Canary Security Camera Review

Canary product overview

The Canary home security camera is much more than just a camera. The system boasts several useful features that make the device a all-in-one monitoring system. These features include air quality and humidity monitoring, location-based notifications and a 90DB siren. The camera inside the Canary is a 1080p night-vision, 147-degree camera which, combined with a motion sensor that tells it to start recording, will ensure that you do not miss a thing. The canary can be connected to a WiFI network, or directly to a router over Ethernet – Once connected you are ready to go!

The application which Canary uses is available on both IOS and Android. The app allows you to control and monitor all aspects of the cameras behavior – eg. how it alerts you when motion is detected or a change in humidity in your home. The canary allows for multiple people to use the app at once, and uses location services to determine which of the three modes to go into – Away (when all members of the house have left the home – all motion is recorded and notifications are sent at all times) Home (when all members of the household are at home) Night (this is scheduled by you and you can choose what you want the canary to do during this period)

You are able to view live feed straight away or simply swipe up to see a timeline of the past recordings which Canary has taken. A free membership is given once a Canary is purchased, allowing your to store up to 24 hours worth of footage on the cloud. If you would like more storage space, you will have to upgrade to a full canary membership (which costs £9.99/month) – This gives you 30 days worth of video history, an insurance deductible reimbursement up to £1000, incident support and a 2 year extended device warranty.

Product detail – what’s included in a Canary security system

Within the box of a Canary system you will find – 1x Canary all-in-one home security camera, 1x secure setup cable, 1x Power adapter, 1x Micro USB Cable.

Positives

• 1080p Camera quality
• Reliable notifications
• Night vision cameras.
• Air quality,temperature and humidity monitoring
• IOS and Android support
• Relatively cheap for all its functions
• Very user friendly app
• Loud siren

Negatives

• The subscription options are pricey
• There is no local storage available
• Does not support IFTTT

Pricing

For a single Canary all-in-one home security system you are looking at a total price of £155.00 inc VAT

What other reviews are saying

The following is a round-up of what other people are saying about the Canary around the net . . .

CNET Canary review

CNET’s review of the Canary security system is as follows:

Canary’s got a lot of room for improvement, but the good news here is that the bugs are largely gone and the hardware is sound. The camera offers exceptional picture quality both in regular mode and — more importantly — in night-vision mode. The Homehealth sensors are helpful and accurate. The motion detector doesn’t miss a thing. There’s good stuff going on under the hood.

https://www.cnet.com/uk/products/canary-smart-home-security-device/review/2/

Trusted Reviews review

Trusted Reviews of the Canary all-in-one smart security system was:

The Canary is extremely reliable but it lacks the extra features to make it stand out in a competitive market.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/canary-all-in-one-smart-home-security-camera-review

PC Advisor review

PC Advisor’s review of the canary system was:

Overall I was impressed with the Canary. The camera itself looks good and it allowed me to monitor a large room in my home with a single unit which was sensitive to both movement and unusual sounds. Setting the hardware up could not have been easier, and the app is well designed and incredibly easy to use. The Apple Watch app was also very useful for notifications, as well as allowing me to arm and disarm the Canary. The HomeHealth feature is a bonus, and not typically found in a security camera, so that’s a handy extra which makes the Canary better value. I’d like to see the free cloud storage extended to 24 hours, as 12 hours isn’t really enough. For anyone after a security camera and like the extras of the siren and air quality measurements, the Canary is a great choice

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/review/security-cameras/canary-review-3634875/

Examples of what people are saying / reviews of the Canary

And here’s a selection of actual user review from around the net – i.e. review of real people who’ve bought the Canary and used it.

Amazon reviews

“Excellent design, simple to set up and great if you need Temperature and Humidity. Readings compare quite accurately with other sensors I have. Excellent night vision with the IR. Not so sure of the usefulness or realistic purpose of the Air Quality sensor. Picture is good and wide angle lens is not very distorted. The light sensor is just a little too sensitive to ambient light change. Alerts do not always get sent, to the smartphone despite changing settings on your phone.”

“Good product but almost useless at the moment as it goes off line several times a week. I was initially using wifi and had a few off line issues, I’ve now connected it directly to my router and it’s still going off line. It seems that the unit freezes so may be an issue that can easily be fixed with a firmware update. Providing it’s not a hardware issue.”

“Purchased in November 2016 and has worked flawlessly since I took it out of the box. Set-up was easy and completed in about 15 minutes. The system is very sensitive so you will get alerts for things like shadows, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As for live streaming and activity alerts, no issues at all. Everything runs smoothly in full HD.”

“I really wanted this to be great but was really disappointed with it. The physical design of the Canary and the app are both great but it’s only 1 star as really not fit for purpose. The alerts and live view has a delay of a good 10 seconds or so which isn’t awful but is a bit worrying (burglars don’t spend long in homes, so every second counts). The biggest issue is the only way it can alert you is an app push alert – which just makes a little text message style sound when it appears, meaning that you can easily miss it and it certainly wouldn’t wake you up if you were sleeping while being burgled. The auto detect of you at home or away is also quite unreliable/slow in my experience. They need to sort these lags and the alert sound before this is a viable security solution.”