In a world flooded with IoT devices (and in particular) IP cameras, companies like iSmart Alarm are doing more than just the bare minimum these days to help separate their home security products from the rest of the pack. The iCamera Halt Pro has several innovations that make it unique in this space, but are these small improvements enough to make it shine among the growing audience?
Read my iCamera Hold Pro review to find out what this IoT IP camera apart from the rest of the pack!
Keep iCamera Pro Hands on review
Summary: The iCamera Hold Pro grapples with a unique motion tracking alarm system that worked well in our tests, but its lack of cloud video options made us want more from the system.
Price: $ 169 available on Amazon : Now Model: iSC3S
What we liked
- 1080p HD with night vision
- easy setup
- Free event recording for 30-day stints
- motion tracking
- Lossless 4x zoom
What we don’t
- No CVR option
- No outside skills
- No native siren
iCamera hold trial design
The iCamera Pro Hold has a sleek, modernist design that everyone will look good in
The iCamera Hold Pro has a sleek, modern design wrapped in a gray paint room that so many device manufacturers are keen to offer these days. The camera itself is housed in a minimalist rectangular box that could easily be stuck to any wall in your home using the included mounting kit.
Hardware of the iCamera Hold Pro
The iCamera Pro Hold has a 1080p HD resolution camera with 140 ° field of view lens and night vision, a micro USB connector in port and an onboard two-way microphone-speaker combination. It also comes with innovative motion tracking technology, a first we have seen in the home security camera room that you are guaranteed to never miss a moment of action when the alarm is triggered by intruders.
Motion tracking is part of the pan and tilt housings, which can rotate 350 degrees left to right, and 40 degrees up and down. The camera is also capable of recording no sound it hears in during a break and both functions (both the sound and video alarm triggers) can be set between three different sensitivity levels if you want to keep pets or children away from constantly putting things away ,
iCamera Hold Pro software
The iCamera Hold Pro software is simple and intuitive to use
The entirety of the alarm system iSmart (including the full range of products of the company, by the rich cameras to motion detectors and glass breakage sensors) from the iSmart Alarm App controlled , available for iOS, Android and Windows Phones. The app itself is fairly simple, if only the iCamera Halt Pro, but still feature-rich enough to get the job done.
The camera was super easy to set up and worked fine on our first try. The system worked via a QR code scanning method that we had previously seen with other cameras, but unlike those that kept the iCamera Pro immediately read the QR code and had everything on and in a few minutes to itself run yourself. During the test I was actually a bit surprised by how flawless the whole experience was, given my frustrations with competing cameras during this process in the past.
Hold iCamera Pro features
Most Features of the iCamera Broadly speaking, Pros are standard in the industry through this point , but there are a few key areas where this camera really starts to grapple. The first is the most striking feature that its ability to be in over any room you swivel and tilt it and actually track the movement of the action as it moves along. The second is a less advertised feature, but could possibly be the most important of all: lossless video zoom functions.
You see , most home security cameras do offer some kind of zooming option, but just like your smartphone, they use what is known as “digital zoom” rather than a real physical zoom lens attached to the camera itself. This means that if your camera captures just a brief glimpse of an intruder’s face from a distance and the details are difficult to see, in the picture taken by zooming in your security camera will only make it blurry and more difficult to show the police as evidence. Not so with the iCamera Hold Pro. With real zoom you on a picture,up to 4x thrust and it only gets clearer as you move. This is a big leg for the iCamera Pro Hold up to the competition, and if nothing else should be the main reason you should consider upgrading .
One area that iCamera would wish would work, but unfortunately does is not outdoor skills. Even the slightest amount of rain would fizzle out to keep the iCamera Pro away, so when you are sure you are installing it is covered on all sides. Not only that, but if you want the iCamera Pro to sound a physical alarm in your home when it detects motion, you’ll need to buy a separate $ 70 home hub to take a look. Finally, we would have liked if the camera included some sort of continuous cloud video recording option (like the Arlo Q), but unfortunately the only way you can enable this feature is by pushing an SD card in the back.The feature works well when you have the card in there, but the downside, of course, is if your burglar ever sees the camera and decides to steal the device or just pop the card out of your back,
iCamera Hold Pro Performance
Overall, the iCamera Pro keeps performing well above expectations, both in its sensitivity of recording and the agileness of its motion tracking functions. Despite trying to do it with a couple of quick tweaks and bad dance moves, the camera was able to keep his eye in the sky moving right along with the action without any problems. The 30ft night vision was also exceptionally clear in our nightly test scenarios, all the more impressive due to the 4x zoom, which was clearly also possible in the darkest lighting of my face.
iCamera Hold Pro Rating Wrap Up
As a security camera, the iCamera Pro has a lot going for it. In addition to the obvious benefit of adding motion tracking and 4X physical zoom to your home security system, the iCamera Pro makes it easy for everyone to get the device up and running in minutes. We encountered zero technical issues while the camera was working or viewing recorded clips from our phone, and although we definitely see an option for continuous video recording or a waterproof case, opening the outdoorSkills love to budge aside from the two minor complaints of the iCamera Pro Keep is a must-have for any additional home security enthusiast.
