HomeMonitor HD review

The HomeMonitor HD can capture 720p-resolution video with its 1/4in CMOS sensor. It has a field of view of 87 degrees, giving it a relatively wide coverage area, and its 30 infrared LEDs allow it to see in the dark at up to 15m distance. Footage from the camera is saved remotely to the cloud and there’s no internal storage or microSD card support. Although local storage can be useful for easy access, cloud storage does mean that there’s no risk of you losing footage if someone attempts to damage the camera or take the memory card.

Image quality wasn’t the best we have seen from an IP camera, and the frame rate wasn’t as smooth as we would have liked with a maximum frame rate of 15fps, network speeds allowing. This frame rate was still fine for the purposes of surveillance, and video footage didn’t suffer particularly from drastic compression. Night-time performance was also reasonably good, although the image looked a little soft. We were expecting clearer night footage from the camera’s dense cluster of infrared LEDs.

While watching the live video feed from the camera there’s also a sizeable delay as the video is sent first to Y-Cam’s servers and then back again, meaning the camera updated about seven seconds behind real time. The microphone was sensitive and was able to pick up moderately loud sounds from across a medium-sized room.

CONCLUSION

The HomeMonitor HD was reassuringly easy to set up, and we found its motion-detection scheduling was incredibly useful. The camera produced good-quality video and we had no problem accessing the feed via a browser or mobile apps. When you take into account its free cloud storage, the HomeMonitor HD is great value despite its high purchase price, so wins a Recommended award. If you’re looking for something more manoeuvrable then check out the D-Link DCS-5222L.