How to Reactivate Kuna Camera Again
At a Glance
Expert'due south Rating
Pros
- Outdoor light, video camera, and intercom in the same footprint equally your old porch light
- Real-time video monitoring, plus motion-triggered video recordings
- Very easy to install
Cons
- Optional subscription plan actually isn't optional
- Heavy-handed push to the mid-priced subscription
- Can't be managed from a computer (smartphone or tablet but)
Our Verdict
This is a great dwelling house-security device that could brand you lot safer in your habitation, but nearly people shouldn't buy one unless they're ready to also commit to ane of the "optional" subscription services.
Nosotros dig the Kuna smart dwelling house security light. It replaces your existing porch low-cal with one featuring a congenital-in video camera, a motion detector, a Wi-Fi adapter, and a two-way intercom. It connects to your home network and sends alerts to your smartphone when someone approaches your door. It volition too tape a downloadable video clip, and you can speak to the person in real time or play pre-recorded greetings that will encourage them to become abroad. There'southward just one major drawback: Y'all'll need to pay a subscription fee to get the virtually value from it.
Before I get to that, let me tell y'all about the Kuna and its sister device, the Maximus (substantially the aforementioned product with a different name. It'due south also $199 and is bachelor at Best Purchase and Home Depot). Both lights characteristic bonny industrial designs and are available in three models to friction match your home's décor. Nosotros reviewed the Craftsman model, but you might prefer the Traditional or Contemporary looks (see below).
Whichever model you choose, yous'll get what looks like a conventional porch light with all of the features I've outlined above. The integrated motion detector sends an alert to your smartphone whenever someone steps into the vicinity, and it triggers its onboard video camera to capture whatever is going on within its somewhat narrow 116-caste field of view. The camera is capable of recording video (with sound) at upward to 720p, only the actual resolution depends on the bandwidth available on your broadband connexion (Kuna recommends you have a minimum uplink speed of 1Mbps). These clips are uploaded to the cloud—just they're bachelor for viewing for just two hours if yous don't have a subscription, and you can download but 3 clips per month.
Kuna The Kuna home security low-cal is bachelor in 3 architectural styles.
Installing the photographic camera
The Kuna is very piece of cake to install—the documentation is articulate and easy to sympathise, and the manufacturer provides a couple of tools that make the process easier (including a rigid wire that you tin temporarily hang the fixture from while yous're connecting the electrical wires). The camera lens pivots in its enclosure underneath the calorie-free, but I had a little problem maneuvering it into only the right position to capture all the area in front of the door.
While I tin't entirely fault the camera for that, it is something you'll want to keep in mind if you're replacing an existing lite (and you will be unless you lot're wiring a location that doesn't already have one). You connect the camera to your Wi-Fi network by first establishing a Bluetooth connectedness betwixt it and your phone. Enter your Wi-Fi passcode into the app, and it then seamlessly establishes the connection to your router.
Back to the issue I encountered: When I took down the existing porch lite from the 1950s dwelling house I installed the Kuna at, I discovered that at that place was no junction box—the existing low-cal was screwed into the siding and there were just ii wires sticking out of the wall. And then I had to take a keyhole saw, enlarge the existing small hole, and put a box in (both to protect the wiring and to have something that I could secure the lite to). Simply the calorie-free ended up higher on the wall than the swivel around the lens could recoup for.
Kuna The camera and motion sensor are mounted beneath the light. You can manually pivot the lens, but this is not a motorized pan/tilt camera.
The Kuna isn't outfitted with infrared LEDs, so it depends on the light being turned on to capture video at nighttime. Since nigh porch lights are connected to wall switches, y'all'll want to pick up a guard that will prevent the switch from being turned off, disabling the camera. Something like an Amertac-Westek CSG1 would do the trick, and they're inexpensive ($i.99 for a pair, bachelor at Amazon). The Kuna is equipped with an E26 socket, so yous could screw an incandescent bulb into it, but the company recommends using either an LED or a CFL seedling with maximum brightness of 800 lumens to eliminate glare on the camera lens.
You can turn the light on manually from within the app (available for Android and iOS devices), program information technology to plough on in response to motion, or program it to plough on at dusk and off at dawn (or on and off at specific times, if you prefer). Yous can also use one schedule for weekdays and an independent i for weekends. You can do the same for the motility detector. Don't want to be disturbed by alerts? You can turn that feature off (though yous shouldn't) or program a timer to disable them temporarily. If you have multiple cameras, you can re-create these settings to all the units registered to the app. At that place is no web log-in, unfortunately, so you lot can't monitor the photographic camera from a computer. Y'all tin grant access to multiple users; they simply demand to install the app.
The camera has a express field of view, making information technology easy for a visitor to stand exterior its range (assuming they know the camera is there, of grade).
The Kuna app is really well washed. You lot can get a existent-time view whenever you desire. When information technology alerts you that someone is at your door, you can see a live feed from the camera and converse with that person in real time using your smartphone (the light has both a mic and a speaker).
If you don't want to utilise your own voice—if you lot'd prefer not to reveal your gender, for example—yous can push a button to play iii pre-recorded messages in a male vocalism: "Can I assistance y'all?" "I'm sorry, nosotros're not interested," and "I'm sorry, we're pretty busy right at present." If your unwanted visitor proves reluctant to go out, yous can audio a 100dB klaxon that should practise the trick.
You should be enlightened, however, that the simply voice the recordings will capture is from the person on the other side of the door. A Kuna spokesperson told me the mic doesn't record whatyou lotare proverb considering it would create an repeat.
About those subscriptions
The subscription fee isn't particularly onerous—$4.99 per month if you pay for service a full year at a time—but that's a per camera fee (and it jumps to $seven.49 if billed monthly). A fourteen-day gratis trial is included, which will convince you in short order that you want the full Monty. If you decide you lot love the Kuna so much you lot want to add one to your back door, too, yous'll want to motion up to the $9.99-per-month plan, which is skillful for up to four cameras. Now you lot can deploy a camera at your garage door also as some other entry signal for skilful measure out. If y'all live in a very large home, you lot tin deploy up to eight Kuna lights and pay $19.99 per month.
All three service plans include unlimited video downloads, lifetime theft protection (if someone has the audacity to steal your low-cal, Kuna volition replace information technology for free), and discounts on future device purchases (5, 10, and 15 percent respectively). Video retentiveness time also increases as you move up the three plans: Seven days with the base of operations plan, 14 days with the midrange plan, and 30 days for the nearly-expensive plan.
Our recommendation
At $200, the Kuna costs most the same as a budget porch light and an outdoor home security camera, but it's far easier to install than buying those two devices separately considering that they both need electrical power. The hardware and the software are excellent. But you'll quickly discover that the "optional" subscription fee is more of a requirement than a selection, because two hours of look-back time and three downloads per month won't be adequate if you suffer a break-in and desire forensic evidence to assist the police force detect the perp.
The $4.99-per-month plan is reasonable if you can resist the temptation to add a 2d unit, but most people won't. And calculation merely one more camera doubles your monthly commitment. Yes, yous can add together iii more cameras once y'all footstep up, merely Kuna doesn't offer whatsoever indoor models, leaving a pigsty in your coverage. We'd rate the Kuna higher if the base programme supported two cameras. As for the top-of-the-line eight-camera service, you should consider a full-blown continued-dwelling house/security system with a professional monitoring service fastened at that indicate. Yous'll pay a piffling more, but you'll go a lot more than than merely perimeter video security.
Source: https://www.techhive.com/article/582355/kuna-smart-home-security-light-review-a-great-product-but-consider-the-full-cost.html
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