Home Reviews Lifestyle Y-cam HomeMonitor HD Pro review

Y-cam HomeMonitor HD Pro review

This security camera stores video in the cloud

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85c62 main
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If you want to keep an eye on property when you are not at home, then your best bet is a security camera.

Better still if you can check up on things via your smartphone, it is so much easier than having to find a laptop to do it on.

The Y-Cam HomeMonitor HD Pro offers just that. This is a weatherproof outdoor camera which needs wall mounting. As such you will probably need to be a skilled amateur or get a handyperson in to do it. It also incorporates 24 IR LEDs for day and night 720p HD vision up to 10m and a high-spec microphone.

You will need to connect this then to an internet router and a power supply. It can be powered by Power-over-Ethernet and if you want the least amount of drilling this is the router you should go for. However, most home routers don’t offer this, so a separate power supply will be necessary. Unfortunately, there is a great big magnet on the end of the power supply so a great big hole is necessary to get this through the wall.

It is also wireless, so again you can use PoE to power it and connect to a wireless router (why?) or just use the power supply.

Once installed, you just set up the account that the camera will stream footage to and you are done.

The camera is in HD, but some users have reported that the footage is not quite HD enough for their liking. Seven days’ worth of recordings are kept on the cloud free of charge, but for a subscription of £29.99 a year you can extend this to 30 days.

The software is app for iOS doesn’t allow full function to camera settings like the full website. It is only useable for viewing live, archives, or turning the system cameras off/on. It would be great if the app could do this rather than having to go back to the full-fat version on the website.

While the camera is expensive at £199, you don’t have to pay an extra to host video in cloud, unless you want to extend the recording window past seven days. Of course, if you need to keep video, you can always download it from the internet.