Logitech announces Alert series of high-def security cameras, we go hands-on updated with video! Stevens Sponsored Links. In this article: e , i , p , e , i , alert , feature , featured , features , hands-on , hd , home security , HomeSecurity , logitech , logitech Alert Digital Video Security , LogitechAlertDigitalVideoSecurity , security camera , SecurityCamera , video.
There's no new wiring or networking hassles - HomePlug AV uses your existing electrical wiring and outlets to connect your cameras to your network. The Logitech Alert Commander software lets you define up to 16 motion zones, allowing you to easily pay attention to critical areas of your home while ignoring others — reducing false recordings. Logitech fills this hole with a powerful yet simple digital video security system called Logitech Alert. A master receiver—the system can manage up to six cameras—plugs into your router.
On paper, the Alert system is just about perfect. The cameras can record whether the computer running the control software is off or on, storing up to 2GB of HD video on internal microSD cards. Daytime video quality is also quite good. It's not full HD, but x isn't something to sneeze at, especially when you're pumping six of those feeds through the building power.
I haven't noticed any lost frames. It looks more like 15 frames a second than 30, but even so, you can easily see someone walking up or driving by without any loss of action or fidelity at least during the day. At night, you can't make out facial features, but you can see if there's an animal or a person walking around. The system is set up to trigger recording on motion. You can select motion zones, so recording only happens if there is activity in certain zones.
One camera in our back picks up street traffic from about two blocks away through the very edge of its view interface, so I turned off motion sensing for that small zone. While we're talking about the motion sensing system, I should mention that the Alert Commander does offer email alerts and pop-up alerts.
Since there's almost always some motion outside, I turned these off, but I can see how they'd be helpful, especially with indoor monitoring. The system first records to 2GB microSD cards installed in each camera. The Logitech Alert Commander software downloads the video from the cameras' microSD cards to a location on your computer, so there's another copy of the video available.
I added a third backup. I've got a script that monitors the backup location and uploads the video to a remote cloud backup server. Each motion video clip is a simple MP4, so you can manipulate and examine the recorded video using standard tools.
The Commander software allows you to set a maximum amount of storage, and then deletes older recordings. At about 2GB a week, a relatively small amount of storage can store pretty nearly a year without blinking. Installation is, in theory, quite simple. Certainly for an indoor camera, all you do is plug a cable into the camera and into the power brick, and plug that into the wall. Logitech recommends a similar procedure for outside cameras. In fact, on the instructions, Logitech has a somewhat silly illustration showing a cable running from the outside camera, down the side of a building, to an exposed power socket.
While this might be easy installation, having the camera's power right under the camera kind of defeats the whole security concept. That's why I had to involve an electrician. First, my house has unusual wiring. As I've mentioned before, when we bought this house, it was a fixer-upper in the worst way. We pretty much gutted it and rebuilt it to my geeky specifications.
As a result, we've got a power infrastructure normally more suited to a small data center than a house. Since I operate my office from home, that was a necessity. Second, though, I didn't want to expose all the camera wiring both to the outside elements and to potential threats. The electrician mounted all the cameras to the overhanging soffits around the house, then ran the cable from the camera into the attic to the interface brick.
There's an Alert web page that does still respond, although it isn't suitable for ongoing viewing because it times out after a few minutes. When the main Alert Commander program stopped running, I took to the internet. I found users who were experiencing the same problem, but were stuck for a workable solution. While security cameras can be relatively inexpensive, they are not easy to replace.
They often require hiring an electrician to climb into the eaves of a house or office and run cables. I looked recently at the Arlo camera as an alternative, but found it wanting in a number of areas. The ideal solution would be to keep the cameras that still run, replace the broken one, and add more of a different brand over time -- and have them all manageable from one monitoring interface.
Because the Alert camera system is moderately proprietary, I didn't have much hope for finding the ideal solution. But, as it turns out, while the Alert system is mostly proprietary, it is possible to get to the cameras themselves over a network connection.
It also turns out there's a pretty impressive piece of software, SecuritySpy , that can implement the ideal solution I described above. I'll talk more about using SecuritySpy with cameras other than the Logitech Alert cameras in future stories. My intent is to incorporate not only our outside feed, but feeds from cameras watching 3D printers.
I also want to experiment with reusing old smartphones as cameras for watching some of my projects progress. I'll probably use one to keep an eye on the puppy's antics when we're out.
0コメント