Netatmo Presence, this is the Netatmo outdoor camera

With the arrival of the Internet of Things, there is an ever-growing catalog of devices that allow us to monitor our home quickly and easily. And this is where it comes in Netamo, one of the best manufacturers of devices to domotize your home.

I have already analyzed some of their solutions, such as their complete weather station or their Netatmo Welcome indoor camera. Now I bring you one complete review of the Netatmo Presence security camera, a device IFTTT compliant and that will protect the exterior of your house with concealment thanks to its careful design. 

A very careful and concealed design: at first glance, no one will think that the Netatmo Presence is a security camera

Speaking of Netatmo Presence design, say that this outdoor security camera has a body made of aluminum giving the gadget a very premium appearance and a great feeling of durability.

At first I was quite concerned about the fact that the camera has a number of holes, but the guys at Netatmo confirmed to me that the device is waterproof thanks to the HZO treatment with which they have its internal elements. For those who do not know this technology, say that it is the equivalent of an IP67 certification, so you can rest assured that no matter how much it rains, the Netatmo Presence camera will continue to operate at full capacity.

On the front of this device we find a powerful 12 W spotlight of power that covers almost the entire front, while the camera lens is found at the bottom.

Here I have to say that the work done by the Netatmo design team is excellent. Why? Very simple: nobody will think that it is a security camera. At first glance it looks like a simple bulb and if you look at the camera lens you may think it is a motion sensor. And if we take into account that we can configure the spotlight so that it turns on when it detects movement, it seems like a very interesting solution.

More considering that the current law in Spain when installing an outdoor security camera is full of dangerous edges in the form of really complicated and fussy regulations, so with a camera that looks more like a spotlight, we save ourselves more than one problem.

In short, in this regard I have nothing to criticize Netatmo, rather the opposite. The camera is robust, you don't have to worry about inclement weather as the camera can handle it all and its concealed design will avoid headaches with that annoying neighbor who just makes you complain and look for trouble.

Installation and start-up: in a few minutes you will have your camera Netamo Presence running at full capacity

One of the things I like the most about Netatmo solutions is how easy it is to install them. And in the case of the outdoor security camera Netatmo Presence was not going to be an exception. And is that the installation of the Presence stands out, once again, for its simplicity. It is prepared to replace an existing outdoor light so, unlike other security cameras, it does not have an annoying and complex cable system.

To this we must add the support that comes with the camera: first, there is a retaining ring so you only have to make two holes in the wall to install the camera and that it holds perfectly. And then there is a metal structure that serves to put the three cables that feed the camera inside and it fits into the wall protecting the cables inside. With this system, thieves who try to make their own will not be able to simply cut the cables, as they are not visible, so as not to be recorded.

I said, the installation process could not be more comfortable. Anyway I leave you a little video where the manufacturer explains the entire installation process of the Netatmo Presence camera. 

Ok, now that we have the camera installed, it's time to configure it. For it We will follow the manufacturer's steps through the official Netatmo application and in less than 2 minutes we will have everything configured. In my case, as it happened with the Welcome camera, I could not connect it to my router automatically, I already told you that the problem is with my ONO router, but the application offered me the possibility of connecting Netatmo Welcome to my Wi network -Fi manually by entering a series of parameters such as the IP address of the router, DNS and little else. It didn't take me five minutes to set it up.

In summary, both the installation and the commissioning of the Netatmo Presence is really fast and above all very simple to carry out, In less than 10 minutes you have the whole system working at full capacity.

Netatmo Presence Camera Operation

Before seeing how Netatmo's new outdoor surveillance camera works, I'm going to leave you the specifications of the Netatmo Presence so that you can get an idea of ​​the potential of this new home automation camera.

Technical characteristics Netatmo Presence

• dimensions: 50 x 200 x 110 millimeters
• HZO protection, equivalent to IP67, against water
• One-piece aluminum construction
• UV resistance
• 4MP camera with 100º viewing angle
• 12W dimmable light
• Infrared detector up to 15 meters away
• Wi-Fi connectivity: 802.11b / g / n 2.4GHz
• Up to 32GB microSD memory card recording (including 16GB with drive) / Dropbox / FTP server

As I mentioned above the camera setup process is very simpleWe will only have to follow the steps of the Netatmo Security application, available on Google Play, to have our camera configured.

This is where I notice a couple of very interesting details. To begin with, and as usual in Netatmo solutions, the application is very simple and intuitive and allows us to configure a large number of parameters. One of them is the topic of notifications. And the camera is capable of recognizing and differentiating people, animals and vehicles, which opens up a very interesting range of possibilities in terms of notifications.

In this manner  We can do that whenever it detects any movement it warns us through a notification, that it records but does not send us the notification, or even that it ignores elements such as people and animals to focus on the movement of vehicles being able to choose the type of notifications based on our needs. This is very convenient as it is sometimes annoying to receive notifications every time someone passes in front of the camera's viewing angle.  

And this is another of the most interesting points of the Netatmo Presence: although it has a surveillance angle of 100 degrees You can configure the camera so that it only monitors a certain area in a simple way through its app. In this way we can limit the radius of action of the camera and send us a notification when someone approaches the delimited space. We can choose up to four surveillance areas within the camera's angle of view

Finally we have the possibility to configure where we want the videos to be saved as standard next to the camera we get a 8GB micro SD card, although its slot is compatible with cards up to 32 GB. But we can also configure the application so that the videos are uploaded to our account dropbox or even have them saved in a FTP server.

This is a very favorable point since, unlike other similar security cameras and that cost an average of 100 euros less, Netatmo does not make you pay a monthly fee or annual for storing your videos, a detail that compensates its price.

Almost always in Full HD

Netatmo Presence records and records in Full HD 1080p. Within the same application we can see in real time what is happening. There is actually a delay of about 6-7 seconds, but the reason is very simple: if the camera detects some movement that needs to be recorded, it needs a margin of time to be able to record this movement, so it is perfectly normal to record with a slight delay. of time.

Regarding 1080p, I have to say that the camera Records with very low britate to encode video and save SD card space. This causes a loss of sharpness and detail not noticeable when viewing a video downloaded from the camera, but noticeable when streaming live or watching a video recorded in the app. In this situation we will see a slight pixelation that is especially noticeable when zooming. But I already tell you that this only happens from the app, if we download the videos we will not have this problem.

Personally, it is a detail that matters little to me, the Netatmo Presence camera is oriented towards security, I do not need to record any festive event with it, so the fact that when you see what is happening in the vicinity of my house is very light Pixelated is data that seems irrelevant to me, although I would rather it had a higher bit rate, that ordering is free.

Instead the frame rate, with a rate of 24 fps seems to me more than enough, producing a smooth movement. The color and the level of detail during the day is quite good, offering very real tones.

La night lightWith its 12 W of power, I have found it very useful at night for certain situations. We can turn it on or off manually and make it activate when it detects movements. For me the best option.

In addition, Netatmo Presence has a infrared lighting system that is capable of recording with sufficient clarity up to 15 meters away, more than enough to record any situation that occurs at night. Looking at the image that accompanies this paragraph, it is clear that the security camera works very well in environments with little or no lighting.

An algorithm that delivers what it promises

You have already seen some images of the Netatmo Presence camera so, to end this article, I want to talk about its detection and learning algorithm. Already with the Netatmo Welcome camera I was impressed with how well it worked. Within a few days the camera detected the faces of various people with a minimal margin of error. And something similar happens with the Netatmo Presence camera.

One of the biggest advantages of this security camera compared to its competitors is its configurable alert system. Most security cameras have a passive focus during monitoring, they record when motion is detected and voila.

On the other hand, the Netatmo Presence camera   not only records when motion is detected, but also recognizes what kind of motion triggered the alert and, if you want, it informs you immediately. I have been doing tests and the camera takes between 4 and 6 seconds to send the alert since it happens. A very short margin of time and sufficient to carry out an action such as calling the police.

As I was saying, the camera is able to identify three different types of movement: people, animals and cars.  I have already explained that we can configure each of the actions in a certain way so that it records and warns us, ignores elements or simply records any of these three types of movement. In short, we can treat each type of movement with its own alert action. And I have to say that the camera hits with impressive precision.

Obviously the object detection algorithms are not perfect, it is not the same whether it is day or night, even the angle at which we have installed the camera can affect, but all incorrectly identified objects can be corrected within the app for the Netatmo Presence camera to learn and improve its performance.

After a week of use, my unit's margin of error was practically nil. It only happened one night in which he mistook a wild boar climbing stairs for a person, I even see it normal considering the size of the beast that roamed around my house.

In this way, the camera Netatmo Presence learned from its few initial mistakes to end up getting it right when it comes to differentiating people from animals or vehicles. And it must be borne in mind that in the same recording it detects a person walking a dog without problems, separating both elements such as person and animal. Simply spectacular.

To end this article, and how could it be otherwise, say that Netatmo has added IFTTT support for all of their security products, including Netatmo Presence. IFTTT is a platform that connects millions of applications and devices with each other.

In this way, by connecting the Netatmo Security App with some of the applications available on the platform, we can create a series of recipes or custom actions that domotize our house being also really useful.

We can, for example, make the garage door open automatically when a vehicle is detected in the driveway, that the heating is activated when we enter the door or that the sprinklers turn off automatically if there is an animal in the garden.

Final conclusions

Netamo It surprises me again with a security camera that has a very attractive and concealed design, good software to monitor everything that happens around our house and with a presence detection algorithm that manages to differentiate between people, animals and vehicles.

The Netatmo Presence camera isn't cheapThere are other solutions that cost 100 or 150 euros less, but taking into account the possibilities it offers and the fact that there is no monthly fee to store videos, they more than compensate for the necessary outlay.

And if we add to this his IFTTT compatibility and the fact that it has a end-to-end and bank-grade security encryption To prevent the device from being hacked, we have before us one of the best solutions if you want a useful and very functional security camera.

If you are interested, you can buy the Netatmo Presence camera on Amazon at a price of EUR 299 clicking here

Editor's opinion

Points in favor

Points against