Humax Eye
The Eye is Humax’s first foray into home security, being best known for its Freeview and Freesat set-top boxes. So it seems a wise decision that it has teamed up with Y-Cam for the Eye. Y-Cam fans will immediately recognise the Eye – in essence, it’s a black, rebranded version of the firm’s Evo, which is no bad thing.
Price
The Humax Eye costs the same as the Y-Cam Evo at £129. You can buy cheaper Wi-Fi cameras, but none are as good as this. And, unlike the (more expensive) Nest Cam, there are no subscription fees to pay. Once you’ve bought the Eye, you get free seven-day rolling cloud storage for clip recordings. Clip is the operative word here as unlike the Nest Cam, the Eye doesn’t record continuously. It only records when motion is detected, so if it misses something, then you won’t see it either.
Design
The Eye is quick to set up on your iOS or Android phone thanks to Bluetooth, and the small dimensions – 52x52x28mm for the camera only – means it won’t be too noticeable wherever you place it.
It requires a power supply, so you’ll have to mount it reasonably close to a socket, although the USB power lead is nice and long.
The camera will also needs to be within Wi-Fi range of your router, and note that it doesn’t support 5GHz. That’s not likely to be a problem, though.
This is purely a camera for indoor monitoring, and while you can point it out of a window, this will work only during daylight as at night the infrared LEDs will reflect off the glass and prevent you from seeing anything.
Apps
Rather than design its own app, Humax relies on Y-Cam’s app, so you’ll need to download that (or go to the Y-Cam HomeMonitor website, y-cam.com) to sign up for a free account before setting up the camera. The interesting part is that you can launch the Humax Eye app on Humax’s PVR-4000T Freeview box, or its new H3 media streamer.
Logging into your Y-Cam account with the on-screen keyboard is fiddly, but you can tick the box to stay logged in. The screen (see below) shows a snapshot from each of your cameras, and it isn’t just the Humax Eye that’s supported: all of Y-Cam’s HomeMonitor range will show up if you have any.
At the bottom you’ll see a timeline and you can select any day from the last week to view a list of recordings. You can filter by camera and watch recordings full screen.
Really, there are no advantages or disadvantages of opting for the Humax Eye over the Y-Cam Evo, unless you want a black camera. Both work with the Humax Eye app, as well as the Y-Cam mobile app.
The only criticism of the camera concerns motion detection. First, you can choose only two rectangular areas for motion detection and we’d still like to see this changed to a Nest-style setup where you can draw any shape. Secondly, unlike some other systems, which can detect whether it’s a person, animal or vehicle, the Eye will notify you of any movement, and all you can do is to change the sensitivity. This means you’ll need to exclude any areas with leafy bushes or trees which could move around in the wind.
Verdict
The Humax Eye is an excellent home security camera for indoor monitoring.