Oof, okay, sometimes we review things that aren't great... I always try to find something nice to say, so we'll try here.
In full disclosure I reached back out to the company to ask for clarification and got none, so I'm going to have to just infer how it was supposed to work.
Today's review, as you can see from the title is a nanny cam from a company called "Camduck". I'm reviewing the Camduck-XN which runs at $99.99USD
Ethics aside from using a nanny cam... a camera that's meant to secretly record (on the website it touts how it doesn't give any recording indicator - "no one will know" and it shows a woman in a bed... very creepy)... it's a neat principle. If it weren't so creepy.
This is meant to plug into a wall outlet (it needs only 1, but there is a plastic bit to go into the 2nd one below... I guess you could break it off) and it looks like a multiport adapter with 4x AC plus, 2x USB-A and even a USB-C port.
But what you can't see is a somewhat hidden webcam lens.
Let's use it. You plug it in and go. Well, best to put in an SD card first. There's a plate on the back for you to put it in.
Powering it up you hear an audible CLICK after a few seconds - I guess to let you know it's booted up.
There's supposed to be LED blinking lights to let you know it's in whatever mode, but I've never seen any at all through the set ups I've done (yup, I've done this a few times).
With the device on and powered, you load up the Camduck app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rtp2p.cixicm
Okay, now I was going to wonder, can I connect it to my Google Home and view it with my other security cameras? Quick answer is no. And you know why?
Essentially, there's no login for this. You just open the app, and it 'sees' a nanny cam nearby to connect to - and you connect to it. That's it.
No password to set up (aside from telling it the password to the wifi). Just connect to it and then you can see the camera.
Simple... except... it shouldn't be THAT simple. Anybody could connect to it now. I tried with another phone - and a friend's phone. As long as they loaded up the Camduck app it would offer to connect to that camera. That is not what I would call 'secure' at all. Now, Camduck has said that it is only if that other person has access to your wifi. So a friend that I let connect to my Wifi could surreptitiously connect to the Camduck so they could view it whenever they want; and even make changes to it.
Another security red flag comes in a warning about audio recording. That it is supposed to be turned off in accordance with regional laws and if we feel that we can enable it I'm to contact them. I didn't, but it's enabled.
Okay, let's set that insecurity bit aside for the time being... oof.
Let's use it and pretend it was secure.
The app let's you open up the camera, you could take a picture to store on the card, or a video. Okay, and you can go in and delete those. Neat.
It does allow for nightvision and it says 4k quality. Okay.
Then there's settings for 'alarm'. Meaning that it should let you know whenever motion is detected, and with an SD card in, it'll record up to 2 minutes.
Except, it doesn't seem to. I've gone into the settings and set it to 'alarm recording' vs. 'loop recording' and it either doesn't record movement when I've walked in front of it... or it says there's a ton of movement when there isn't (well, sometimes it thinks the sun rays moving across are movement... or if you adjusted anything to rotate or adjust it considers that movement).
I've tried resetting it (erase all / factory settings, and yet photos saved on the device - not on the card - are still there) and reconnecting and everything. No setting you set seems to make any change...
It doesn't help the instructions, the app, the FAQ, everything is in such a broken Chinese->English that you just can't understand anything.
Some items don't even line up (128GB max vs. 256GB...), or Sun for Sunday is 'Sum', Tuesday is 'Tus'.
I'm usually pretty tech savvy, but this ... is almost fully incomprehensible.
I have it finally to a point I believe is working. Some of the settings just seem to turn itself off ...
And if it did, you'd just get a notification in the one area of the app. I've never got a notification from the app outside of it. But then you'd have to go to the SD card and find the video corresponding to that alert. And there are no thumbnails for them, just 'ducks'. And sure they're time stamped, but still, not easy to find what you're looking for.
I did find that you can tell if it's just generic recordings or if it's a motion capture, there are different icons... yet I still find it odd that sometimes the numbers just don't add up (32 motion recordings and 68 normal recordings doesn't add to 99).
And if it's nothing - I should delete it right? Well, can't do that... no way for you to delete any individual videos. [just reformat the whole card]
Sometimes going into the SD card folder it just spins and spins saying it's loading and eventually you get an 'offline' notice. But you can watch the camera live.
Then there's viewing of the camera, you can hit 'max' to make it full screen and there are some options to adjust that... are supposed to be rotation or flipping, but it's not exactly intuitive. And be careful, because rotating causes it to think something happened and triggers a motion detection.
The whole thing is just unintuitive, fraught with security issues that concerns me (the only thing I can suggest would be to remove it from your normal home wifi router and have it on a router that no one else has the password to). For the cheaper price to higher end models it is simple enough, but you are making a lot of trade offs for it. And the funniest is that when you set it to motion recording, if you set it off, it does make a pretty audible 'tick-tick' sound... that'd alarm me.
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