Orb Cam

I wasn't sure what to expect from such a modestly-priced device but I'm hugely impressed. Image quality is excellent both during the day and at night, with the latter offering pretty much perfect clarity - something I was concerned about but needn't have been.Set-up is extremely straightforward, although it's well worth reading the instructions first. I didn't, so was initially unaware, for example, that the SD card needs to be formatted by the camera before it can be mounted. Got a bit frustrated there until I realized where I was going wrong. Wifi connection is a breeze, aided by step-by-step on-screen instructions from the app. Speaking of which, I use the Android version, and it's great. It doesn't have the best rating for some reason, but it enables you to do everything that you need to: checking live feed from the camera, panning/tilting the view, activating the speaker etc. I have yet to encounter any issues with it.Other things I'm pleased about: the app and the device firmware are both being continually developed, so are inevitably going to improve. There's an online forum, so you can head over there to get questions answered (or offer advice if you've got any). Finally, there's a range of subscription plans available for cloud storage, beginning at only $19.99 per year (which is way less than a decent quality and/or high capacity memory card will cost you).The one niggle I can think of is that, although the camera can pan left, right and up, it can't pan down. This might be an issue for monitoring pets on the ground unless you've got a low location to place or mount it. Other than that, I'm thrilled with it. Excellent value for money and top quality results. I have no problem recommending it from among the sea of similar devices.

We already had a couple of Netvue products, so choosing Netvue again for this one was logical - no proliferation of phone apps to view things, and the support and product quality is largely known.This camera is clearly designed for internal use since its SDcard and USB power sockets have no protection against moisture (or dust), and the joins in the camera body are equally unprotected. As you can see from the product photos, it is a reasonably nice form to sit unobtrusively on a shelf or table.The specs for this camera show pan being 300 degrees and tilt being 100 degrees. In practice, these may not be as limiting as they first appear: a full 360 degrees horizontally can be seen, but it’s achieved by the left edge overlapping the right edge on full turn.Similarly, the vertical coverage is limited below the horizontal by the camera housing, so if it was mounted high up on a wall there would be very limited view below it. However, in this situation the camera can be mounted upside-down and a software switch flicked to rotate the image 180 degrees. Voila! Now there is 90 degrees tilt down and 10 degrees up, which would be perfect for that position.The camera comes with a light-weight wall-mount bracket, which should be good for ceiling and upside-down mounting. Unfortunately, whoever designed it wasn’t talking to the camera designer because the feet on the camera prevent the mounting screw from reaching the thread. I’ve attached a photo showing the problem, and it should be clear that without the rubber feet the screw would just reach the thread enough to get a grip. In numbers, the screw projects 3mm whilst the feet hold it off by 2.18mm, leaving just 0.82mm to feed into the thread. But there is more than 1mm lead-in...All is not lost, though. The underside of the mount is narrower than the camera feet, thus the camera body can sit close enough to the mount if it’s mounted upside-down. Obviously, in practice it’s the mount that would be upside-down.Initial setup of IoT devices I’ve found to be a bit problematic recently. My WiFi is a mesh thing and my phone 5GHz-capable, so that’s what it connects at. However, most IoT devices are 2.4GHz only, and since they use an ad-hoc AP for initial config (where your phone has to connect direct to them), the only way I manage to do it is with an old 2.4GHz only phone.The Netvue camera devices are different. Sure, they complain about 5GHz networks, but that’s only to make sure they can connect to the thing. The clever bit is that your phone scans a QR code on the device, then generates a display showing a QR code which you shove in front of the lens. That QR code has all the info needed for the camera to connect, so no direct connection with your phone is needed. Magic.Having said that, the way status is made known is via some noises: cat, dog, happy, sad. If you can’t hear these you’re pretty much stuffed and have to do it blind (no, sorry, deaf). Some better indication via the LED would make this much easier for disabled people.Netvue’s products are cloud-based in that operation isn’t possible without internet access. Additionally, their cameras can store recordings in the cloud for a small monthly (or yearly, if that’s how you prefer to pay) fee. Ten or so seconds of motion triggered recording is quite cheap, 24/7 continuous recording rather more expensive. If you have one camera this is not too onerous, but if you have a few the fees soon add up.However, this camera has an SDcard slot which, when populated, allows the camera to make continuous recording to it. Viewing that recording is a local affair (that is, the video data is transferred locally without cloud involvement), albeit the internet connection is still needed to control it. Recording locally like this doesn’t involve any cloud fees.There are two ways of controlling pan and tilt on this camera. Firstly, the portrait mini-screen has an arrow-based control (which takes up a fair amount of space, hence the mini-screen). Press the appropriate arrow and the camera moves that way. There is a certain minimum amount of movement when doing this (perhaps not through programming, but certainly through how quickly one can press and release the arrow), so it’s difficult to get precise positioning via this method. But moving a long way is quick and simple.The landscape screen has no obvious controls taking up space. To pan or tilt, one drags the image in the desired direction. Clearly, the movement is restricted to the limits of the view, so panning a long way involves lots of dragging. But positioning is very precise, so this is the best method for small movements and the arrow control on the portrait screen better for large movements.Since all camera control is relayed via the internet, there is a certain amount of lag between initiating movement and something visibly happening. This could be a real problem for precise positioning, but Netvue have arranged it so that whatever part of the image you touch, when you’ve dragged your finger to some destination, that’s where that part of the image ends up. Thus the lag can be annoying at times, but positioning is very accurate despite that.As is common with this type of camera, there is no optical zoom. However, since the video is full HD it is possible to perform reasonable digital zoom without artifacts showing up. The composite zoom image shows a useful range.The Netvue app has two pages for viewing video: first is the landing page in portrait mode where you get a small video window and some controls, and second is the HD playback page where the video is full-screen in landscape mode. The portrait video is apparently ‘stretch to fit’ with a specific height, which means the sides of it are squashed, leading to a distorted view (seen in the screencap, compared to the landscape view for reference). I’m fairly sure that once upon a time the app kept the aspect ratio, so the edges of the video were clipped but it looked right. One could pan the video window to see the missing edges with a swipe.My preference is for the fixed aspect ration since the edges of the video don’t normally contain anything interesting, and if they did it’s a simple matter to slide them into view. But the undistorted video is much easier to look at. Maybe the developers will bring that back or allow it as an option...This is very nice kit for the price, and mostly well thought out. There are some rough patches and the odd (metaphorical) sharp edge. Most should be fixable with a software or firmware update, though it remains to be seen if Netvue resolve them.

Neatly packaged and aesthetically pleasing, the camera is easy to set up with the enclosed instructions and the app. Nice extras are; the fittings to attach the bracket to the wall/ceiling, and a fitting template.Picture quality is excellent in both modes, with good fidelity and range. I've yet to try the motion tracking function, so I haven't rated it. The camera has a good range of movement and generous azimuth Field of View.The intercom function is useful, though can sometimes be difficult to hear clearly when transmitting; that said it is a secondary function to the camera.The USB cable is a sound choice of power delivery, allowing the user flexibility to easily source alternative cable lengths, if required.Overall I'd give this product 4.5 stars, but that's not an option.What would get this product 5 stars?When the camera is placed on a flat surface, improvement could be made to the housing and camera gimbal to allow depression below the horizontal.An option to allow an audio notification, or change to the LED status when a remote viewing is active could be added via firmware update. This would allow the user to chose whether to view the feed discreetly, for security purposes, or alert people in the vicinity when being viewed e.g. when your wife has got bored of watching the puppy sleeping, and is now seeing what you're having for lunch (along with her whole office).Overall, a great product that has room for some minor improvements. Strongly minded to purchase more to enhance home security and compliment wife's sixth sense with real time video feed.