At 2016 CES, Netatmo unveiled a new smart surveillance camera that can tell the difference between a person and an animal, calling it the Presence.
Usually, a home security camera immediately alerts the owners of any movement it detects, which could be quite a hassle when it keeps sending out those notifications for no real reason at all. That's a bit of a problem, but fortunately, that's what Netatmo intends to fix.
While there are cameras out there with night vision-capable sensors shaped like an owl, the Presence boasts a deep learning system called Smart-Sight. No, it's not shaped like an animal. Design-wise, it looks like something between a box-shaped office tool and a device out of a sci-fi movie.
It's made for outdoors, and it sports an enormous light on top of the camera, which is why it seems somewhat clunky. As such, it can function as a floodlight too, and it can be set to turn on automatically depending on what it detects - it can light up when a person shows up or stay idle when a cat passes by, for example.
The Netatmo Presence connects with a smartphone, computer, tablet or Apple Watch via Wi-Fi, allowing owners to modify its settings through an app. On the app, users will be able to adjust the perimeter for the security camera's field of view and set specific zones to monitor, and they can turn the floodlight option on or off there too. The device uses infrared to see in the dark at night when the floodlight is off.
What's more, users can set it to alert them only when it spots a person so that there won't be any unnecessary notification. When it's facing the road, the camera can also be set not to send an alarm when it sees a car driving by except if it pulls into the house's driveway.
Compared with the company's indoor camera, however, it can't recognize faces because Presence won't be able to get a good look at every person all the time, according to Netatmo.
At any time, users can take a good look at the outside of their homes, as they can watch a live stream through connected devices. If they missed out on or simply want to navigate around all the occurrences, Presence also records each instance it detects something on an organized timeline, using labels such as "Person seen," "Car seen" and "Animal seen" with accurate timestamps beside them.
Presence has a 4 MP sensor with a field of view of 100 degrees, supporting a resolution up to 1,920 x 1,080. In terms of connectivity, it has a respectable Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n. As for the storage, the device supports a microSD card up to 32 GB. Through FTP, it can also directly store video files to a personal server. At any rate, the company has set the video storage to be completely free, saying that there'll be no subscription, fee or contract involved.
"Presence goes way beyond existing outdoor security solutions on the market. As the only consumer outdoor security system using a sophisticated deep learning technology, Smart-Sight, Presence is able to analyze and report precisely what's happening outside the home. It provides the best response to the fast growing demand of outdoor smart security systems," Fred Potter, founder and CEO of Netatmo, says (PDF).
Installing it is a breeze too, as the weatherproof camera can just take the spot of any outdoor fixture. In other words, there's no need to call in a specialist or electrician to do the work.
In just a few minutes and steps, the reliable and smart camera can protect a home. Just set up Presence outside on a mount, connect it to the Wi-Fi and configure the settings.
The Netatmo Presence really turned some heads at CES 2016, and it's no mystery why. With the smart camera, the company could be redefining what security means in "home security."
Currently, there's no price yet, but the Netatmo Presence is expected to hit the market in the third quarter of 2016.
