I had no idea what a Canary was before we were asked if we’d like to review one so before I said yes, I did a little research and learned that it was a home security system that made some big promises considering it’s relatively small cost.
Canary offers the complete security solution, providing high-quality HD video clips and activity updates direct to your smartphone, ensuring renters and home owners feel safe when away from their home.
Packed into a single device with automatic night vision and a 147-degree wide angle lens, Canary delivers panoramic video feeds, with a 90dB siren and an option to contact the police and fire authorities direct from the iOS or Android app. Intelligently analysing your daily household routine, Canary quickly learns your routine, identifying whether it is the dog or potential intruder moving around the living room.
The Canary comes with three modes: armed, disarmed and privacy, automatically enabling when you leave your home. Superbly designed, sleek and cylindrical, Canary suits the modern home, and looks good on that book shelf. No tools or installation necessary, plug it in, and connect to your Wi-Fi. That’s it!
Pretty impressive sounding huh?
On the day it arrived, Mr Frugal was dying to set it up so he had it out of the box within minutes! He’s not the most patient person when it comes to setting things up but I can tell you he said it ‘wasn’t that hard’ to get our Canary up and running. He did say that it was taking longer than he thought it should the first time so he ended up starting again and had no problems at all the second time around.
Once the Canary is set up and in place (ours is on our loving room windowsill) you can download the app which we all now have on our phones. From the app you can watch live action, sound the alarm manually, make an emergency call and monitor the temperature, air quality and humidity in your house. You can even set alerts up so you get a notification on your phone when activity is detected.
We’ve had it a week now and I absolutely love it!
If you select watch live then it’s literally just that – a live feed of what’s going on in your living room (or wherever you choose to put it)….
The notifications that are set to let you know when activity is detected are brilliant too – so intuitive. They don’t seem to pick up the dog when he’s just wandering about but when he goes mad at postman time or if he hears something outside then I get an alert. It’s also a great alert to tell me when the kids get in from school before me as that sets off the sensor too.
We do have it set to change to private when we’re at home though as I don’t want it to intrude on privacy but you can change modes on the app so if the kids are at home without me then I can change the mode so I can check up.
It really does offer amazing peace of mind and had I known that something like this existed in this price range then I would certainly have bought one sooner!
The Canary is on sale now at Apple Stores, Amazon UK, as well as Curry’s PC World, John Lewis, and Maplin stores across England, Scotland, and Wales, and online at store-uk.canary.is but I’ve teamed up with Canary to offer one lucky reader the chance to win their own Canary system worth £159.
To enter, just answer the following question:
Q: In which city is Canary headquartered?
Win an amazing Canary Home Security System worth £159
I’m very happy to say that our Canary really does live up to the hype and I definitely recommend buying one if you’re in the market for a security system like this!
