Today, we are going to check out the light house camera. They contacted me recently asking if I can review their AI camera. And I said sure why not…They are not a regular WiFi security camera. Their main selling point is that it uses AI or artificial intelligence to make your video footage searchable based on the questions you type in or say on the app.
You can ask it which I mean literally talk to it on the app and ask if it saw a specific person or persons that day. You can set it so that you get notified if a family member or a dog walker or house keeper came in. It can differentiate people because of its facial recognition feature.
If you have people at your house, you normally cancel motion alerts because if not, then you will get bombarded with notifications. With the light house camera, you don’t have to. It will notify you if it saw a person that it didn’t recognize.
It is not 100% accurate though. The thing about the light house and it’s AI is that it continously learns, so it should get better with use.
The light house uses 3D time of flight sensor which basically will be able to determine the distance between the camera, persons and objects in the room producing a 3D model of the scene. It will not get triggered by lights and shadows. It will only notify you on 3D movements minimizing and eliminating false alerts.
It can also distinguish between adults, children and pets. So, you can ask specifically for dog footage or kids footage. This is also not 100% accurate and I’ll show you later on.
Aside from those, let’s check out its regular features.
It is a 1080p full HD plus it’s 3D time of flight sensor.
112° camera field of view.
You can tilt the camera up or down or install it with the optional wall mount.
It has 2 way audio
and has a security siren
It can be connected to a 2.4 or 5 GHz WiFi
It records videos to a secure cloud storage – Amazon Web Services
which has 256 bit data encryption
Operating temparature is from -32 degrees to 104 degrees fahrenheit and this camera is for indoors only.
So, now let’s open up the box….
Packaging of this camera is pretty nice..
We have the power adapter which uses 12 volts
Then, we have the camera itself.
Aside from the FCC Statement, there is a small note to just plug in the camera, install the app and it should be ready to go.
This camera has some weight on it. It is pretty robust and is well made.
We have the sensors and the camera lens in the front. This round silver glass looking thing is the 3D sensor and the camera lens in the bottom. The upper half is for the IR LED lights.
We also have the mic and speakers in the front.
The body is made of hard plastic. It is a pretty solidly built camera.
On the back, we have the power supply slot and some vents for the camera.
On the bottom here is a rubber pad to keep this camera from sliding around.
Time to setup the camera..First, download the app if you haven’t done it yet.
Click allow for the camera to send you notifications.
Sign up for an account but before that, plug in the camera.
Create an account and click on I have a camera.
Click got it and wait for the cameras’ status light to turn blue.
Select the WiFi network you want to use and type in the password.
Select which area of the house you placed the camera.
Click always for location services. This is needed for the camera to know if you are in the area and this is another feature that compliments the facial recognition and making sure the camera and app knows that either you are home or not.
Then, type in the information so as to create your account.
The lighthouse also recommends to invite your family and trusted guests to get the app..
Now, let’s test the camera’s basic features if it stacks up as a security camera. First, video quality….
Ok…now, something is not right…it took about 5 minutes of searching on the settings then I realized that the light house doesn’t record audio…really? for a state of the art camera? wow… There is 2 way audio so the mic and speakers are there..so this can easily be integrated with a firmware update…but really…
Now, for the night vision…
BTW, that blue halo light can be turned on or off and it will show when it detects people and it will show a yellow one if it is an animal or pets.
I’ve definitely seen other cameras that have better night vision…but do you notice the flickering? It has 4 LED IRs that are always on…but that flickering just bothers me. I searched night vision video samples from this camera and the flickering is there.
Now, let’s check out the app and the camera’s features and settings.
On the main home screen you will have the live feed of the camera which there is no pinch out to zoom in feature. You can turn it to landscape mode but still you cannot zoom in…
Back to the main screen there is the siren which you have to manually activate…
Then, we have the 2 way talk…
Then, we can turn on or off the camera…
You will also see who is at home and whoever who has the app and you have given access to. Remember the location service question earlier…this is why…
Then, we have the daily recap..which is a time lapse of all the motion activity that the camera recorded. It is a neat feature and I know Nest has this feature also.
Then, we have this person icon in which it will show any footages of people that were detected by the camera. The camera is pretty good on doing that.
Then, we have the kids icon in which it will ony show footages where children where detected. Not 100% as you can see, it is my wife that the camera thinks is a kid. Also it will depends on your body position. So, if you crouch or make yourself small, it will also trick the camera.
Then, we have the unrecognize faces icon which will show if there are any instances where the camera recorded somebody that it didn’t recognize. Occasionally it will not recognize somebody that has already been tagged so, it is not foolproof. This gets better the more you use and classify the snapshots which I’ll show later on.
Then, we have the pings which you can set it to notify you when persons or a specific person is seen by the camera. This is where this camera shines. You can set it to ping you if it sees somebody that you didn’t recognize or if any people activity when you are away…or if it sees your dog… or even guests that you have setup facial recognition like your dog walker, baby sitter or anybody.
Now, lets say….
Yes, it works…and while we are doing this, we will test out how fast the push notification is…
it notified me twice..first the camera saw a person and second, it was able to identify that the person was me…nice..
So, moving along…and at the bottom of the app is the home which is the main window…then we have people which you are able to tag the faces that the camera sees and label them…Here, I kinda tagged my family.
As you can see, you need to train the camera to be able to recognize you and it will show you instances of your face. To be able to improve the recognition feature of the camera, you just need to sort out from the pics and select your snapshots and assign them to your name.
And, I’ve done this also to everybody in my family and has drastically reduce the unrecognize face alerts that I get when I turn that ping or alert on…
Then, we have the events tab which will show you the history of what the app has done. You can see here that today, I did get 3 alerts of unidentified faces which are basically my kids that the camera has failed to identify. So, I’ll probably need to tag some more instances of our faces to improve the camera’s facial recognition.
Then, we have the ask tab which is basically like a search engine for this camera. It will show video results of questions that you ask or type in.
Lastly, the more tab which you will see the site settings,or if you want to setup another camera and the help and support pages.
Overall, this camera is mediocre as to video quality in both daytime and night vision. I don’t know why it doesn’t record audio which I think is backwards thinking especially for its price point. There is no zoom option which is another basic feature that this camera has missed.
There is no “record’ option on the main camera view and there are multiple steps to take just to be able to download a video clip. You have to click on the share option which the lighthouse servers needs to process and will alert you when it is done.
Then, to view the clip or to be able to share it, you will be forwarded to a link that with Iphone users, you are still not able to download the footage. You need to email it to yourself…it is a complicated process that can be easily fix if they can put that little record button on their main screen and be able to save the footage directly to your phone.
Now, let’s talk about the price. I agree that this camera is a unique one. I actually like it’s Ai features especially in able to give you an alert if a specific person has been seen. The technology is there which is why the price of the camera shows it. It retails for $299 dollars but to get the AI features, you will need to sign up for their AI service which is priced at $10/month.. which gives you 30 days of video history and all the AI features that this camera has to offer. You can also purchase the AI service for a one time fee of 200 bucks.. Now, I don’t think you are willing to buy this camera without its AI service because its function will be very limited. I was able to talk to the company rep about the camera’s issues and shortcoming especially the audio recording and they said that they are working on an update and should be released in the next few weeks or so. That is good that they are responsive and hopefully, they can make this camera’s basic features user friendly and also continue to work on their AI service to make the lighthouse a great camera.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXYM0Z-0vOg