Justin Kahn
Posts: 752 +6
The consumer based home surveillance industry has done quite well over the past few years, with several different affordable options available to security-conscious customers. One of the current leaders in the field is Dropcam, the company started back in 2009 and as of last year began shipping the Dropcam HD. The HD brought cloud based home monitoring at an accessible price, and now the company is adding a new device to its line up.
The Dropcam Pro is packed with new features and improvements over its predecessor with higher resolution video, double the zoom quality, much improved audio, dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 LE. Its six element glass lens provides a much better, 130 degree field of view this time around, compared to the HD's 107 degree FOV.
Some of the other notable features include a cloud based activity recognition system. It will record and organize motion-based events and then send out custom update/alert messages.
Dropcam has also added Bluetooth radio with the new Pro model, it allows for smooth mobile set-ups as well as future third party sensor integration.
Even though Dropcam HD is already the top-selling product in its class on Amazon, there were some concerns among consumers regarding pixelated images and network lag, among other things. It appears as though the company has tackled most, if not all of these issues, with the new Dropcam Pro.
The device does not support local recording of the streams, instead everything is done through the cloud. While live video monitoring is free, the optional cloud based video recording plans are not. It will run you $9.95 a month for seven days of non-stop recording and $29.95 a month for thirty days.
The device itself goes for $199 on Amazon and Dropcam.com, but there are discounts to be had with annual subscriptions and purchasing multiple cameras.
