Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Update 7/29/16 - The app has gotten better. The playback is much improved and the way motion events are sequenced has improved as well. I can say at this point that the Canary is an excellent device for passive monitoring, this is, if you want to check in on things ad-hoc or look back at what happened earlier in the day/week. As I've mentioned several times below it still is not effective as an active monitoring device, too many false alarms for a house with pets and windows. I took up Matt's (from Canary) recent offer in the manufacturer reply below and had a chat with him about some of my concerns. I learned that effective image recognition requires a tradeoff with security. Canary has chosen not to compromise at all with the latter meaning it is difficult for them to apply an effective 'learning' algorithm to the data available to them. I accept that trade-off, I would rather Canary not have unencrypted video on their servers to process. Still - they initially marketed the product claiming that this would be possible. They still offer functionality in the app where you can "tag" events as pet movements, sunlight etc. to "help improve canary". This appears to just be a facade. For me this becomes a 5 star product when I can turn on alerts and know that if I receive one it is time to stop whatever I am doing. It needs to have the capability to know, without a doubt, that a person is in my apartment. Perhaps pairing the canary with additional sensors (photoelectric beam, door sensor etc..) could make it a more comprehensive and reliable system. I was encouraged by my chat with Matt, it sounds like they are focused on the right user issues and will continue to make this a better product. Upgrading to 4 stars Update 4/3/16 - There is still zero "learning" associated with this device. It will alert you for any motion like most other wifi cameras. The only "intelligence" they have added is a way to adjust the sensitivity. I guess this might help reduce some false alarms but it is impossible to find the sweet spot where it will always detect a person but not my dog or a moving shadow. And regardless, when there is lightning canary is convinced the whole room is moving and alerts even on the lowest sensitivity setting. The app still is terrible. The playback on Android is flawed and it won't let me fast forward in a clip. Occasionally I have had clips that are an hour long because there are lots of fast moving clouds (creating rapid light transitions) that create a sequence of motion events. It is impossible for me to jump to a point that I care about and I am forced to download the clip (which takes a really long time for an hour long clip) and then use my phones native player. Occasionally even with shorter clips that consist of two motion events it will refuse to ever transition to the play the second event. It is also a huge data hog. It easily chews through several hundred megabytes if you want to playback a couple clips (which you will always need to do to find a specific event since Canary tags so many false movements). I can stream youtube for hours without seeing the same data impact. My wife uses the iphone app. Same data issues and slightly more reliable playback. You can at least jump to a midpoint in the clip but she often runs to random playback errors as well. I can only hope that if there is ever an emergent situation where we need to review Canary footage that the apps will actually work. Keep in mind the apps are the only way to review Canary footage. There is no desktop/web client. To summarize: they seem to be doing very little to improve their product - Their only public release in the past 6 months paraded integration with Wink and Echo. I am sure those features makes their engineers feel warm and fuzzy inside but it does very little to improve their customer experience. See for yourself: [...] Update 9/30/15 - I never ended up returning this device due to the lack of strong alternatives. Original Review: I have had my canary for 2 weeks. I was very excited to have a easy to use and attractive apartment monitoring device. Here are the issues I ran into. 1. False Alarms - pets: I get alerts all day from my dog walking back and forth. I tag all of them as "pet movements" so the canary can "learn" but the frequency of these alerts has not decreased. My dog just does the same walk back and forth so it is not like it is a different movement every time. Somehow canary hasn't been able to learn Update 9/30/15 - The manufacturer has acknowledged that at this point zero device learning is occurring. Their website says "Canary's algorithm-based motion detection learns over time to send you smarter notifications. The longer you have it, the more effective it becomes". right now that is a complete lie. Currently users are just providing data so Canary can eventually develop a learning algorithm. I am all for being a beta tester when it is presented as such. I've attached a screenshot of what happens to my phone when my Canary is armed on a day that my dog isn't even home. Each alert just shows the brightness shifting in the room. 2. False Alarms - switch between infrared and camera: The canary has a great nighttime infrared mode which automatically switches to regular camera mode when the room is light enough, and vice versa. Whenever this switch occurs it will trigger a motion alert. If your device is armed all day you can count on getting at least 2 false alarms update 9/30/15 - this has mostly been fixed but I still get a couple alerts a week that consist of only an infrared mode shift. 3. False Alarms - sunlight: Yesterday was a partly cloudy day so the sunlight was variable. my phone was getting alerts all day. 4. Unreliable detection: After 10 days of false alarms I was excited to hear that my landlord needed to stop by my apartment while I was away. This was my chance to actually use my Canary! Well he stopped by, left a note on the counter, and left without my Canary sending a single alert. After he texted me that he has left I checked my Canary app and it was still armed and online. I got a dozen false alarms all day but no alert when someone was actually in my apartment. 5. Unreliable device - As I am writing this review I am out of town and my Canary app says "Canary is offline". I know my internet is up because I can remote access into my home computer. Canary just randomly stopped working and there is nothing I can do about it until I am back home. This seems to be a frequent complaint in other reviews. It is tough to justify an investment in a security device that can just go dormant like this. Update 9/30/15: several times since I got the Canary it has disconnected and failed to reconnect. In these cases I have needed to restart the whole initial setup process to get it back online. 6. Terrible App (Android) - air monitoring: The canary has all these great features where it can monitor air quality, temperature, humidity etc... well those features are completely useless because the app UI for it is broken. I emailed their support and they said they are aware of the issue and trying to fix it, but according to Gplay reviews this has been an issue for a while. Update 9/30/15 - The app keeps getting better. This specific issue has been fixed. 7. Terrible App (Android) - bugs: overall the app crashes frequently when i try to replay all of my false alarm clips and sometimes loading the live feed just never happens. Update 9/30/15 - The app keeps getting better. The crashes occur much less frequently but the playback functionality is still extremely frustrating. 8. No two-way audio - They seem to communicate this as a deliberate product decision to avoid associating any 'creepyness' with their device. It just seems like such a easy feature to add. When I go on the app and see my dog on the couch I would love to be able to yell at him. Overall I am bummed out that this product didn't work for me. The device is great! the camera/audio quality is excellent, the night vision is crystal clear, and the hardware just looks super slick. Unfortunately the intelligence and apps that support the device are half-baked. I would not recommend this to anyone in its current state.