Self Surveillance

May 25, 2015 — contest, dog parent, home security, Ms Cheevious, Piper

I recently shopped my brains out to select a surveillance camera to mount outside to catch the casual thieves who steal things in our neighborhood. I selected the D Link system, which offers many different styles and models for both inside and outside. It is mounted on the wall over my front entry walkway. It is motion activated, which means on windy days it records frequently because when the trees move it captures 7 seconds of that too. I have needed to reset it a couple of times, but it works really well. No incidents have occurred since I placed it out there, but I am pretty surprised at the amount of traffic we have after midnight here in my residential condo village. There is nothing illegal about that, I am just surprised.

My friend Ms Cheevious held a contest on Mothers Day  to win a Piper system, which I entered.  Lisa was so impressed with the quality of hers, so  I decided maybe I would like it.  I won!!!! This is really a thrill, since I rarely even enter contests.  Now that it is here and I have installed it I am a huge fan of my new Piper.  It is for indoor use.  My dog has end of life issues.  At the moment she is doing pretty well, but she needs more attention than she used to.  Her issue is kidney problems, so she needs to urinate frequently.  She does let us know and has had very few accidents inside the house.  When I go out I start to wonder if she needs me, so I keep my trips away from home short.  More often than not when I come back to check on her she is in deep slumber exactly where I left her and does not wake for hours.

The Piper can show me a shot of her on her bed, and record a clip of 35 seconds if it detects motion.  It also records if it detects a loud sound.  I have set each of these up on a menu.  The set up could not have been easier, and there is no chip to record.  It all goes to the cloud, and then is easily deleted after you see the clips.  It has a huge wide angle lens that captures the whole room, and the audio quality is excellent.  Since I have the one camera I can tell if my dog is still passed out or howling at the door.  If I chose to combine several cameras I could follow her in all rooms of the house.  The app on my phone tells me if an event has been recorded, and gives me a live view.  I also have the capability to talk to the dog remotely. That should be funny.  Piper did have pet parents in mind when they created the system, so one of the settings is Pet at Home.  I am a very happy customer who may extend my coverage one day with more cameras.

The Piper has elements that measure temperature, light, and activity in the area.  If you install the interactive switches in your home you can remotely turn your lights on and off or change the thermostat.  You get a read out on the high and low temp, the humidity, the light, and activity during the last 24 hours.  If one of these were drastically wrong you can also set up alerts to call trusted friends if you are in vacation mode.  They have put this together with all the options of a home security company, for which you pay monthly, in a permanent and versatile solution for which you pay only once.  I like to be able to see the entry to my house as well as my snoozing hound from wherever I may be with my phone.  I had no idea how satisfying it would be.