211,800. This is the number of burglaries recorded in France in 2022 (source: SSMSI). Up 11% in one year, these offenses again and again require the greatest vigilance. If there is no miracle recipe to guard against an intrusion into one’s home, a surveillance system can deter or even confuse potential thugs. The new WelcomeEye Look camera from Philips wants to do just that. 20 minutes was able to test it during the last school holidays.
Motorization and autotracking
After its WelcomeEye View outdoor camera and its WelcomeEye Connect video intercom, Philips continues to dig the furrow of connected security. A new stone in this building, the WelcomeEye View camera is dedicated to monitoring our interiors. Small in size (13.5 x 8 cm), quite elegant with its white and gray aesthetic which differs from that (generally black) of other cameras of its kind, it can either be placed on a piece of furniture or fixed to the ceiling outside. using the hanging system provided. Too bad its power cable (USB-C to mains) only measures 1.10 meters: this does not necessarily facilitate integration, even if it is possible to change it.
This camera is motorized and incorporates a system ofautotracking (automatic tracking). As soon as it detects a human presence or silhouette, the WelcomeEye Look follows its target and does not let go. As we have seen, it immediately triggers a notification on its owner’s smartphone and initiates a video recording. This is done directly on the supplied microSD card (8 GB), housed under the optics. The detection system is precise enough not to alert in the event of detection of an animal, which avoids untimely alerts. One more !
Horizontally… rather than vertically!
With its viewing angle of 355° horizontally and 75° vertically, the camera is supposed to suffer from few blind spots. Downside, however: theautotracking performed only works horizontally and not vertically. If a possible burglar spotted in your living room were to go upstairs, the camera would quickly lose track of him. It is only by taking control of the device remotely, from the screen of your smartphone, that you can orient the lens on all its axes… sometimes with a certain latency between the moment when the ‘we press on the screen of his smartphone and the one where the camera lens actually moves.
We also noticed that the camera is not able to “look” at what is happening right under his eye. Placed on a chest of drawers in our living room, she could not observe what was on the coffee table in front of our sofa, 1.50 meters away, during our tests. Placed in an angle, however, she has no difficulty sweeping her gaze around the room. A flap can be folded down manually or be controlled remotely to hide the lens.
Zoom in to identify
Whether saved in the detection history on the microSD card or viewed live from a smartphone, the images are in 2K. This good definition (1,440 x 560 pixels) has a certain advantage: day and night, it is possible to zoom in on a detail without the visual quality having to suffer. If it is not necessarily possible to check remotely if a jewelry box has been emptied of its contents, identifying a face will be even easier! Ezviz’s C6 2K+ camera that we recently tested does a bit better though, with 2K+ resolution, or 2,560 x 1,440 pixels.
The WelcomeEye Look also incorporates a 90 dB siren. Failing to wake up the neighborhood, this alarm (at the level of that of a smoke detector) has every chance of discouraging an intruder. This function can be disabled. We can therefore also use the camera to ensure that the children have returned home safely from school: the parents are alerted to their arrival, without their offspring taking an earful when entering the house.
No cloudsno pictures?
Sold for 129 euros, the WelcomeEye Look camera offers quite correct services, without revolutionizing the world of motorized indoor cameras. She is at the right price. Developed for Philips by the Touraine firm Avidsen (specialist in connected solutions for the home), it has the merit of reliability, even if we found that its application deserved to be more accomplished and intuitive.
Also note: if the manufacturer does not offer a subscription for the storage of images captured in the clouds, this bias certainly more economical for the user nevertheless has a downside. Since the images are on board the camera’s microSD card, there is no way to find them if the device is stolen… unless you have downloaded them to your smartphone beforehand.