1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:06,680
the original drop cam took the home monitoring Market by storm and the drop

2
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,320
cam Pro claims to be even better maybe it's as amazing as they say maybe it's

3
00:00:08,880 --> 00:00:16,599
designed to pre on people with more money than sents maybe the truth lies

4
00:00:12,559 --> 00:00:16,599
somewhere in between watch on to find

5
00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:26,599
out the Jazz mini phone and tablet stand from coolermaster is now available in a

6
00:00:24,880 --> 00:00:30,320
variety of cool colors from these great retailers click now to learn more the

7
00:00:29,119 --> 00:00:35,600
unboxing experience for consumer-friendly products from Smart Brands is always good and was actually

8
00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:40,239
kind of fun in this case because other than hearing ads on the radio I did no

9
00:00:38,399 --> 00:00:44,559
research on the drop cam Pro before buying one to do this review the camera

10
00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:49,039
comes pre-installed in a simple aluminum Mount there's a quick start guide that

11
00:00:46,399 --> 00:00:53,559
I'll be using to test their 60-second setup claim there are some screws and a

12
00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:59,039
wall mount that the bass clips into and then I was a bit surprised to find out

13
00:00:55,320 --> 00:01:01,920
that it's powered by a long thick micro

14
00:00:59,039 --> 00:01:05,640
USB cable on a wall wart instead of something thinner easier to find

15
00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:09,520
sensible places to plug in and more durable let's go back to the camera

16
00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:14,200
though at the front there's an all glass 130° wideangle lens not good for a

17
00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:18,799
cinematic look but definitely useful if you want to monitor a large area since

18
00:01:15,960 --> 00:01:23,320
there's no support for pan and tilt and behind that lens is a new high

19
00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:27,880
sensitivity thir in sensor that's about two times the surface area of the older

20
00:01:25,479 --> 00:01:32,240
HD model making it better for load light situations you can't see them now but

21
00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:37,000
around the lens are some unexceptional IR LEDs that it uses for night mode and

22
00:01:34,759 --> 00:01:42,320
then at the bottom we find the micro USB plug for power or setup if you decide to

23
00:01:39,439 --> 00:01:46,479
use a PC finally internally we find a speaker as well as a little microphone

24
00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:50,240
port for two-way voice a dualband wireless end setup and Bluetooth low

25
00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:55,479
energy for setting up with a smartphone or tablet if you choose to go that route

26
00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:59,159
now on to setup but first story time now I'd heard of drop cam but I never really

27
00:01:57,399 --> 00:02:03,560
cared about it because I've been burned by subpar our consumer grade network

28
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:07,439
cameras so many times that I was just over them as a category all the ones

29
00:02:05,759 --> 00:02:12,040
that you're looking at now I was given for free and still never bothered to use

30
00:02:10,039 --> 00:02:16,959
because they were just too useless and horrible and it was always the same

31
00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:19,480
issues complicated setup flaky apps

32
00:02:16,959 --> 00:02:23,480
rubbish image quality and worst of all feature lists that were so short it was

33
00:02:21,959 --> 00:02:27,040
almost like the manufacturer was intentionally nerfing the product to

34
00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:31,120
avoid cannibalizing the sales of a higher-end offering in spite of the fact

35
00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:35,720
that many of these companies didn't even have higher-end offerings anyway the

36
00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:40,560
thing that made me say maybe there's something to this was the fact that Nest

37
00:02:38,319 --> 00:02:46,040
owned by Google acquired them and then I knew I had to review it when I saw their

38
00:02:42,599 --> 00:02:48,599
claims of 60c setup did they really find

39
00:02:46,040 --> 00:02:54,239
the Holy Grail of networking product development was it that easy to deploy

40
00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:57,400
the answer is actually yeah um it takes a lot longer than a minute and their own

41
00:02:55,920 --> 00:03:02,280
website seems to have been updated to reflect that even if Amazon's hasn't but

42
00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:06,519
for PC setup you plug it in with a USB cable and follow the onscreen prompts

43
00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:11,080
and for smartphone setup you pair it via Bluetooth install the app and follow the

44
00:03:08,959 --> 00:03:15,360
onscreen prompts the guide they guide you through creating a Dropcam account

45
00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:19,519
connecting to your Wi-Fi network and placing the drop cam within Wi-Fi range

46
00:03:17,959 --> 00:03:24,640
somewhere that it'll monitor something useful so not the inside of your petery

47
00:03:22,239 --> 00:03:28,879
drawer then once it's configured the Simplicity keeps on coming using a

48
00:03:26,640 --> 00:03:33,680
browser on a PC or the app you can monitor the camera live you can zoom you

49
00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:38,879
have two-way voice communication with people or pets on the other side albeit

50
00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:41,080
with a significant delay and you can

51
00:03:38,879 --> 00:03:44,640
categorize repetitive events so that drop cam will either notify you when a

52
00:03:42,920 --> 00:03:49,319
certain important thing happens let's say whenever the front door opens or

53
00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:52,959
ignore it when uninteresting things happen let's say when the cat jumps up

54
00:03:50,799 --> 00:03:57,480
onto the bookshelf this is cool because these events also enable you to much

55
00:03:55,120 --> 00:04:03,159
more quickly scrub through save footage in the PVR uh sorry CV ER feature where

56
00:04:00,959 --> 00:04:07,120
it marks them on a timeline so finding out when little s came home last night

57
00:04:05,120 --> 00:04:10,680
is super easy too bad this functionality is let down by a couple of small

58
00:04:08,799 --> 00:04:15,400
problems so first it's still Beta And there are some Kinks to work out basic

59
00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:20,560
stuff's okay but the more complicated uh classifying things on its own yeah is a

60
00:04:18,280 --> 00:04:27,040
little bit rough right now and second CVR stands for cloud video recorder a

61
00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:31,000
subscription based service that you need to pay for monthly in order to do

62
00:04:28,840 --> 00:04:38,840
anything other than monitor the drop cam live yeah after your pathetic 14-day

63
00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:41,000
trial of CVR to make the let's face it

64
00:04:38,840 --> 00:04:46,160
not that special plastic camera that you already paid $200 for useful for

65
00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:51,840
anything other than live streaming you need to pay $100 a year for your first

66
00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:56,800
drop cam and $50 a year for each subsequent one and that's if you only

67
00:04:54,160 --> 00:05:01,560
want the last 7 Days of Saved footage 30 days costs triple there is no Hardware

68
00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:05,080
reason that drop cam can't store footage on a drive or a PC on the same network

69
00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:09,039
which would save bandwidth from your monthly data cap and improve the quality

70
00:05:07,479 --> 00:05:13,639
of your internet use experience since constantly uploading 720p video will

71
00:05:11,479 --> 00:05:16,759
affect your network speed especially if you start adding more than one camera

72
00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:20,639
and while I'm aware of the feature that turns off video recording when you're at

73
00:05:18,479 --> 00:05:24,360
home that's kind of ridiculous to me I mean what if a couple robbers team up

74
00:05:22,280 --> 00:05:27,560
for the classic you make sure they stay in the garden while I empty out the

75
00:05:25,759 --> 00:05:31,840
house strategy I guess I don't need footage of that when it comes time to

76
00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:36,360
report it police right no so in conclusion while drop cam solves some of

77
00:05:34,759 --> 00:05:41,560
my original complaints about network cameras yeah those ones it really is

78
00:05:39,039 --> 00:05:46,440
amazingly easy to use I mean here look I'll log into it right now you can go

79
00:05:43,840 --> 00:05:52,199
from not being logged in to being logged in and live monitoring your camera or

80
00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:55,280
reviewing your DVR CVR excuse me in that

81
00:05:52,199 --> 00:05:56,520
much time zoom in zoom out it's really

82
00:05:55,280 --> 00:06:01,199
easy to use sadly it's yet another device

83
00:05:59,840 --> 00:06:04,960
designed to deliver as little functionality as it can unless you're

84
00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:09,160
willing to Fork out what I really think is an unreasonable amount of money for

85
00:06:06,599 --> 00:06:14,560
the subscription but honestly I don't blame drop cam for any of this for over

86
00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:19,880
a span of let's say 3 years charging each customer $500 to maintain 7 Days of

87
00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:23,759
recorded video from a camera that isn't weather resistant is powered by USB for

88
00:06:22,120 --> 00:06:27,000
some inexplicable reason and becomes nothing more than a fancy baby monitor

89
00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:31,880
the instant that they stop paying for the subscription drop cam saw customers

90
00:06:29,479 --> 00:06:36,080
paying 30 to 50 bucks a month for much less useful home alarm systems they

91
00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:41,160
delivered a better product saw amazing success and got bought out good for them

92
00:06:38,199 --> 00:06:44,800
no the one that I blame is the other consumer networking and video

93
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:48,440
surveillance companies who had years to get their act together and deliver

94
00:06:46,319 --> 00:06:54,639
something that works half decently and couldn't manage to do it so now we have

95
00:06:51,919 --> 00:06:58,960
this it works I just think it's too expensive speaking of things that work

96
00:06:56,919 --> 00:07:03,400
half decently and aren't too expensive and let you watch videos Hulu Plus that

97
00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:07,280
was wow that was a terrible segue anyway the plus part of Hulu Plus is key

98
00:07:05,199 --> 00:07:11,120
compared to regular Hulu this gives you access to all current season episodes of

99
00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:15,199
a bunch of network TV shows on your own schedule and lets you stream videos on

100
00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:19,280
pretty much any device you already own like your iPad or Roku Hulu Plus gives

101
00:07:17,560 --> 00:07:23,599
you access to more obscure stuff like Korean dramas kids shows and Criterion

102
00:07:21,319 --> 00:07:27,520
movies so you can be watching an anime like sort out online then switch over to

103
00:07:25,639 --> 00:07:31,560
the latest episodes of a network TV show like bones all within the same service

104
00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:35,039
you'll also get access to Originals that you can't get anywhere else like The

105
00:07:33,199 --> 00:07:39,319
Awesomes created by Seth Myers and Mike Shoemaker an animated comedy about a

106
00:07:37,039 --> 00:07:43,479
misfit group of superheroes all 10 episodes of season 1 are available now

107
00:07:41,440 --> 00:07:47,639
and season 2 premieres on August the 4th so guys be sure to check out Hulu Plus

108
00:07:45,120 --> 00:07:52,159
using my link huluplus.com Linus to get a free twoe trial it costs only $7.99 a

109
00:07:50,759 --> 00:07:57,199
month once you're done with the two-e trial and if you use the link in the video description again that's H

110
00:07:54,680 --> 00:08:01,120
plus.com Linus you get that extra week free since they actually give you a onee

111
00:07:59,319 --> 00:08:04,680
trial for free no matter who you are even if you sign up without a code but

112
00:08:02,599 --> 00:08:09,759
two weeks is better than one week right yay unless it's community service for

113
00:08:06,879 --> 00:08:13,080
that time that you anyway I what was I talking about uh thanks for watching the

114
00:08:11,159 --> 00:08:18,960
video guys like if you liked dislike if you disliked leave a comment tell me am

115
00:08:15,440 --> 00:08:21,879
I being unreasonable is is $10 a month

116
00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:25,840
totally fine and making you pay more with each one I mean is it just a matter

117
00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:29,039
of well lus it's that much better than everything else so you know that's why

118
00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:34,519
I'd love to hear from you guys do you have a drop cam what do you think of it

119
00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:37,279
let's just leave it at that there's a support us Link in the video description

120
00:08:35,959 --> 00:08:42,120
where you guys can buy a t-shirt give us a monthly contribution or change your Amazon bookmarks to one that gives us a

121
00:08:40,599 --> 00:08:45,200
little Kickback whenever you buy I don't know drop cams or whatever else is

122
00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:50,200
you're buying on Amazon and I think that's pretty much it as always don't

123
00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:50,200
forget to subscribe if you haven't

124
00:08:58,200 --> 00:09:01,200
already