Home monitoring has become very accessible in the recent past, and since more and more manufacturers include connected cameras in their smart home kits, keeping an eye on your valuables while away is very convenient, not to mention affordable. Logitech’s Circle is a smart camera that keeps an eye on your home when you’re not around.
The second product to be launched under the Swiss hardware manufacturer’s Logi brand (did they just drop ‘tech’ from the name?), Circle is a security camera that, once turned on, connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth. It is accompanied by cloud storage for up to 24 hours of recordings, so everything should be OK, assuming that you check the companion app at least once a day. Once it’s connected to your smartphone and you have the companion app installed, you can set up the connection between Logi Circle and the local Wi-Fi network. You can even take the camera with you, but its built-in battery only keeps it running for three hours, or up to 12 hours, in power save mode.
“There’s a new movement in home monitoring,” explained Vincent Borel, director of new ventures at Logitech. “The nature of today’s connected world is changing the way people interact with cameras in the home. Video surveillance is no longer just about security, it’s about staying connected with our homes and loved ones.”
That’s exactly the idea Logitech wants to convey, even in the promotional pictures for this product. We see kids playing around, doing potentially dangerous activities, and the Logi Circle taking the place of the babysitter. Maybe you shouldn’t take the babysitter off the payroll just yet, unless you spend the whole time away from home with the phone in your hand.
Just in case the kids seem to be doing something that could harm them, you can take advantage of the camera’s 2-way audio. Talk to them and listen to what they have to say. This is not really an innovative feature, as it has been done before, including by Xiaomi in it’s Yi Camera. The video will be streamed real-time in HD, while the wide-angle viewing and the 8x zoom will help a lot at seeing the details. At the end of the day, the companion app allows you to see a 30-second clip of the previous 24 hours.
Logi Circle doesn’t feature motion tracking per se, but it does use a video analysis algorithm that can tell when there is significant motion. In other words, if the camera is pointing to your window and there are leaves falling, Circle won’t think much of it.
The Logi Circle app is available for both Android and iOS, and even though there aren’t that many reviews for it, yet, people seem to be happy with its functionality.
Unfortunately, Logi Circle isn’t yet available worldwide and it may take a bit till it finds its way to retailers. For the time being, it can only be purchased from the Logitech website in the U.S. and selected European countries.
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Via: Venture Beat
