Samsung SmartCam – easy surveillance direct to your smartphone
Samsung simplifies the IP camera for smartphone users
Samsung’s new SmartCam is designed to allow anyone to set up a surveillance camera in minutes. Smartphone owners are the target audience here with apps for both iOS devices and Android. Plus there’s a few clever features that make this easier to manage and far more useful than most designs.
It’s neat, compact and wireless – so you only need a power cable
Setting up the SmartCam is simple, as long as you have a fairly modern router. It supports WPS, so just press the button on the camera and on your router and you’ve connected it to your network.
The next step is to download the app for your smartphone, or you can setup and access the SmartCam via any web browser. All setup can then be done through the app or browser. You give it your YouTube account details and then it will upload 30 seconds of footage to your account whenever its activated by motion.
Here’s the Samsung rep’s front hall, from the SmartCam’s live feed
In addition, any activation will bring up a notification on your smartphone (or online via twitter or Google Talk), so you’ll know when it goes off. from the app you get a list of videos taken from your YouTube account which you can then play at the press of a button.
This menu lets you play footage from previous alerts, or simply see a still uploaded to Picasa if you prefer
You can also get a live video feed from the app, complete with audio from the built-in microphone. A speaker gives you two way communication, so you can use it as baby monitor if required, or to greet visitors from another part of your home. IR LEDs give it a basic night vision capability up to 5m, and though quality is only VGA, its enough to see what’s going on.
It looks to be a great device for those who don’t want to fiddle with software and settings to get a basic security cam or baby video monitor set up. It’s also ideal for smartphone or tablet users.
we’re really looking forward to trying it out at home, and it should reach the UK by the middle of the year priced around £100.