I finally got around to editing and uploading a short unboxing video for the camera we now have in the sun room.

A few extra bits of feedback, since I recorded these clips.

Near the end of the video, you can see the camera moving around with the motion detection tracking. One of the major benefits of this camera is that I can set my phone up on a stand beside my keyboard, have the app open and keep continuous eye on the sun room. The old camera would only do that for a few minutes before I’d get a “continue?” request and, if I didn’t tap fast enough, it would discontinue the life feed. To have continuous live feed running, we would have to buy a subscription. That one difference makes the purchase well worth while.

The problem is, with so many cats moving around, the tracking would be all over the place, sometimes even sending the camera to do a complete rotation. Since the camera is mounted against a wall like it is, that meant getting views of the ceiling! It would move around so much that, even just in my peripheral vision, I was feeling almost motion sickness. The movement was just non stop!

So… the motion tracking got shut off.

I can move it around manually on my phone, though, to look at different parts of the room. Syndol noticed it moving and climbed up onto the shelf under the old kitchen window, standing as tall as he could, trying to get closer to the moving camera! He can’t reach it, but it was quite funny to adjust the camera so I could look directly at him while he was looking direction at the camera!

It has the ability to auto record. If it detects motion, it can start recording video automatically, saving it to the micro SD card. What I didn’t realize at first was that it was set to continuous record, which meant there were a series of 20 minute long video files saved to the micro SD card! With files that large, it takes forever for it to load to do a playback. It can be set for shorter times, but I’m not bothering with that. There’s simply too much movement in the sun room to have all these automatic functions running. As for files on the memory card, if the card is full, it simply discards the oldest files, while storing the newest ones. So if I had anything I wanted to keep, I’d have to make sure to download it. With the motion sensor off, however, there is nothing being recorded onto the card.

If I did see something I wanted to record, though, there are icons I can tap while the app is running, to get stills or video. There’s also the microphone icon that I can tap and hold to talk into the sun room – which rather alarmed the cats when I used it to break up a fight! All in all, there is quite a bit of functionality on there, most of which I have no reason to use, with it being a critter cam.

As for the network connect, there has been a couple of times where the network lost contact with the camera. Normally, I would have hit the reset button, but it’s too high to reach without a stool or household step ladder, so I just unplugged it and plugged it back in. That seems to have done the trick and now I seem to no longer be having that problem.

The only real downside is the tilt limit. The camera can turn 360°, but there’s only so far it can tilt. Which means that I can tilt it “down”, and get a great view of the wall and door under the camera, but I can only tilt it “up” far enough to see the very bottom of the doorway to outside. If I rotate the camera while it is at max tilt, the platform the cats use, or the bathroom window, can be seen, but they appear sideways. It cannot tilt enough to see the south facing windows, which is where the cats like to hang out. This is all because the camera is mounted sideways on the wall. If it were flat on its base, or even at an angle, it would be able to capture more in its field of view.

Oh, that reminds me; I noticed in the settings that the view can be flipped, if the camera is mounted upside down.

The field of view issue in regards to the tilt is not a camera issue, but a mounting issue for our space. If we could mount it level, it would work fine, but we don’t have a space where we could mount it in the sun room that would be work – and be out of reach of the cats! They’d be all over it, as soon as it started moving! So the few issues we’re seeing are not camera issues.

Which means that this camera passes the test. I can see getting more of these to monitor other indoor areas, such as the pumps in the basement. If we were to set one up to monitor the well pump and sump pump corner, I could see an issue with being able to plug it in; that power cable is awfully short, and there are not a lot of outlets down there! For the septic pump, I would want a type that screws into the light socket, and has a built in LED light. Which is what the first one I tried buying was, but we could never get it to connect to our Wi-Fi.

I would also want to have some outdoor ones to monitor the isolation shelter, for example, or other key areas in the inner yard – as long as we can access power! – but there is very little hurry on that. Mostly for budget reasons. Plus, I know my brother will want to set up security cameras around the outer yard, so I will probably leave most of that for him to do. He has something in mind, and I’m content to let him do it as he sees fit. My priority right now is more about being able to monitor the pumps in the old basement.

Overall, I would be okay with recommending this indoor camera.

The Re-Farmer