Samsung’s SmartCam HD Pro was designed to compete directly with the Nest Cam. Both offer easy setup, and an impressive amount of app-related features, both cameras even boost and impressive 1080p resolution. There are however noticeable differences between the two cameras. Firstly the Samsung SmartCam HD Pro is reasonably priced at €110 compared to Nests €175 euro cam. Secondly the SmartCam HD Pro comes with on board storage in the form of an SD card. Nest requires a monthly subscription for their cloud services. Taking all this into account you might think the Samsung SmartCam HD Pro is no brainer? So why is the nest cam the most popular Wi-Fi security camera available today and not the HD Pro. Let’s find out.
Samsung SmartCam HD Pro Overview
The SmartCam HD Pro has an attractive round design with a glossy white finish. The camera is a lot smaller than it looks I the images and in reality, is about the size of a hockey puck. Its height is smaller to the size of a can of coke. Infrared LEDs lights for night vision surround. The 1080p camera at the top of the front panel. A sensor, which enables night vision if ambient light levels are too low, is located directly below the camera. This essentially means when the room gets dark the night vison clicks on and now the camera can see in the dark.
An adjustable white-plastic stand attaches to the camera at the back. The stand features two points of movement that allow the camera to rotate 360 degrees clockwise or counter clockwise and 180 degrees forward or backward. The base of the stand also serves as a bracket that you can attach to a wall with the provided double-sided adhesive tape or screws.
On the bottom of the camera, there’s a microSD card slot for local video storage (up to 64GB) and a pair of speakers that let you transmit your voice via the mobile app. A microphone, an Ethernet port, audio-out port, and power connector are located on the back of the device. Note if you want to have local storage on this device you will need to purchase a microSD card separately. However, once purchased the video compression is superb and can record months of footage on a simple 16gb card
Setting up the Samsung SmartCam HD Pro proved incredibly simple. I plugged the camera into the outlet, downloaded the free Samsung SmartCam mobile app and followed the on-screen instructions to create an account and connect the camera to the wireless network.
Thanks to its built-in Wi-Fi Direct technology — a Wi-Fi standard designed to let wireless devices communicate with one another without a wireless access point — the SmartCam automatically detects nearby Wi-Fi networks. I just needed to select my network and enter the password. The entire setup process took just a few minutes to complete from my phone.
Features
The SmartCam HD Pro offers a lot of helpful features. Like most networked security cameras, it will send you a push notification and automatically begin recording video if it detects motion or noise. In addition, you can adjust the sensitivity of the camera’s motion and audio detection, which is helpful if you have a pet at home that’s likely to trigger an alert.
Image:topratedbestbabymonitors.com
Knowing that some people will use the SmartCam as a baby monitor, Samsung equipped the camera with three that it can play using the built-in speaker. You can also create personalized audio clips. Sound quality isn’t great but it’s a camera not a stereo system so get over it. Unfortunately, the SmartCam HD Pro doesn’t let you create separate security modes the way an alarm would (such as At Home, Away or On Vacation), as you can with the Piper NV and the Canary. However, The Samsung SmartCam HD Pro is compatible with Samsung’s SmartThings Hub that can enable these features.
The APP
You can remotely control the Samsung SmartCam HD Pro using either the Web console at samsungsmartcam.com or the mobile app. The latter is available for free on Google Play and iTunes. So, here’s the big problem – the mobile app’s interface is somewhat clunky and old. When you first start using the app it’s a nightmare. It’s impossible to find what you’re looking for, especially if your looking to find recordings.
However, the live section of the app works well and has many useful features. Here you can set motion zones to trigger the cameras recording if something passes by the zone. Unfortunately, this happens all the time, there is no feature to set home or away modes so it would only record when you’re not home. The rest of the app boosts quality enhancement, two-way audio, and a spectacular zoom feature. Image:techhive.com
The Official Camera of the Samsung SmartThings Hub
If you have been reading my previous articles you’re aware I actively use Samsung’s Smarthings Home Automation Hub. This is actually the reason I first bought this camera because of its integration with SmartThings. The problem is that integration is not very good at the moment. The HD Pro is a new addition to the SmartThings hub even though the camera had been out for years. Regardless, the camera has stood the test of time so it makes sense to use it as part of the SmartThings family.
The problem is it’s not very useful from within the Smarthings App. Its difficult to get to and then you have to press play and wait for it to buffer. I would have preferred it to be displayed on the SmartThings home Page in the App so I could quickly view the image. The integration becomes useful with the use of Samsung’s (modes) in SmartThings. Now I can trigger the camera to record if a door or window opens unexpectedly.
Samsung is still actively working on camera integration with Smarthings so hopefully in the future more feature will be added. For now, The Official Camera of the Samsung SmartThings Hub is probably one of the worst cameras available for SmartThings. Bring on the Nest Cam!
Thanks, great article.