Y-Cam The Grasshopper review

The Knight S cameras are almost identical to our Best Buy winning Knight SD, but don’t have an SD card slot. The cameras’ video quality may not be up to that of the latest models, such as Eyeyspy247’s HDSD (see What’s New, Shopper 285), but is still reasonable, without the graininess that’s so typical of many cheap and mid-priced IP cameras. It has a maximum resolution of 640×480 at 30fps and can output footage in MPEG4 and MJPEG video codecs. Black and white infrared footage was detailed and easy to make out, thanks to the camera’s ring of 30 infrared LEDs.

The Grasshopper is an excellent bundle, but we really wanted a proper setup guide for this kit, rather than having to look at individual manuals for both the cameras and the NAS and work the rest out for ourselves. If you’re fairly used to this sort of hardware, everything works much as you’d expect and both products are remarkably easy to control, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of dedicated documentation for the kit.

£546 is also a lot to spend at once, but this is one of the easiest ways of getting a functional IP camera-based security system up and running. It’s good value – the Knight S cameras typically cost around £150 each, the DS211j with a pair of 1TB dark disks installed costs around £280 and an extra camera licence for Synology’s Surveillance Centre is £30, so you’re saving around £80 in total. Due to the lack of a dedicated setup guide, we’re only giving The Grasshopper four stars, but it’s a great surveillance system and just a little more polish would make this bundle a five-star product.