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Keeping tabs on your home has never been easier thanks to the recent blitz of Wi-Fi surveillance cameras that let you view live streaming video on your smartphone from just about anywhere. However, most cameras offer a limited field view, which means you need more than one camera to cover an entire room. That’s not the case with the Allie Home Camera ($499), which contains two wide-angle cameras and offers a 360 degree field of view. It’s a breeze to set up and provides high-definition video of your entire room, including floors and ceilings, but it’s very expensive and lacks several key features found on most home surveillance cameras, like our Editors’ Choice, the Icontrol Networks Piper nv ($335.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) .
Design and Features
The Allie Home ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) is a puck-shaped camera that measures 3.2 inches in diameter, is 2.9 inches thick, and weighs 10 ounces. The glossy black-and-silver enclosure contains two back-to-back 12-megapixel fisheye cameras, each with a 190-degree field of view and 4K video resolution. It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU and contains Bluetooth and Wi-Fi circuitry that allows you to set up the camera using an Android or iOS mobile device and view video from anywhere via your home network. It uses 10 IR LEDs (5 on each side) to deliver black-and-white night vision video.
The Allie can sit on any flat surface or be installed upside-down on a ceiling using the included mounting hardware. It comes with an instruction manual and an AC adapter with a 10-foot cord. There’s no provision for storing video and photos locally, but you do get one year of free cloud storage that will save your content for 24 hours. Once your year is up you’ll have to subscribe to a storage plan: the 24 hour plan goes for $6.95 per month, a 48 hour plan is $9.95 per month, and 72 hours will cost you $12.95 per month. You can also create a custom plan to suit your needs.
The Allie can be accessed using a mobile or Web-based app. The app’s home screen opens to a half-page picture of the camera’s last snapshot. The bottom half of the screen is blank save for a Buy Allie button and an Allie VR button, both of which steer you to Allie’s website to purchase more products (Allie VR is a $59 viewfinder that you slide your phone into to view stereoscopic live and recorded video in a virtual 3D mode). At the top of the screen, on the left, is an icon that takes you to the My Allies menu where you can access the Gallery (saved video and photos) and change your cloud plan. Here you can also configure the app to connect directly to your Facebook account and add YouTube and Vrideo channels to share recorded content with family and friends. The Settings screen contains a video quality slider, and the Demo screen contains four videos that you can check out if, for some reason, you become tired of looking at your own.
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Allie Home Camera
Back at the Home screen, tap the snapshot to open a live video stream. You can use the Gyro feature to pan around by moving your phone, or you can turn it off and use swiping gestures. The dual camera configuration provides a 360-degree view horizontally and vertically, which means there are no blind spots whatsoever. It also records 360-degree video and takes 360-degree photos. In other words, when you take a snapshot you can view it later and pan around as if it were live. There’s a gyroscope icon on upper right side that lets you enable/disable Gryo panning, and a gear icon that takes you to a Camera settings page where you can change your Wi-Fi network, enable/disable the microphone, adjust the camera’s speaker volume, and change the IR LED brightness settings. You can also put the camera into Sleep mode and enable the Home or Away mode. In Home mode you can view live streaming video directly in real-time and communicate with the camera using your phone’s microphone, and in Away mode video comes by way of the cloud and does not support two-way audio.
While viewing a live stream, there’s a round control panel at the bottom of the screen that contains a video record button, a mute button, a VR button (for stereoscopic mode), a button that lets you send live streams to your YouTube channel, and a camera button for snapping still photos.
For all of its 360-degree versatility, the Allie comes up short in terms of actual security features. It doesn’t have the motion or sound sensors that you get with cameras such as the Netgear Arlo Q ($199.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) and the Nest Cam ($154.96 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , and it doesn’t support email or push notifications. Moreover, it doesn’t interact with other home automation devices such as thermostats, smart switches, and light bulbs, and it doesn’t offer support for IFTTT (If This Then That) recipes that use internet services such as Facebook, Foursquare, and others to trigger smart home devices. However, an Allie spokesperson has confirmed that the company is working to make the camera more IoT-friendly.
Allie Home Camera
Installation and Performance
The camera can be installed wirelessly using a Bluetooth mobile device, or you can connect it directly to your PC using the included USB cable and the web-based Setup Wizard. To start, download the app, plug in the camera, and tap Find New Allie. You’ll be greeted with a screen that says “Looking for Allie.” My camera was discovered in less than five seconds. Select the camera and enter your Wi-Fi password (the camera chooses the strongest SSID signal, but you can manually select a different SSID). It took seven seconds to connect to my network, at which time I was asked to rename the camera.
The first time I went to a live view, the picture was in black and white and remained that way for ten minutes or so before it suddenly started streaming in color. From then on, image quality appeared sharp, with good color quality. The 360-degree feature works well, with very little lag while panning the room in all directions, and two-way audio communications are clear. Night vision image quality is a bit too dark, however.
The Gyro feature provides a convenient alternative to panning by swiping the screen, and recorded video and still photos maintain the same image quality as live content. My favorite feature is the camera’s ability to capture and display 360-degree still photos and video as if they were live.
Conclusions
The Allie Home Camera does a commendable job of delivering colorful 360-degree video and stills, but its night vision quality could be better. And while it’s easy to install and fun to use, it’s missing nearly every feature you’d look for in a home surveillance camera including motion detection, push notifications, and integration with other smart home devices. Considering its woeful feature set, its $500 price is over the top. If you’re looking for a camera that does more than stream live video, check out our Editors’ Choice for home surveillance cameras, the Icontrol Networks Piper nv. It has a 180-degree field of view, a 1080p camera, an extremely loud emergency siren, and sensors that detect motion, sound, temperature, and humidity. It also doubles as a home automation hub for Z-Wave devices and is considerably more affordable.
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The Allie Home Camera gives you a full 360-degree live view and recorded video of your room, but it’s expensive and lacks many of the features you should expect for $500.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/allie-home-camera