Welcome is a security camera with a difference. Facial recognition technology lets it recognise who is coming through your front door, thereby alerting you to any unwelcome guests.
Designed primarily to provide peace of mind for families – you’ll get notifications pushed to your phone when the kids get in – it also doubles as a smart security guard.
Home security systems like Manything and Cocoon might promise video recording functionality, but without being able to work out who is coming and going, sifting through all that footage to locate an intruder could be an arduous task.
Any faces that Welcome isn’t familiar with will be papped and sent to your phone. From there you’ll be put in a position of power. If it’s a familiar face to you, like a relative, a family friend or a neighbour, you can OK that person and save their mugshot to the Welcome’s SD card.
If it’s an unfamiliar or unwanted face, you can choose to take action, calling the police and using any video footage the Welcome manages to capture as evidence.
With a 130 degree viewing angle and an infrared sensor, it’s also capable of recording video at night time.
Intrigued, we headed over to Netatmo’s stand at Pepcom’s Digital Experience centre at CES 2015.
Sadly, under the bright glare of the stands lighting rig, we were unable to check out the much vaunted night vision mode. The piece of video content on the app was also demo footage, the same footage that you can see for yourself on Netatmo’s site.
While we weren’t able to witness the full range of Welcome’s powers, at the stand we were able to get a feel for how the face recognition technology works. One Welcome unit was hooked up to a monitor which allowed us to witness its face detecting powers up close.
We weren’t also able to play around with the Welcome Tags, small motion detectors that work in tandem with the main Welcome camera unit. These can be placed on windows, back doors and gates to give you a heads up if anyone is coming in via another entrace or heading up the driveway.
Check out our hands on video below and our write up here for a full list of specs.
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