Logitech adds notification snapshots, whole-home subscriptions for HomeKit-enabled Circle ...

AppleInsider

Looking to ramp up appeal, Logitech on Wednesday announced a pair of upgrades for the Circle 2, its iPhone- and iPad-compatible security camera.

The most significant of these is Notification Snapshots -- essentially, image previews when motion alerts are triggered in the Logi Circle app. Normally these are just thumbnails, but they can also be expanded, and people with a Circle Safe Premium subscription will get a zoomed-in view of the person, animal, or object which sparked the alert.

Existing Circle 2 owners must update their firmware by going into the app's settings menu, tapping "More Settings," then "Update Firmware."

To better compete with rivals like Netgear, Logitech is preparing to introduce multi-camera Circle Safe Home subscriptions. The Basic Home plan will cost $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, and support up to 14 days of cloud recording for five cameras. Premium Home will cover the same number of cameras for $17.99 per month or $179.99 per year, but offer 31 days of storage, person detection, motion zones, and more advanced alert and event filters.

By default every Circle 2 comes with just 24 hours of free recording.

Logitech hasn't said when the Home plans will be available. To learn more about the Circle 2, check out AppleInsider's official review.

ihatescreennames

I want a video camera that records to my own hard drive, not some subscription, cloud-based thing. HomeKit would be nice but not necessary. Is there anything out there like that? There used to be but they seem hard to find now. 

jbdragon

ihatescreennames said:

I want a video camera that records to my own hard drive, not some subscription, cloud-based thing. HomeKit would be nice but not necessary. Is there anything out there like that? There used to be but they seem hard to find now. 

There's all kinds of ways to go. Using software on a NAS, to a DVR type solution and from Analog camera's to IP POE camera's. Most of these have app's you can use on your iPhone to see any of those camera's and it doesn't cost you anything per month. It's local storage. I recently did a 8 camera setup for a friend that they got from Costco. That was on a 2 story house, which was a pain. Had to rent a scissor lift to get up high to work. We ran conduit and boxes. Instead of the lazy way of just leaving wires all over the walls. They all plug into the DVR and they can watch the cameras on their iPhone from anywhere. It's also plugged into their large HDTV by HDMI and so they can watch them all that way also.

ZERO monthly fees. When I'm ready to do my house, I'll use the IP POE. These are IP (Internet Protocol Power Over Ethernet) So running a single Ethernet cable is much easier. Buy in bulk and cut to whatever length you want. Everything is in Digital going over the cable. So a better, cleaner picture, and the camera's get their Power from the same cable. So you can run to a DVR POE box directly, or you can get a Switch that supports POE. Put that in a good location for all your camera's to connect to and then run one cable from that to your DVR or NAS, or a Windows computer, maybe a Linux computer. Depends on what software you use.

You can get Camera's cheaper then the price of this one above. Maybe the overall cost is a bit more, but you're not paying anything per month. That's YEARS of savings. $180 a year in storage for a month of recordings? Recordings by the way which are also eating up your Internet CAP!!! Using up some of your limited speed Upload bandwidth. If you're LAZY, you'll be paying more. Take a little time and research and figure out the BEST way that will fit your own needs. There's just many options. It doesn't need to be Homekit supported. What's that going to do for you with a camera(s)? You can get Notified anyway when one see's movement if you want. What else would you want? When you're locally recording, you'll get better pictures and things won't be so compressed otherwise. Crappy pictures where you can't really tell what the person looks like is worthless. Why have a camera at that point? Ya, this BLUR robbed me!!!

StrangeDays

jbdragon said:

ihatescreennames said:

I want a video camera that records to my own hard drive, not some subscription, cloud-based thing. HomeKit would be nice but not necessary. Is there anything out there like that? There used to be but they seem hard to find now. 

There's all kinds of ways to go. Using software on a NAS, to a DVR type solution and from Analog camera's to IP POE camera's. Most of these have app's you can use on your iPhone to see any of those camera's and it doesn't cost you anything per month. It's local storage. I recently did a 8 camera setup for a friend that they got from Costco. That was on a 2 story house, which was a pain. Had to rent a scissor lift to get up high to work. We ran conduit and boxes. Instead of the lazy way of just leaving wires all over the walls. They all plug into the DVR and they can watch the cameras on their iPhone from anywhere. It's also plugged into their large HDTV by HDMI and so they can watch them all that way also.

ZERO monthly fees. When I'm ready to do my house, I'll use the IP POE. These are IP (Internet Protocol Power Over Ethernet) So running a single Ethernet cable is much easier. Buy in bulk and cut to whatever length you want. Everything is in Digital going over the cable. So a better, cleaner picture, and the camera's get their Power from the same cable. So you can run to a DVR POE box directly, or you can get a Switch that supports POE. Put that in a good location for all your camera's to connect to and then run one cable from that to your DVR or NAS, or a Windows computer, maybe a Linux computer. Depends on what software you use.

You can get Camera's cheaper then the price of this one above. Maybe the overall cost is a bit more, but you're not paying anything per month. That's YEARS of savings. $180 a year in storage for a month of recordings? Recordings by the way which are also eating up your Internet CAP!!! Using up some of your limited speed Upload bandwidth. If you're LAZY, you'll be paying more. Take a little time and research and figure out the BEST way that will fit your own needs. There's just many options. It doesn't need to be Homekit supported. What's that going to do for you with a camera(s)? You can get Notified anyway when one see's movement if you want. What else would you want? When you're locally recording, you'll get better pictures and things won't be so compressed otherwise. Crappy pictures where you can't really tell what the person looks like is worthless. Why have a camera at that point? Ya, this BLUR robbed me!!!

Yeah I've been interested in these IP POE cameras. Wire them up via ethernet to a POE switch, say in the attic, then plug that into a plug-in DVR. Pretty good solution but not online w/ your mobile apps, unless you then connect the DVR to your network.

airnerd

if they will integrate with a doorbell I can ditch the Ring Pro that I recently purchased and now hear more and more that Ring is choosing not to activate HomeKit because of a dispute over who gets to send the alert.