The basics
You've got a new baby. A new dog. A new pair
of curtains. And you want to keep an eye on them while you're away from home.
It's understandable. Curtains are fragile things. Step forward, the Samsung
Smart Home Camera. It's the latest in a long line of dinky-cams designed to sit
unobtrusively on a bookshelf, and ogle your prized possessions, pets or
offspring (under the care of a babysitter, of course) while you're away from
home. The Smart Home Camera boasts Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections, a neat
design with a swivelling head for easy positioning, and something few cameras
in its class offer: the ability to beam audio back out of the camera from your
remote location, through a smartphone or iPad. Does it work though? We plugged
one in to find out.
The good
The Samsung Smart Home Camera is gorgeous. It
looks right at home in domestic settings, and visitors won't be creeped out
that you've installed a robotic eyeball in the corner. And if you're a bit self
conscious about your in-home CCTV, you can slap that pop-up peeper back down
into the body to make it extra discreet when not in use.
The bad
But here's where it all falls apart: while
the hardware is undoubtedly top notch, Samsung's software is shakier than a set
of maracas. Setting it up is a lesson in self control, and several times we
found ourselves cursing the contradictory instructions. Once it's finally up
and running, the Smart Home Camera seems allergic to its web connection. The
camera constantly drops offline, even when connected directly to a broadband
router via Ethernet, and whether it recovers itself without a full reset is pot
luck. That’s just not acceptable for a security device that you need to come
through for you, whenever you need. On the few occasions the Smart Home Camera
stayed connected long enough for us to access it, video frame rates were
smooth, but inconsistent. Even when accessed over the local network, audio was
choppy and when sending sound back to the camera it came out distorted, speeded
up or repeated. Hardly the comforting feature we'd hoped to calm a distant pet
or child.
The bottom line
While the design is tempting, the software
makes this a non-starter.Samsung's quality hardware is undoubted, but the flaky
software means the Smart Home Camera is utterly unreliable, and a risky
investment if, as Samsung suggests in its marketing material, you intend to use
this to keep watch over your most precious belongings: you’re far better off
with something like Devolo’s dLan line of home security cams.
[Source]
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