Y-cam EVO Indoor HD Wi-Fi Security Camera (Pack of 2)

Product Information

Only HomeMonitor™ allows you to truly connect you to what is important on all your favourite gadgets including iPhone, iPad, Android smartphones and tablets plus now your TV through Roku and AirPlay. This is a problem if you have pets. A dog or cat can easily set off the motion sensor. To combat this, the HomeMonitor enables you to select “detection zones” – rectangles you can drag to cover the areas you’re most concerned with. For example, if you have it point at your front door you can choose for it to trigger only when something at least two-feet high comes in, while at the same time having another zone covering a front window. Useful stuff, unless you live close to a gang of limbo-dancing thieves. Its overall appeal is slightly let down by connection speed issues, which make accessing the camera’s live feed and stored recordings a bit of a faff. I can’t help but wish Y-Cam would open the Evo up and let me tie it to my home NAS Drive, or a separate cloud storage provider. If you have a Y-cam Protect Alarm system, access to this will not be affected. If you had cameras as well, then these will not be accessible. You will have access to the video clips based on your plan type if applicable.

The fact that you get seven days’ worth of free encrypted cloud storage for captured footage on the Evo is fantastic, and I wish more companies would follow Y-Cam’s example – all too often home-monitoring solutions, such as the SwannOne Smart Home Control Kit, place cloud storage behind expensive paywalls. You can disable motion control for specific days or hours of the day if you don’t want the camera to record every morning you leave for work. HomeMonitor Indoor HD Wi-Fi Video Camera – Features I did also suffer ongoing poor cloud connectivity throughout my three weeks testing the Evo. With the Y-Cam Evo I found the old adage “you get what you pay for” is definitely true when it comes to remote monitoring services. Motion detection is all well and good, but what if something happens in a few seconds, will the HomeMonitor be able to record that? The people at Y-cam have thought of this and have made a camera that is constantly recording on a 10-second loop. If any movement is detected then the HomeMonitor HD sends the footage directly to the cloud, including a few seconds before the trigger event. Stand, QSG, Exchangeable Power adpaters (UK, US, EU ), 3M USB Cable, Wall mount, 2 x Screws and wall plugsThe HomeMonitor HD is a motion- and sound-sensing camera, which means – apologies for describing the bleeding obvious – that it only starts recording and sending video and audio to the cloud when it senses movement. The issue is Y-Cam’s cloud is a little on the slow side. Too many times I’d get a motion alert, launch the app – tested on Android – and be forced to wait a good two or three minutes for the live feed to launch. The same issue cropped up when I tried to stream old recordings, which regularly took up to five minutes to start playing. The problem occurred when I connected the Y-Cam Evo to my home and work fibre networks and on a variety of different routers. When you access the camera from a mobile device, the lag is much worse—almost a minute behind real-time. It's easy to see the lag, because HomeMonitor places a time-stamp on all of its video feeds and stored clips. Thankfully, the Y-Cam HomeMonitor indoor camera's traffic won't kill your network, as it only uploads when motion is detected. You can enable the alarm using the key fob or app. When it turns on, a clear voice from the Hub lets you know that the alarm is on. Following the beeping, you’re given enough time to get out of the house before the alarm is finally alarmed.

For this guide, we will assume that the camera is configured and you can access the live image when it is connected to the network with an Ethernet cable (wired connection).

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The Hub is the brains behind everything, also doubling up as a siren. Y-Cam has done a good job here, and the box feels tough and weighty. It needs to be plugged into the mains and via Ethernet into your router. You can also wall-mount the Hub; if you do, I recommend placing it high up so that it’s harder to tamper with.

Requirements: This alarm system requires a broadband connection (min. speed 1Mbps) with a router that includes one free wired network port. SmartPhone must be iOS 9.0 and above or Android 5.0 and above. I found the Y-Cam customer service staff to be incredibly helpful and happy to talk through any potential issues. Y-Cam Evo – Software and Recording If cloud storage isn’t a concern, the Netatmo Welcome offers sleek design and advanced face-recognition tech at roughly the same price. Verdict Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. Read our editorial mission & see how we test. Update: This review and its score relate to the original proposition. Y-Cam has since discontinued its free cloud storage subscriptions claiming they are financially “unsustainable”.

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Moving the wireless router to a different position may help. Try walking around with the router while monitoring the signal strength to get the best signal. Bullet HD, Bullet HD 1080, Bullet Range, Cube 1080p, Cube 720p, Cube HD 1080, Cube VGA, Dome Range, HD720, Other The night mode was a little more hit and miss. Faces caught with the camera in night-cam mode have a grainy quality and won’t be much help to police unless the thief was insanely close to the Evo – though being fair to Y-Cam, this is true of all the home-monitoring cameras I’ve tested. As an example, our Netgear router is set to WEP 64bit strength using a HEX key "ABCDE12345" in the "1" position. The new Alexa skill is great to see. Using just your voice, you can set the alarm; and you can disable it, too, speaking out a PIN that you set. Inside your home, this feature is possibly less useful, and using the keyfob or app probably make more sense. But, if you’re using Y-Cam Protect for an external building (my garden office is protected with one), Alexa integration is a smart way of being able to turn the alarm on or off. Should I buy the Y-Cam Protect Alarm System?

Don’t worry that your HomeMonitor™ is going to run out of juice! HomeMonitor™ cameras take their power directly from the mains so there is no worry that at that crucial moment anything will be missed. See and hear your world in all its glory with our high quality camera loaded with fantastic colour representation, crisp night vision and fantastic audio clarity. If you had no active recording plan active on your camera(s), then you will no longer be able to access your Y-cam account. Another handy feature is on-demand recording which provides a record button on the live feed view so you can capture what’s going on right then. You can also grab a still image, and this is also saved to your phone’s camera roll. Finally, there’s an optional solar-powered external siren, capable of blasting out at 104dB alarm to warn of a break-in. It’s something that was sorely missing from the initial release. Its availability makes the Y-Cam Protect a much more fully-featured alarm system, and also signposts to would-be burglars that your home is protected. If you need it, there are dummy boxes to fit around your home, too.

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HomeMonitor uses the latest and greatest in Wi-Fi technology available ensuring the fastest speed and widest range possible - letting you use the full power of your network. Unlike other cloud cameras that charge monthly fees, every HomeMonitor camera stores unlimited recorded clips in to your online account for the last 7 days - no subscriptions required! The Y-Cam app is one of the most intuitive I’ve used. The app’s central home screen features a grid user interface with dynamic icons to every Y-Cam camera connected to your network. A slide-out panel offers shortcuts to your account settings and recording library. Wherever you fix it, you do need to bear in mind that power will be required. A 3m/10ft power cable is provided, but may need to consider an extension cord for extra reach.