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Canary View camera offers home security, peace of mind for less than $100

Canary improves its A.I.-powered Person Detection features for its cameras

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Canary View review
Terry Walsh/Digital Trends

Keeping your home safe no longer has to cost you an arm and a leg, thanks to Canary, which has unveiled a $99 indoor HD security camera to help protect you and your loved ones. Promising to extend the design of the flagship Canary product, the Canary View is one of the more accessible security solutions on the market, but retains the same embedded A.I. technology as its older sibling.

Owing to its 147-degree wide-angle lens, customers can keep an eye on their homes in 1080 HD at any time of the day. And with intelligent alerts, one-touch access to the authorities, automatic arming and disarming, and end-to-end encryption, this is a pretty comprehensive security device for a pretty affordable price.

In addition to the Canary View, the smart home company also debuted Package Detection early in 2018, an A.I.-powered activity detection feature that, as the name suggests, detects packages. The feature builds upon Canary’s recently introduced Person Detection capability, and alerts users as soon as a package has appeared at their front door. Package Detection is only available on Canary Flex, though no hardware purchases will be necessary to access the feature.

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Now, the latest software update to come from Canary is another iteration of the Person Detection function. The team has made a few key improvements to the technology, including the ability to filter based on people’s movements or any motion. That makes it easier for you to differentiate between a person coming through your door and your cat disturbing your home plant. Apparently, this feature has cut down quite significantly on the number of false positives you’ll receive from the smart camera, so hopefully you won’t find your phone buzzing every time Fido decides to wag his tail. The improved Person Detection leveraging A.I. rolled out to both Android and iOS on April 23.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Canary also recently announced further integrations with Amazon Alexa — the new Canary skill for Amazon Alexa is now live on the Echo Spot, Echo Show, and compatible Fire TV devices. Customers have the option of streaming live video from current and new Canary cameras to their television sets, and can simply say, for example, “Alexa, show me the living room,” in order to access a current feed. Of course, folks with Google Assistant and Wink could already access Canary content through their respective platforms.

“Truly intelligent video and security solves a broad range of needs: it enables you to know that your home is safe while traveling, that your kids are home when they are supposed to be, and most importantly, it ensures that you’re instantly aware and equipped to take action if there’s an incident,” said Adam Sager, CEO and co-founder of Canary. “Canary View and our new A.I.-powered detection features make best-in-class security technology and intelligence even more accessible to new Canary users and those who already own Canary products. And, by adding support for Amazon Alexa, we’re expanded the reach of our products to one of the most popular smart home technology platforms.”

Updated on April 23: Person Detection gets a few more improvements to reduce false positives. 

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Lulu Chang
Lulu Chang
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