The long list of connected home security cameras that are out on the market are a pretty standard affair – install and use an arbitrary app to notify you when someone is in the house. However, one company has put more thought into how to make home security smarter with the Yi Home Camera 2.
The first thing that puts this camera on a whole other level is the use of 1080p high definition video recording powered by a new generation Ambarella S2LM chipset, with low-power 28nm CMOS sensor, integrated ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, and H.264 HP 5.1 encoding technology. A F2.0 large aperture with 6 layers of Optical Lens also means that images are both crystal clear during the day and the nighttime.
It should be noted that most traditional home video systems usually have a very limited field of view, the Yi camera has a massive 130 degree ultra wide depth of field and built in human figure imaging, together with graphic image processing to detect human presence in an area not just the cat.
One thing that did impress us was the included gesture recognition. You can show a hand gesture in front of the camera within 2 meters and a video of 10 seconds will be recorded and sent to your mobile phone through the YI Home App. This worked very well and was easy to set up, it could be especially beneficial if you want to know if the kids got home safe from school as the gesture will alert whomever has the camera synced with the app.
The Yi Home Camera also takes baby monitoring to the extreme and claims to be able to detect the mood in the voice of a young child and alert you when they begin crying. While we did try to test this, it seems like a gimmicky selling feature and we were unable to determine if this actually was valid.
Lastly, the camera can be set up activity zones and human detection to count people in a space which could be very useful for small businesses needing added reassurance and better security measures.
The Yi Home Camera 2 is elegant, functional and clever. It blows away competition video quality wise and has some unique features that make this camera smarter than most.
Looks cool, I might get one from Geekbuying for $124, seems like a fair price.