Most of the time with home monitoring you’re dealing with multiple cameras, fixed in place, with a 130 degree view and a delay due to the (potentially noisy) camera panning. The DCS-960L wide Eye HD 180 degree panoramic camera aims to solve all of these problems. Really, all of them.
So the 180 degree view eliminates the need for two or more cameras to see everything in a room, but there’s the added benefit of being able to place it wherever you need to. You don’t have to stick it in a corner, so intruders are less likely to see the camera. By making no panning or tilting noise, an intruder is less likely to hear it too.
You can see it in action here:
This is the kind of monitoring you’d normally see in a business setting, but D-Link says the company has been “pushing the boundaries of home security products” as both safety and security are increasingly on people’s agendas.
There’s HD 720p video quality, an integrated microphone, automatic day and night viewing and ability to configure the camera to monitor for motion within a certain area — such as around entranceways or windows — or detect sound above a set volume, which would trigger an alert upon activation.
The camera can see up to five metres in complete darkness with built-in IR LED — so the night vision is pretty decent, too.
The camera can be accessed, remotely viewed and managed via a smartphone, tablet or PC with the mydlink app (free) or the mydlink online portal, and there’s no ongoing subscription charges or special software.
There’s also a 16GB microSD card included so you can record video locally onto the camera. It can be set to start recording either by an event trigger, schedule or continuous record.
You can pick up a DCS-960L for $349.95 from the usual outlets.