D-Link Full HD Wi-Fi Camera DCS-8300LH

EVER WONDERED HOW much of the money you spend on gadgets goes towards design? The D-Link Full HD Wi-Fi Camera is a good study in what you get if that budget is stripped. It’s not that the D-Link is ugly, exactly, but when you compare it to something beautifully constructed like the Nest Cam IQ, you can see why the sticker price is more than 50% cheaper.

This budget-conscious design extends to the mobile app. Most stuff that you’d expect it to do right out of the box (as is the case with the other cameras) has to be manually configured, and trying to work your way through its confusing user interface is a maddening process.

The setup wizard sets up the camera and connects it to your wireless network, but it’s every man for himself after that. You have to figure out how to connect the camera to the mydlink Cloud Recording subscription (a free account gives you one day of recording), and configure rules to record videos when it detects either motion or video (but not both simultaneously – you’ll need to create two separate rules to get this going at the same time). Oddly, the camera didn’t send our iPhone any notifications when it detected activity.

The good news is that you don’t miss out on too many features despite the lower asking price. The DCS-8300LH records motion- and sound-activated videos at 1080p with an ultra-wide 137° angle view, supports local video storage to a microSD card for up to 128GB (although a card doesn’t come in the box), and is compatible with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and IFTTT.