How to Remotely Reboot a Nest Cam, Samsung SmartCam or Other Security Camera

I learn things the hard way and readers of this site learns things my reading our articles.  That’s how the idea behind this article came up.  We’re going to discuss how to remotely reboot a Nest Cam, Samsung SmartCam and a few other models of home security camera.  The methods discussed within will work with almost any home security camera. So you might ask how this happened.  All home security cameras have computers in them.  Like practically any computer, for a variety of reasons, they get stuck.  Sometimes it’s a memory issue.  Other times, it’s a problem with the code. … Read more

How to Make a Bean Bag Stand for Nest Cam or DropCam Pro

The title sounds a bit like an arts and crafts project, doesn’t it?  Well, today we’re going to make a bean bag stand for Nest Cam or DropCam Pro.  A photo of the completed bean bag stand for Nest Cam or DropCam Pro accompanies this article. With all of the alternative mounts available for a Nest Cam or DropCam Pro, why make a bean bag stand?  Good question.  This particular project came to be out of a unique monitoring requirement.  I needed to temporarily locate a camera  on a window ledge and give it some lift.  More lift than the stand included with … Read more

Canary Flex versus Nest Cam Outdoor Camera

The Nest Cam Outdoor is Nest’s solution for outside security camera use.  The folks at Canary decided to take them on by introducing the Canary Flex.  So it’s a good time for our Nest Cam Outdoor versus Canary Flex face off. We previously wrote detailed reviews on these cameras if you would like to read all about them first: Nest Cam Outdoor Review Canary Flex Review Let’s move on to the comparison. Software This category is all about the smartphone app, web app and camera firmware. Both companies offer excellent and easy to use applications.  You can do a lot more with the Nest Cam Outdoor application. … Read more

How to Hide a Canary Flex Camera

This is the first article on our site to discuss hiding an outdoor camera.  The Canary Flex can be used indoors and outdoors but the majority will buy this for use outside.  Given the portability of the magnetic mount that comes with the Canary Flex, how to hide a canary Flex is a good topic to discuss. There are a lot of reasons to hide a Canary Flex camera.  Most important is that you don’t want a bad guy to see it.  If a bad guy sees the camera, and knows he’s on it, there is a good chance it will get … Read more

Yi Home Camera Tips and Tricks

I just got my first week of YI Home Camera experience under my belt and know enough to tell you that there is a lot of stuff that isn’t sufficiently documented.  And some stuff that isn’t documented at all.  Our article entitled Yi Home Camera Tips and Tricks tries to close the gap between fairly useful and really useful functionality. A detailed review of the Yi Home Camera was published a week ago.  We gave the Yi Home Camera a thumbs up based upon a slew of higher end features coupled with a budget minded price.  We were impressed enough to name … Read more

Canary Flex: Another Choice for Monitoring Outdoors

Canary has become one of my favorite home security camera makers.  One of the drawbacks of my Canary All in One Security System is that it can’t go outdoors.  The recently introduced Canary Flex just took the Canary lineup outdoors. This is a trend that we are seeing in home security cameras.  Consumers want a way to monitor the outside of their home but want to do it more easily without having to hire an electrician and run a bunch of wires for power and connectivity.  The call for outdoor monitoring has prompted other companies to roll out easy to … Read more