Having security cameras installed in our homes now a common thing to do. It helps to provide us with a sense of security and is also useful tool to monitor young children and pets. Having a smart Wi-Fi camera is important because it allows user to monitor the video stream live. The Near Smart Camera is the latest smart product from Near and retails at S$49.90.
Unboxing
In the box, you will find the following items:
- Near Smart Camera
- User manual
- USB adaptor
- Micro-USB cable
- Accessories for mounting
Tech specs
| Colour | Matte White |
| Lens | F2.0 Aperture, 3.6mm focal length |
| Zoom | 5x Manual |
| Night vision | IR illuminates up to 10metres |
| Image sensor | 1/2.9″ 2MP CMOS |
| Field of view | 105° |
| Rotation | 23° / Second 355° Horizontal range 85° Vertical range |
| IP rating | IP20 Indoor use only |
| Video quality | Up to 1080p, H.264 encoding |
| Audio | Built-in microphone and speaker |
| Power | 110V ~ 240V (AC/DC), 5V 1A |
| Lifespan | 25,000hrs |
| Dimensions | ø 81 x H119 (mm) |
| Weight | 155g |
| Data usage | 5GB for 24hours in SD (720p), 7GB for 24hours in HD (1080p) Supports up to 128GB memory card |
Build quality and design
The Near Smart Camera is a pan-and-tilt Wi-Fi camera which features a one piece look with the moving components situated on the base. As such when panning, it is the base that moves. The design is simple and has a matte white colour finish. If you’re mounting this on your ceiling it shouldn’t stand out too much.
The Near Smart Camera is made mainly from plastic. Although some of the edges aren’t the most well chamfered, the build quality feels pretty tough. One thing to note about the Near Smart Camera is that the SD card slot is located within the lens module. You can access the SD card slot by pushing the lens upwards.
This means that you can only swap out the SD card when you power down the Near Smart Camera, which also kind of prevents anyone from easily the SD card easily. Near also sells micro SD card up to 128GB of storage.
User experience
The Near Smart Camera has a 105° field of view, which is decently wide. To put field of view in perspective, the iPhone ultra-wide lens has a field of view of 120°. You can record up to 1080p resolution which will take up 7GB of storage for 24 hours of continuous recording. I’d recommend recording on 1080p because the 720p video quality isn’t very sharp. At 1080p, the video quality isn’t exactly stellar as well, which I kind of expected from its 2-megapixel sensor. Having said that, the video quality is still sufficient enough to know what is going on, just do not expect iPhone-like video quality.
The microphone on the Near Smart Camera is average at best. Audio output sounds muffled and choked, although it is still possible to make out the words. This is likely due to the positioning the microphone, which will always be at the back of the camera lens. The microphone accuracy will deteriorate with the tracking feature turned on. This is because the movement of the camera creates a slight motorised sound which can interfere with the actual sound of the surroundings.
The box of the Near Smart Camera provides you with accessories to mount the camera to your ceiling. The app has a flip-screen toggle to flip the video along the vertical axis if your camera is ceiling mounted.
Motion detection and tracking
One key feature of the Near Smart Camera is its motion detection and tracking feature. The tracking feature will aim to keep the subject in the middle of the screen. It works the most reliably when there is only one moving subject. There is a slight lag in the tracking, meaning the camera moves about half a second after the subject has moved – which I find to be good enough. However, if the subject makes fast movements the camera can struggle to keep up.
The motion detection feature will send you a notification on your smartphone when it senses motion in the camera’s field of view. There is a feature called “human body filtering” which the camera will try to decipher if the motion is caused by a human body. If it detects a human body movement, it will send you a notification and a snapshot of the detection. You will be able to keep a log of all these detections and notifications in the Near app.
The motion detection is quite accurate. It was able to notify me rather reliably on the different motions I tested. Fast and close up motions can sometimes be hard for the Near Smart Camera to pickup, but any other motions is usually well detected.
Night vision
The Near Smart Camera also features night vision which allows the camera to identify what is going on even in complete darkness. The following image below was taken by the Near Smart Camera which was in a room what was completely dark.
The level of detail that the camera retains is pretty good.
Near App smart features
The app itself some features which could provide additional functionality depending on your type of usage. The functions are as follows:
Screenshot / Record
Screenshot simply allows you to snap a picture of what the camera is viewing, while Record takes a video. Both the images and video recorded will be saved in the “Photo album” tab. For iPhone, in order to bring the media taken to your camera roll you have to go to the app’s photo album and save it to your camera roll.
Speak
Speak is a feature that allows you to speak into the microphone of your phone which will be relayed to the speaker of the camera. The speaker is actually able to output what I said rather clearly.
Non-stop recording vs Event recording & scheduling
In the settings of the Near Smart Camera, you can choose whether you wish for the camera to record all the time (ie. non-stop) or only record when you choose to (ie. event recording – hitting the record button on the app).
The app also supports scheduled recording which allows you setup schedules to turn on/off the local recording. Scheduling should be used in hand which the non-stop recording turned on by the default. Perhaps you’re at home from 7pm onwards and do not require the camera to record, then you can setup a schedule to turn off local recording from 7pm, and turn back on from 12am onwards when you sleep.
Playback
Playback shows you a timeline of what the camera has recorded. If the Near Smart Camera is on event-recording, the playback will show only recordings which the camera has sensed a movement. This will be picked up even if you have toggled the motion detection off. So that is pretty nifty.
In the playback mode, you can also take a screenshot or record what the playback is showing – useful if you need a export a copy of whatever was happening quickly to your phone.
Direction
This brings up a 4-directional pad which allows you navigate the camera’s view. Tapping left or right once will move the camera in 23° increments. Press and hold will allow the camera to pan continuously.
Do note that the Near Smart Camera has 355° horizontal range, it doesn’t pan a full circle. So once you hit the left limit, you have to tap right to swing it back.
Automation / Tap-to-Run
Of course it wouldn’t be a Near smart product if it didn’t have automation or smart assistant integrations. As of now, you can only set actions for PTZ Stop and PTZ Direction (PTZ = Pan/Tilt/Zoom). The Near Smart Camera also works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. You can stream the camera’s live video if you have smart display of via Chromecast.
ONVIF support
ONVIF refers to Open Network Video Interface Forum, which allows you to live stream the video on your desktop. You can also use an ONVIF compliant device to control the camera without using the Near app. You can refer to the setup instructions here.
Conclusion
The Near Smart Camera is priced at an entry-level price of S$49.90 but offers a variety of features such as auto tracking, person detection and ONVIF support which may not be found on entry-level camera. The 1080p images and videos are clear enough for understanding the situation in the room, and throughout the time of the testing the connection I was experienced was also pretty stable.