience for customers,” the spokeswoman said.
Anthropic, in which Amazon owns a minority stake, declined to comment for this story.
AI Partnerships
Amazon has typically eschewed relying on technology it hasn’t developed in-house so it can ensure it has full control of the user experience, data collection and direct relationships with customers.
But it would not be alone in turning to a partner to improve AI products. Microsoft and Apple, for example, have both struck partnerships with OpenAI to use its ChatGPT to power some of their products.
The release of the Remarkable Alexa, as it is known internally, is expected in October, with a preview of the new service coming during Amazon’s annual devices and services event typically held in September, the people said.
Amazon has not yet said, however, when it plans to hold its showcase event, which will be the first major public appearance of its new devices chief, Panos Panay, who was hired last year to replace long-time executive David Limp.
The wide release in late 2022 of ChatGPT, which gives full-sentence answers almost instantaneously to complicated queries, set off a frenzy of investing and corporate maneuvering to develop better AI software for a variety of functions, including image, video and voice services.
By comparison, Amazon’s decade-old Alexa appeared outmoded, Amazon workers have told Reuters.
While Amazon has a mantra of “working backwards from the customer” to come up with new services, some of the people said that within the Alexa group, the emphasis since last year has instead been on keeping up with competitors in the AI race.
Amazon workers also have expressed skepticism that customers would be willing to pay $60 to $120 per year for a service that’s free today – on top of the $139 many already pay for their Prime memberships.
Alexa Upgrades
As envisioned, the paid version of Alexa would carry on conversations with a user that build on prior questions and answers, the people with knowledge of the Alexa strategy said.
The upgraded Alexa is designed to allow users to seek shopping advice such as which clothes to buy for a vacation and to aggregate news stories, the people said. And it is meant to carry out more complicated requests, such as ordering food or drafting emails all from a single prompt.
Amazon hopes the new Alexa will also be a supercharged home automation hub, remembering customer preferences so that, say, morning alarms are set, or the television knows to record favorite shows even when a user forgets to, they said.
The company’s plans for Alexa, however, could be delayed or altered if the technology fails to meet certain internal benchmarks, the people said, without giving further details.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post estimated in June that there are roughly 100 million active Alexa users and that about 10% of those might opt for the paid version of Alexa. Assuming the low end of the monthly price range, that would bring in at least $600 million in annual sales.
Amazon says it has sold 500 million Alexa-enabled devices but does not disclose how many active users there are.
Announcing a deal to invest $4 billion in Anthropic in September last year, Amazon said its customers would gain early access to its technology. Reuters could not determine if Amazon would have to pay Anthropic additionally for the use of Claude in Alexa.
Amazon declined to discuss the details of its agreements with the startup. Alphabet’s Google has also invested at least $2 billion in Anthropic.
The retailer, along with Google, is facing a formal probe from the UK’s antitrust regulator over the Anthropic deal and its impact on competition. It announced an initial investigation in August and said it has 40 working days to decide whether to move it to a more heightened stage of scrutiny.
The Washington Post earlier reported the October time frame for release of the new Alexa.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Apple AI-Powered Tabletop Robotic Device Uses
In his weekly Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple’s purported tabletop device will likely launch in 2026 or 2027. It will reportedly be equipped with a robotic actuator that would control the in-built iPad-like screen at the top, allowing its 360-degree rotation and tilt movement. The device is said to have been codenamed J595.
As per Gurman, the purported robotic device would fulfill three purposes:
- Function as a portable computer in non-ideal locations
- Help in capturing images or taking videoconference calls by functioning as a tripod with an iPad
- Serve as a remote home security surveillance tool when the user is not at home
While the device isn’t even official, the report speculates that the device’s display could swivel when the user wants to take video conferencing calls in non-ideal locations, such as the kitchen. It could also gain spatial awareness courtesy of special hardware and software, in addition to integrated AI capabilities.
The idea for the tabletop robotic device is reported to have been approved by the company in 2022 but its development has only gained pace in recent months, following the cancellation of the Apple Car project. Its development is said to be solely being spearheaded by Kevin Lynch, who led the company’s former project.
Previous reports have suggested that the purported device could also become Apple’s first home gadget to get features powered by Apple Intelligence – its AI suite. Gurman also suggested that it may also respond to commands such as “look at me”, by repositioning the screen to face the speaker, leveraging the company’s voice assistant Siri.
However, it could be an expensive affair. According to Gurman, the iPhone maker is said to be working to bring its price down to $1000 (roughly Rs. 84,000).
Dreame New Vacuum Cleaners Price in India
The Dreame L10 Prime is priced at Rs. 45.999 in India, while the Dreame D10 Plus Gen 2 comes with a price tag of Rs. 39,999. The Dreame D9 Max Gen 2’s price is set at Rs. 29,999. The Dreame H12 Dual is priced at Rs 36,999. The Dreame Mova J10, Mova J20 and Mova J30 are priced at Rs. 7,999; Rs. 10,999 and Rs. 13,999, respectively.
Dreame L10 Prime, D10 Plus Gen 2, D9 Max Gen 2 specifications
The Dreame L10 Prime vacuum and mop combo features dual rotary mop pads that rotate at 180RPM (revolutions per minute). After mopping is completed, the mop is raised by 7mm when returning to the base station. The self-cleaning machine comes with 4,000Pa suction power and features a bristleless rubber brush. The robot cleaner identifies carpets and rugs and uses LiDAR navigation and a SLAM algorithm for mapping. For multi-floor buildings, it makes three separate 3D floor maps to clean and navigate. It is compatible with the Dreamehome app that lets users make virtual boundaries, set no-mop zones, customise cleaning time, and more.
The Dreame D10 Plus Gen 2 boasts a self-cleaning mop and auto-emptying system. The robot provides 6,000Pa of suction power. The 2-in-1 dual action cleaner that comes with cleaning and mopping capabilities features a rubber brush and allows users to choose moisture level. It includes 4 litre dust bag capacity and Dreame claims one bag can last up to 90 days of cleaning. Beyond the Dreamehome app, it is comparable with Alexa, Siri and Google Home.
Meanwhile, the entry-level Dreame D9 Max Gen 2 can sweep and mop at the same time. It offers 6,000Pa suction power and includes a rubber brush. Both Dreame D10 Plus Gen 2 and D9 Max Gen 2 use the company’s Smart Pathfinder technology to navigate across different spaces and return to the dock.
Dreame H12 Dual specifications
The Dreame H12 Dual is a cordless wet and dry vacuum cleaner that is claimed to wipe the floor 520 times per minute. It carries a 900ml clean water tank and allows users to switch between different operation modes like auto, suction, standard, and turbo. It comes with a self-cleaning feature and hot air drying is done for the brush after self-cleaning with a roller brush, brush scraper, and serrated bristles. It carries a 6×4,000mAh battery pack.
Dreame Move J10, Move J20 and Move J30 specifications
The Dreame Move J30, Move J20 and Move J10 are cordless stick vacuum cleaners. The Move J30 model features a 450W brushless motor and is advertised to deliver up to 60 minutes of cleaning time. The Mova J20 boasts a 250W brushless motor and is claimed to provide up to 50 minutes of cleaning time. The Mova J10 features a 150W brushless motor and is said to deliver up to 35 minutes of cleaning time.
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