D-Link Omna 180 Cam HD
Apple’s HomeKit gets a boost from its first compatible camera £200 FROM D-Link, dlink.com features 1080p resolution, HomeKit support, 180° lens, night-vision mode
Apple really missed a trick with the first version of its HomeKit software, as it didn’t work with
cameras at all. Fortunately, Apple updated HomeKit with iOS 10, and the Home app can now display video and control cameras. And that has allowed D-Link to step forward with the Omna – the first camera we’ve seen that works with the HomeKit platform and the Home app in iOS 10.
The Omna camera boasts a resolution of 1,920x1,080, and a very effective 180° wideangle lens. The Omna also includes an infrared night-vision mode, and a motion sensor that can send alerts if it detects movement. It can stream live video to iOS devices, but there’s no option for online storage, so if you want to store recordings you’ll have to buy a micro-SD memory card. Netatmo’s Welcome camera is the same price and includes an 8GB memory card – although the Welcome doesn’t support HomeKit.
Motion and automation
The real attraction with the Omna, though, is that HomeKit support. It took us a couple of attempts to get the camera set up properly; we couldn’t initially connect the Omna app to the camera when using an iPad. The app worked fine when we switched to an iPhone, and once the camera was set up it worked on the iPad as well, but we’re still not entirely sure what caused that initial hiccup with the iPad.
The Omna app works on its own, allowing you to view live video from the camera, record onto a memory card, and to adjust features such as the sensitivity of the motion sensor. However, the Omna also shows up inside the Home app in iOS 10, showing both the image from the camera, and the motion sensor, which is listed as a separate device. That allowed us to create an ‘automation’ within the Home app that linked the camera to our Philips Hue lights, so that the motion sensor would automatically turn on the lights when we walked into the room. The one drawback in this case is that you need either a fourthgeneration Apple TV or an iPad to act as a control hub in order to create automations or to provide remote access. But that’s because of the way that Apple has designed HomeKit, so it’s not a criticism of the Omna itself.
There are plenty of more affordable cameras available that rely on their own apps to monitor your home and send alerts, so a HomeKit camera such as the Omna isn’t essential. But if you do own other HomeKit devices, such as the Hue lights, or Netatmo’s forthcoming Smoke Alarm, then it might be worth spending a little extra on the Omna so that you can link all of your smart devices together for a truly smart home.
The Omna includes an infrared nightvision mode