Smanos IP6 review

The Smanos IP6 is a tall, vertical camera, in contrast to the dome shapes of most of the IP cameras we see. It comes in a white finish, and we liked its unfussy, squared-off design. The IP6 attaches to a rotating, pivoting and tilting base that you can mount to a wall with the included screws.

Although the tilting mechanism had enough resistance to hold the camera at the desired angle, it couldn’t quite cope with the weight of the power cable, which means the camera might rotate when you don’t want it to if you have the camera mounted on the wall at an awkward angle.

You use the IP6 app for iOS or Android to configure the camera, but we found it overly fiddly. For example, when putting in your Wi-Fi details you need to type in your Wi-Fi SSID manually, instead of selecting it from a list. It also took a few attempts before we could get the camera to connect to our wireless network successfully.

The Smanos IP6 has a microSD card slot, so it’s easy to save recorded footage locally. However, there’s no cloud storage option, so if a criminal spots your camera they could easily take the microSD card, and the stored footage, away with them. Saving to the cloud is typically an optional extra requiring a paid subscription, but the option is certainly nice to have for peace of mind.

Cloud storage is usually tied into motion or sound detection, as such events make a network camera start recording. This is an area where the IP6 falls short of its rivals, as it lacks any sort of detection. This means that you need to manually access the camera from your smartphone or tablet to begin recording, which will be a problem if you intend to use the Smanos IP6 as a security camera. The chances that you decide to view the camera’s footage at the same time as an incident is occurring are likely to be slim.

Annoyingly, there’s no way to tell the camera to save only to the installed microSD card. Instead we found the Android app would simultaneously save recordings and images to both the Android device and the microSD card. You can at least delete the duplicated recordings from your connected device to free up space if needed.

If you’re only in need of a camera for remote monitoring, such as checking up on pets or maybe an elderly relative, the Smanos IP6 works well enough. There’s not much in the way of video delay, with live footage only a fraction of a second behind reality.

There’s no way to view the footage full-screen when watching it live; instead it’s relegated to a window within the app. This video is perfectly viewable, but we would have liked the option to have a larger view. The app also doesn’t rotate to landscape with your phone. You can at least watch videos saved on the handset in full-screen mode.

Unlike the other network cameras we’ve seen, there’s no option to view your video stream in a web browser – it’s all done through the app. You can use multiple devices to monitor and control a single camera by creating a QR code that can be scanned by another smartphone or tablet. This will instantly add the camera to that device’s app. A unified login through a web service would have been easier than having to scan multiple QR codes, however.

There’s not much in the way of configuration options, either, with just the ability to toggle between High, Middle and Low quality. Changing this setting not only lowered the quality but also made the field of view narrower, meaning you could see less of the room’s periphery in Low quality mode.

The IP6 has a built-in microphone and speaker, meaning you can use the app’s touch-to-talk function to use the camera as an intercom. Unlike the intercom features on some of the other cameras we’ve tested, such as the Philips In.sight HD, there was little audio delay either end.

The Smanos IP6’s video was very dark, and there was a lack of detail in the shadows. The frame rate wasn’t particularly smooth, either, but sufficient for surveillance purposes. Night-time video was useless as the camera lacks any infrared LEDs, so all we saw was a black rectangle.

Overall, the Smanos IP6 is limited by the lack of any motion detection, cloud storage or night vision options. It’s not the best choice for security, but it does a fine enough job if you only need to remotely check up on your pets.

However, it’s expensive for a camera with such basic functions, and even then its image quality leaves much to be desired. The app is basic and at times frustrating to use, too, making the Smanos IP6 difficult to recommend. If you just want basic monitoring functions with the option of cloud recording, the BT Smart Home Cam 100 is a better option, and if you want local recording the D-Link DCS-5222L offers far more features for its £35 premium.