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HUGOAI WiFi 1080P HD Wireless Home Security Surveillance Camera with Face Detection review


REVIEW – As technology continues to bring us more innovative gadgets, I am always on the lookout for any device that can perform multiple functions and give me more control and features that I want, in the most affordable way. The HUGOAI WiFi 1080P HD Wireless Home Security Surveillance Camera with Face Detection promises to do just that. Make sure you read to the end of this review.

What is it?

The HUGOAI WiFi 1080P HD Wireless Home Security Surveillance Camera with Face Detection is exactly as its name indicates. It is a small lightweight wireless security camera that provides HD video and images and offers several complimentary features.

What’s in the box


1 x HUGOAI Wireless Camera
1 x Micro USB Cable with Wall Adapter
1 x Base Mounting Plate
1 x Instruction Manual
1 x Wall Anchors and Screws

Design and features

Face Detection & Motion Detection – The HUGOAI camera will send you notifications when members of your family get home and alert you if a stranger is in the house. The motion detection technology monitors movements and pushes instant notifications to your smartphone.
HD Video Quality – 1920 x 1080p resolution with high-resolution live streaming and night vision with a range of up to 30 ft.
Two-way Communication – With the built-in speaker, you can remotely talk with anyone in your home in real-time by simply looking at your phone or tablet.
Remote View – This works with both Android & IOS devices, but only works with 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network. It does not support 5 GHz WI-Fi. The camera supports remote access via free-downloaded mobile App anywhere and anytime.
Cloud & Local Storage – The camera supports cloud service. Every video and picture can be stored on the cloud indefinitely. Free lifetime subscription to save 24-hour alert videos to cloud storage without space limitation. There is a fee if you want more than 24 hours stored.


There is also a built-in micro SD card slot for local recording. It supports up to a 128GB micro SD card.

On the front of this black and white camera, there is the lens in the middle, the status LED light above the lens (Flashing blue: Ready for Wifi setup, Steady blue: Camera is connected), and the LDR (Light Dependent Resistor) and microphone below the lens.

On the back of the camera, there is a speaker, the micro USB power port, and a reset button.

When facing the front of the camera, there is a micro SD card slot on the right side of the camera that allows for onboard recording that is triggered by motion.

Performance

This camera works very well and produces very clear video/images. The audible voice commands make the installation process very simple and the warning if/when it loses the wifi signal helps with troubleshooting, albeit that the loss of connectivity is an area for improvement for the camera. The day and night vision are superb.


App
The following are some of the screens within the app that you encounter during setup:





For the facial recognition feature, you can add the faces to the app of family members and/or people you want the camera to recognize. It allows you to add pictures from an existing album or to take the pictures live with your phone camera and save them to the app. The feature requires pictures from multiple angles to work properly, and for this test, I took the required 5 pictures from the phone camera and saved them to the app.





By default, the app allows the addition of one person for free, then you have to pay $4.99 to add 9 more people offered as a lifelong package purchase.


Once the “family member” picture is saved, whenever that person walks in front of the camera, it sends a notification to your mobile device and you can always click on it to see the video of the person walking in front of the camera.


What I like

  • The clear audio from the cameras including the voice prompts and instructions during setup
  • Video/image quality
  • The magnetic
  • The base that allows mounting of the lightweight camera at any angle
  • The face recognition feature

What can be improved

  • Wireless connectivity. At times the camera loses its wireless connection despite a strong wireless signal, The addition of the 5 GHz capability would help.
  • Privacy, Safety, and Security

Final thoughts

This wireless camera with face recognition does a great job, especially for the relatively affordable cost. It seems to easily recognize my face which is the one I saved in the family member area of the app. The additional $4.99 one time purchase required to add 9 more people is also quite cheap and the fact that the video is clear and the camera is very sensitive to motion and does a great job recognizing faces is fantastic. In addition, I love the mounting options that are available because of the magnetic base and plate. The downside is that if it happens to lose wireless connectivity during the night even for a moment, it announces the loss quite loudly which can be startling. Otherwise, this is a great bang for the buck and with the very responsive app and ability to view remotely, it gets a two thumbs up!! –  BUT WAIT!!! One evening, days after I finished this review, I was sitting in my kitchen working on my laptop at the kitchen table when I received a notification from the camera on my smartphone. I immediately wondered what it could be since no one was near the area of the camera. when I clicked on the notification, it took me to my screen with the videos that the camera records when it detects faces and motion. I noticed that the thumbnails of the recent videos did not look like my room. When I played the videos under the “Stranger reminds” heading, I realized that I was looking at the videos of other people in their house. Somehow I had access to their videos and my next thought was do they have videos of mine. In one of the videos, I can hear and see a person looking at their phone and reading what it said, and I quote ” This device has been bound by another user”, “please untie the device…….(clip ends)”, and the rest is hard to hear. The next video shows her looking into the camera and trying to figure out what is going on. I immediately unplugged the camera, and I will not be using it anymore. This camera started out as a “hero” but is now a complete ZERO!!!

UPDATE: Just when I thought that the worse had occurred with this camera, the next day as I was on my way into work, I got another notification from the app. This was even more startling since I had already disconnected the camera from the night before. When I clicked on the notification, I saw a video of the same house again from during the night which showed a man in his kitchen going into his refrigerator and drinking milk from the container, and then another video of a woman in the same house in the kitchen preparing to leave the house. It seems that somehow I have access to their cloud account. This has always been my fear with cloud storage that has access to cameras in my home. I really wanted to include screenshots and the videos of this most unacceptable violation in this review. However, doing so would add insult to injury considering that the family in the videos has already been unknowingly violated. We live in a world that is now overwhelmingly integrated with technology, and privacy continues to be a very credible concern. While companies continue to offer products that add automation to the processes of our daily lives, the inherent obligation should never allow for a security breach like this. There is no place for this product in today’s world.

Price: $31.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Hugoai.

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HUGOAI WiFi 1080P HD Wireless Home Security Surveillance Camera with Face Detection review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 14, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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Anden’s Valet charges your Apple Watch and organizes your extra bands

NEWS – If you like to change your Apple Watch band to match your outfit or to better suit your activities for the day, you probably don’t keep your extra bands hidden away in a jewelry box or drawer.  If you’d like to keep a few of your favorite bands close at hand for quick changes as you get ready for your day, you’ll be interested in the Valet for Apple Watch from Anden.

The Valet is a flat piece made of wood or Corian.  The front holds the Watch charging puck, and you’ll need to supply your own.  The charging station works with all current versions of the Apple Watch, including the new Series 4.

The back of the Valet has four grooves to hold spare bands.  Anden says they’ve yet to find an official Watch band that won’t fit in the Valet’s grooves.  They don’t mention or show a Watch with a loop band, such as the Milanese metal mesh band, charging on the Valet.  I’d think you’d have to remove the loop band to be able to charge the Watch, as it must lay flat on the Valet.

Anden uses sustainable sources for all their wood; it’s often rescued from larger cabinetry commissions.  Available materials are: solid maple, walnut, cherry wood, and a limited-edition pure white Glacier Corian (the same, high quality, exceptionally strong material they make designer kitchen worktops from).  Anden says that each piece is made when ordered, so it might be possible to accommodate you if you request a particular wood or color of Corian.

The Valet is made in England, but they can ship worldwide.  The Valet in the offered woods is $119 US dollars; the Corian is $171 US.  Order at the Anden website.

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Anden’s Valet charges your Apple Watch and organizes your extra bands originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 14, 2018 at 8:00 am.

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More team EDC updates, Gerber Dime multitool, NYC Comic-Con, and more – Weekly roundup

NEWS – We were busy this week with a dozen reviews, four articles, and fourteen news posts. I’ll bet you haven’t read them all so I challenge you to browse through the complete list below just to double check.

ARTICLES

REVIEWS

NEWS

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More team EDC updates, Gerber Dime multitool, NYC Comic-Con, and more – Weekly roundup originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 13, 2018 at 4:42 pm.

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The Pistachio Pedestal is an elegant solution for storing discarded shells

NEWS – Who doesn’t like pistachios? Absolutely no one, that’s who. Let’s face it the little green nuts themselves are great, but the shells, not so much. Unless you have the Pistachio Pedestal.

The Pistachio Pedestal is a two-tiered solid wood pistachio server designed to offer a solution for storing discarded shells.

Aside from being very handy, the Pistachio Pedestal is quite elegant. It’s routed from solid North American Maple and then hand sanded. And it’s smooth food-safe finish comes from teak oil.

The top tier holds up to 8 oz of whole nuts and even features a pistachio-green colored rim. While the lower, broader level is where you stash the shells. No more fumbling for a makeshift discard dish for leftover debris.

The two tiers also come apart, making it easy to dispose of the discarded shells.

The Pistachio Pedestal sells for $48 and is available on uncommongoods.

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The Pistachio Pedestal is an elegant solution for storing discarded shells originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 13, 2018 at 10:00 am.

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Ethohome Gravis Weighted Blanket review

NEWS – The Ethohome Gravis Weighted Blanket is a reasonably priced, high quality, weighted blanket that could be the solution for some people who suffer from restless sleep or nighttime anxiety. At $269.99 for the 25 pound version, the Gravis was super effective in my testing and priced right around the same as other weighted blankets of similar quality.

What is it?

Weighted blankets hit the mainstream in 2017, but they have been around for a long time, mainly used to treat autistic children or adults with severe anxiety issues. There are a number of studies done on the effectiveness of weighted blankets, but the majority of supporting evidence I’ve found has been anecdotal. After using the Gravis Weighted Blanket for a few weeks, you can definitely add my experience to all of the positive feedback surrounding weighted blankets. Results may vary among individuals though, so I’m not going to debate the effectiveness of weight blankets in general; I’ll just be reviewing this particular weighted blanket by Ethohome.

The Gravis Weighted Blanket comes in a box that at first seems way too small to hold such a heavy item. The plastic handle on mine was broken when it arrived and the company has since rebranded itself from Montage to Ethohome, so the packaging may be different and of better quality at this point.

The Gravis blanket comes with an attached cover and is compacted into what appeared to be a vacuum sealed plastic bag.

Once removed from the plastic bag the blanket expands a bit. Upon first picking up the deceptively light looking blanket you’ll quickly realize how difficult it is to manage a 15-25 pound blanket.

Design and features

The design of the Gravis is similar to most other weighted blankets. The blankets achieve their weight via thousands of glass pellets sewn into little sections of the blanket. The Gravis stands out in my opinion mainly because of how quiet the pellets are. A few other weighted blankets I’ve tried have been really noisy, producing a loud rain-on-a-tin-roof sound every time I rolled over or shifted my weight. The cover of the Gravis may be to thank for this; it’s a thick felt-like material that’s very soft to the touch.

You’ll find that most weighted blankets don’t come in traditional bed-covering sizes like full, queen, or king. Weighted blankets those sizes would be impossible to manage and the weight would be dispersed too much to be effective. The 25 pound Gravis I tested measures 72 x 48 inches.

For maximum benefit, Ethohome recommends using a blanket that’s about 10% of your body weight. Although some people may prefer a heavier or lighter blanket. It’s also very important to remember that the Gravis, or any weighted blanket for that matter, should not be used by children under the age of four or by any individual weighing 50 pounds. It would be very easy for a child or person that small to not be able to move themselves out from under a heavier blanket and that could prove dangerous.

The quality of the seams on the Gravis is impressive. After a few weeks of use and making my bed each morning, there are no signs of pulls or tears.

The Gravis itself is secured to its cover via strong fabric ties in each corner. The cover has a sturdy zipper that folds away discreetly once it’s closed.

I did notice that after some time, the blanket started to bunch up in the corners a bit. With a regular blanket this is easily remedied by tossing it up into the air and laying it back out flat on the bed. That won’t be possible with the Gravis, but it wasn’t too difficult to spread the blanket out flat again and work out the bunching.

The Ethohome website says that the Gravis’ cover is machine washable, but that the blanket should only be hand-washed. That makes sense, because I’d never expect something this heavy to be washed effectively in a consumer strength washing machine.

Performance

I’m a restless sleeper. I’ll wake up anywhere from two to three times each night, lie awake for a bit and then fall back asleep. While using the Gravis, I’ve had the most complete night’s sleep since I can remember. I no longer wake up during the night and I’ve found that I fall asleep much faster than ever before. The few times I’ve slept away from home during the testing period, I found myself missing the comforting weight and restful sleep the Gravis provided.

What I like

  • Included Duvet cover
  • Great quality

What needs to be improved

  • Can bunch up

Final thoughts

Weighted blankets may not work for everyone, but if they do work for you, the Ethohome Gravis is a great choice. The Gravis is of very high quality, has an included cover, and is reasonably priced. The Gravis comes in one color, Space Gray and three versions; 15, 20, and 25 pound.

Price: $269.99 for the 25lb version
Where to buy: Ethohome
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Ethohome.

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Ethohome Gravis Weighted Blanket review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 13, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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