Piper review This security camera ,Video Monitoring Wireless Surveillance System and Home Automation Hub, White
Great for renters
Piper is super easy to set up. You can mount it to a wall, but it’s even
easier to just attach the sturdy metal stand and place the Piper unit
on a shelf or a mantle. It does need to be plugged in to power, but
three AA batteries provide backup if your power goes out, and let you
move the camera to a new spot without taking it offline. On the flip
side, on a few occasions when I wanted to power-cycle my Piper, I had to
unplug it and pull out one of the batteries to get it to turn
off, but most users won’t have occasion to power-cycle their Piper as
often as I did during testing.
Piper’s easy installation makes it great for renters, along with the
fact that the camera unit also has built-in sensors for temperature,
motion, and ambinet light, and a microphone to detect sound. So you can
get more detail about your home without having to buy and install extra
sensors.
But Piper is also a Z-Wave hub, so if you do want extra sensors, you can
add those—I tested it with a basic door/window sensor as well as a
plug-in module to turn a lamp on and off. Piper’s site claims it’s
compatible with “hundreds of Z-Wave automation accessories: wall
switches, door/window sensors, freeze sensors, and the line will expand
to include even more.” But the online store only offers four Z-Wave products, and the site lacks a comprehensive list of what’s supported right now.
You make the rules
Piper can alert you to loud sounds, temperature changes, and motion, as
well as if an optional sensor-equipped door opens or closes.
Once you get Piper plugged in, the companion app for iOS and Android
helps you add it to your Wi-Fi network, and then you’ll use the same
app to set up rules for its behavior in the Rules tab. You can have
separate rules for when you’re home, away, or on vacation, as well as
Notify Only rules that happen all the time, regardless of where you are.
But like the name says, you’re only notified—these rules can’t trigger
video recordings, or Piper’s ear-meltingly loud built-in siren. It
should also be noted that you set your own status (home, away, vacation,
or off) in the app; it doesn’t automatically change based on your
phone’s location or anything like that.
As easy as it is to set up rules in the Rules tab, I was disappointed by
some of the results. A few times I popped open the app and saw an alert
like a loud noise or motion detected—but I hadn’t gotten the push
notification I’d requested
Disposable video
The app’s Live Video tab lets you peek in on what your Piper’s
ultra-wide-angle camera is seeing—and it can see a lot. With practically
a 180-degree angle, the camera even showed me objects on the same
mantleplace as my Piper. The camera lens is fixed, but within the app
you can pan and zoom around inside that fixed field of view. There’s
even a four-up view that lets you set four different views from the same
camera. Pressing the microphone button lets you send your voice to the
Piper’s speaker, for two-way communication, in case you want to yell at
your kids to stop hitting each other or tell the dog to get off the
couch.
The grid view lets you digitally pan and zoom four views at the same time, but the camera lens itself doesn't actually move.
The Rules tab offers to record video when the Piper detects motion or
hears a loud sound, but you can’t save those videos, nor can you capture
the video in the Live Video tab. Dropcam, in contrast, can be set to
record video all the time, but it’s saved to the cloud, so you pay
cloud-storage fees. Piper has no monthly fees at all, but that also
means your video is more or less disposable.
