Amazon Cloud Cam Security Camera, Works with Alexa

zumaTop Contributor: Baby

Comment

There is a lot of misinformation out there (Updated 8/11/2018)

November 12, 2017

Verified Purchase

This camera has worked well for me, a non-tech person. I have tried to answer as many of the common questions asked about this camera as I could.

I am not sure why, but there is a lot of misinformation out there, especially in some of the top reviews. Some of the problems have been fixed in software updates, but much of the information is just not correct. Hopefully these reviews will be updated at some point.

(Edit 8/11/2018 I have noticed many of those top reviews with bad info and most of those “camera caught the thief” video reviews are gone for some reason).

• You can download and watch videos on a PC with the free plan (first 24 hours)
• You can watch live stream on a computer via cloudcam.amazon.com
• You can turn off audio playback (from the app)
• You can invert the video (from the app)
• You can turn of the infrared night light (from the app)

UNPACKAGING
Package came on time and was without any damage, but there was no padding inside the shipping box. Included in the main box were the camera, USB cable, AC adaptor for 110 voltage, small setup manual, wall mount and two drywall screws (see photos).

OVERALL FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Camera seems well made and a little smaller than I thought it would be. All items were included and in good condition.
The image on the live view in daylight was good (see photo), images appeared sharp and easy to identify. Sound was crystal clear. I turned on the TV, went into another room and was easily able to watch the TV and hear the sound very clearly when it came through. There were some breakups of the sound at times though, making me miss some of the audio detail. But night vision is dark and grainy, it is not easy to make out items

SETUP
Set up took me less than 11 minutes which includes downloading the app and logging into all accounts. I am not a big tech guy but setup was quite easy. Basically you just plug the camera in to the AC adapter, download the Amazon Cloud Cam app to your phone, wait for the blue blinking light on the camera to change to a pulsating blue and green light, and you will hear a chime sound. This means the camera is ready for setup. Then you just hit the setup button on your phone and in about 3 minutes it is working. I am using a Moto E as my video source and for the app.

HOW IT WORKS
You can watch live view or see the video clips the camera took upon it detecting movement. It quickly took several short videos detecting movement when I walked around. I also received a sound and text notice on my phone of “Motion detected” every time it detected motion and took a video, and when I touch the notice it will play the video for me. I do seem to get a lot of “We were unable to play this video” error codes when I first try to play the video, but usually it will play when I hit the blue ‘replay’ button. I have not upgraded my plan so I will only get the last 24 hours of video. It does not take pictures but you can easily do this by just taking a screenshot (see photo) on your android phone, normally this is just hitting the power button and volume button at the same time. Or you could do a Print Screen on your computer when viewing recorded video clips. You can view the recorded videos AND download video clips from a PC with the free plan, just go to www.amazon.com/clouddrive, sign in, then when watching your videos in the upper right hand corner there is a download icon. You can also view live feed or videos up to 24 hours any time with the basic included plan on your cell phone or computer.

GLASS WINDOWS
It will take video through a window as it can detect movement. Image for me was still pretty good. But at night the infrared light will glare badly on the windows blurring your view almost completely. You can turn off the infrared light via the app though, and using just a porch light I captured cool videos of many animals at night.

WHAT I DO NOT LIKE
In my opinion this camera has poor night vision. It does have the ability to see live view from a computer even though many reviews say you cannot do this. Just go to cloudcam.amazon.com to set it up.

I set this camera up to watch my car in my driveway as a test, but at night even at low sensitivity it goes constantly, recoding everything. OK, no problem yet. But when I go to Amazon Drive, I see a lot of recorded videos that I just want to delete. But as of now, I have to look at each one individually, and then hit the delete button each time. I would think this could be MUCH easier. I might take a star off for this in the future (maybe it is just something I do not see or have figured out?).

Edit: Thx to “Regolith” who gave me an option to quickly delete the videos, see his/her two comments under the “comments” section, they worked well for me. It can work for the phone or the computer.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ASKED
• You can download videos to a PC on the free plan for the first 24 hours
• You can view live stream on a PC via cloudcam.amazon.com
• It has no local SD storage
• Sound plays very clearly and loud
• You can turn off audio playback
• It only records if it detects movement
• This is an indoor camera only, it is not waterproof
• You can turn the camera on/off through the app
• When the camera detects motion, you receive a text and sound alert via a cell phone
• You can turn off the IR (infrared night light)
• It does not pan or zoom
• Night vision is dark and grainy, not easy to make out photos
• While camera viewing is wireless, it requires a wire to power it (it is not battery operated)
• You can have the camera image rotate 180 degrees for ceiling mounting
• Does not require a base station (some do, I have no idea what a base station is for)

THOUGHTS
I have not owned another camera to influence me one way or another.

I have continuously updated this review as I have used and tested this camera out. Sorry to write so much, I know most people do not like detailed long reviews but I always write what I would want to know about an item before I make a purchase. Any misinformation please let me know or if you have any questions please ask via comments, I will answer what I can.

2,126 people found this helpful

tourer99Top Contributor: Baby

Comment

Good replacement for my older security cameras with free cloud service

November 25, 2017

Verified Purchase

UPDATED 5-3-18 -- Keeps getting better and better

I had first rated this camera 3-stars (November 2017) because of significant deficiencies. After a series of updates by Amazon I upgraded my review to 4-stars, and now again to 5-stars. Thank you Amazon for responding to user complaints quickly, and continuing to add features. Because of the updates, I have purchased more cameras.

I have been replacing my lower resolution security cameras with the new Amazon Cloud Cam. Several of the older cameras were pointed outside (through windows) and one indoors. They were recording to a single hard drive on a small computer hidden in my house. The Amazon Cloud Cam, offered higher resolution, a wider angle lens and free 24 hour cloud storage, making it a good replacement.

Things I like about this camera:

* Very good picture quality, even in marginal lighting conditions
* IR night recording not bad, and the IR LEDs are barely noticeable (see note below)
* Wide angle lens covers entire room. (I am using one of these to replace two of my older cameras.)
* Free app for monitoring one or more cameras and reviewing recorded video. App can be installed on multiple phones.
* LIVE monitoring of cameras from web browser (newly added feature)
* Good motion detection with settings high, med, low.
* 2-way audio intercom when using app
* Free cloud storage (24 hours). This is a big deal for me.
* Can access & download clips from the Amazon Cloud drive even with the free plan.
* Can view and download clips from the app.
* Proximity setting turns off interior cameras when I am home (based on my cell phone location)
* 10' USB power cord. (My other cameras have shorter 5' cords and all require extensions.)

Things that could be improved on this camera:

* Mounting stand/bracket. The plastic stand was designed primarily for setting on a flat surface, or optionally mounting on a wall or ceiling. A short arm has a swivel ball which extends into the camera. This cannot be disconnected. There is limited travel on the swivel. It works okay, but is not as flexible as other cameras that I have used (Sony, JVC, Axis, D-Link, etc.)

* Cloudy night vision with built-in IR LED's. The eight LEDs (night vision illuminators) are behind the dark front faceplate. They are barely noticeable when looking at the camera in the dark. If stealth is what you're looking for then this is fine, except for the fact that the green power LED ruins the stealth effect. As a test, I turned OFF the night vision illumination in the Cloud Cam, and used the IR illumination from one of my older cameras in a totally dark room and, WHAT A DIFFERENCE. Suddenly the Cloud Cam image was punchy and had much more contrast. So the trade-off is to use the built in night vision LEDs and have a cloudy picture that's okay, or use external illumination and have a picture with more punch and contrast. You can buy an external IR LED illuminator on Amazon for about $10-12. This allows me to illuminate an outside area (my deck) with the Cloud Cam in a fixture behind a glass panel.

* No way to disable the green power LED on the camera. There should be settings for ALWAYS ON, MOTION DETECTED, and ALWAYS OFF. (I have covered the LED on the cameras pointing outdoors with black tape.) I've kept the power LED on the indoor camera visible since it goes off when camera detects when we are home. (Based on my cel phone location) Bottom line: the camera shouldn't call attention to itself unless you want it to.

* No time/date overlay in the video window. Yes you can use the file time/date, but a video overlay would be much better--especially in court.

* No microSD on-board recording. In recent years this has become a must since networks can go down (or be intentionally disabled). It would be very nice to have a backup recording in each camera.

* App notifications available, but SMS notification might be better. (see note below)

REGARDING CLOUD STORAGE:

I find it a bargain that Amazon is giving us free cloud viewing and storage for 24 hours. If something happens during that time, I can view the video and do as many screen grabs from the app as I need, or download clips--even with the free plan.

Some people have asked for continuous 24 hour recording. That just wastes bandwidth. I only want the camera to record things that change in the video (motion, etc.)--which this camera does very nicely. And, if the microphone is enabled it should record when there are changes in the audio--which this camera does not.

Since I've added these 3 Cloud Cams, the typical upload data has been averaging about 250 GB more per month than previously.

REGARDING NOTIFICATIONS TO MY CELL PHONE:
When notifications are turned on, the mobile app sends a notification to my phone. Nice feature, but with it enabled I found that I was using a large amount of data on my cell plan (about 1GB in a few days) not from the app, but instead from an Android background service. When I turned off the notifications, the excessive data usage went away. I have to do more research on this problem before I can make recommendations, but buyers should keep an eye on data usage, even if it's just notifications and not live viewing. I would prefer to get the notifications from SMS and not have the app running in the background.

In summary I think the camera is an excellent security camera for many people. I now have 3 Cloud Cams--one outside in the housing (pictured.) A couple of my older, lower resolution, cameras are still operating but there seems to be little use for them anymore now that the Cloud Cams have taken over.

540 people found this helpful

Well worth the price of admission to put a bad guy in jail

Comment

Peter A Luttenbacher

December 11, 2017

Verified Purchase

Not three weeks after installing the Amazon Cloud Cam I received an alert of motion at our hunting cabin. There should not have been anyone there and I was surprised to find video of someone breaking-in and collecting our tools and hunting gear to take with him. I was not able to catch him in real time, but I was able to alert the Sherriff Dpt. within minutes of him leaving. With the 25 separate videos of the suspect the cloud Cam provided, the Sherriff Dpt. were able to quickly find him, our property, and put him in jail. Well worth the price of admission to put a bad guy in jail.

142 people found this helpful

it's perfect for what I need and so easy to use

Comment

Customer images

See all customer images

Most recent customer reviews

Holly Hawk

love it

Published 3 hours ago

Joshua Makahanaloa

Camera is top notch

Easy to use and great overall camera and recording features. Should have purchased more on Prime day. Will definitely get more when they go on sale again.

Published 5 hours ago

Dixdak

Just not that great

Was disappointed in quality. Sound/microphone is very poor. Camera is fixed and does not rotate. Not worth the price. The phone app is lacking and not streamlined.

Published 5 hours ago

Kristen Hubbard

Great!!!

Great quality and wide view of the whole living room

Published 18 hours ago

RJ Patton

Video is good but this camera needs major improvements if it's going to be competitive

I bought this on Prime Day so I got this for a really good price. I would have been really upset if I had paid the full price for this camera.Read more

Published 20 hours ago

Ski Trees

Mediocre image quality

The camera is very easy to set up and use, but the image quality is not very good. Also, it's for indoor use only.

Great price on the prime day sale. The camera was easy to connect and has great features. The picture is very clear also.

Faith Pruitt

Great camera!

Very good so far would buy again

Wlh

Five Stars

Home/Away Feature Not Working

RicoSuave

In all fairness, I have not yet had time to contact Amazon support but the phone app is supposed to detect your location and then turn off recording.Read more

Easy installation, BUT use to much data

veronika fenny

Great camera, nice picture and sound. Installation is super easy. The only downside is data usage. Could use 1-2 gb of data a day.Read more