Another crowdfunding success that I have been using for a while is the Canary. I love the name. It is a video surveillance device. One of the things that are cool about it is it is integrated with the cloud. So, when some enter your house, that image is in the cloud. Even if they take a baseball bat to the Canary, you will know what they look like. Canary started as a crowdfunding campaign around four years ago. The device includes a camera, sensors, and a network connection—pretty traditional stuff for the reality of home security. There are several things that the canary system does that some of the other systems also do; I will talk about those in the next section.
The first cool feature is the push to talk option. With their advanced monitoring package (around five bucks a month), you get the ability actually to connect to your device and speak to the person. I use it on occasion when I need to get the kid’s attention fast. The intercom works well and is two way. The Canary has a microphone and an air quality sensor. It doesn’t detect smoke or CO (Carbon Monoxide) but will tell you when the air quality where the camera is isn’t good or is abnormal. Overall I like that feature as it is useful. The sensor can also tell you the humidity level of the air around the sensor. Humidity is something you have to be careful about in the winter if you have a wood fireplace.
Wood fireplaces tend to drain the moisture from the air. Fast. The last feature of the device is its ease of setup. The software works on Android or iOS devices. I pulled the system out of the box, connected to my home wifi, and was up and running in less than ten minutes. The application has a step by step process that is easy to follow and configure. Overall the device is sleek, works well, and produces pretty good video. There is a motion detector, so it turns on when there is motion. I have lots of images of our dogs coming into the kitchen at all hours of the day and night. The units cover all the entry’s to our house, just in case for peace of mind!
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