When the popularity of home wireless networks and the quality of the new-generation of internet cameras collide, one specific market is on the rise: the baby-cams. Netgear has understood this rather well, and has worked on an evolution of its Arlo home surveillance camera, making it a very potent baby monitor.
Baby cams are technically not very far apart from their security cams cousins at first thought. However, the difference is really in the details. For example, you need to make sure that the camera and cable is completely out of reach of the children. At the same time, putting it at the top of a high piece of furniture may not yield the view angle you desire.
To solve this, Netgear’s Arlo Baby Cam has a number of mounting accessories that make it wall-mountable, and has an arm-mount in case you do not want to punch a hole. The arm allows for a better positioning. Obviously, it can also simply rest on a table or low furniture.
Baby cams are looked at more often than security cams, so there’s an Arlo Baby Monitoring Display which includes a 7” Tablet with an integrated Arlo software. It’s a stripped down Android tablet, with the Arlo app preloaded on it (the only one accessible too).
Beyond its video-surveillance capabilities, the Arlo Baby Cam can also become a multi-colored night light with thousands of colors. The light is emitted towards the back of the camera to create a soft and diffuse glow. The camera’s speaker can also be used to stream audio via the Arlo app.
It also has an air-quality sensor which will sense temperature, humidity and basic air quality data. The app/platform will keep this data for 7 days in case you need to look at the evolution of the situation.
The Arlo camera can also listen to the environment, and inform you when the baby wakes up, and even track the sleep patterns, and visits/feeding times events. In the future, Netgear plans to have the camera do much more, even analyzing the baby face and come up with a guess as for what the baby emotional state is. How accurate it would be remains to be seen, but this is an interesting idea.
Finally, the Arlo Baby Monitoring Cam has friendly rounded design, with the possibility to “dress up” the camera using Arlo Characters accessories. This makes the camera more friendly-looking in a kid’s room. The video feed is recorded and broadcasted in 1080p resolution and the camera and basic accessory will be available in “Spring 2017”. The tablet monitoring kit will come during “summer 2017” according to Netgear.
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