Netatmo Presence - an intelligent guardian of our home - review

Over two years ago I started the process of retrofitting my home with "smart home" devices. Until now, however, these were devices installed inside the building. However, the time has come to expand the system with intelligent outdoor cameras. My choice fell on Netatmo Presence.

Netatmo Presence is a smart camera that can be installed instead of classic outdoor wall lights.

The device has a built-in 12 W LED spotlight. The light intensity can be adjusted directly in the dedicated Netatmo application, as well as from the Home application. The camera is compatible with HomeKit, which is a prerequisite for me with this type of accessories. Thanks to this, I can trigger other devices, e.g. after detecting objects in its field of view. Thanks to HomeKit, I can use Siri to turn on the built-in spotlight in Presence. This is also useful to me sometimes.

The device has quite large dimensions, which are 50 x 200 x 110 mm. No wonder, because it houses both a security camera and a reflector. At first glance, it looks like an element of external lighting of the property. This has its advantages, because the camera is not conspicuous.

The installation of the camera is not complicated. It is no different from other outdoor wall lights. The matter is even more simple if the device takes the place of such a light source.

Netatmo Presence offers more than just classic passive monitoring where you just have to observe or record the camera image. It is equipped with a system for recognizing objects - people, animals or cars. After detecting them, it sends the appropriate notification to the user. Of course, he has the option of setting what type of notifications he wants to receive. Few people want to be informed that their own dog or cat is running around the garden, or that, for example, a hedgehog has appeared. On the other hand, someone who lives, for example, near a forest or fields, may be curious who turns over his trash cans at night (e.g. a wild boar). In my neighborhood, apart from stray cats (or rather those that have many owners), there are practically no wild animals.

Netatmo Presence - intelligent guardian of our home - review

That's why I set sending notifications when people and cars are detected, but saving recordings of all objects that appear in the field of view of the camera - including unrecognized ones.

It should be mentioned here that the video is recorded and saved in Full HD (1080p) maximum. It can be recorded on a microSD memory card with a maximum capacity of 32 GB. The image is of good quality both during the day and at night. In the latter case, infrared LEDs help.

Due to the fact that the camera has quite a large viewing angle (100 degrees), it is very important to be able to monitor and respond to events that only take place in a certain area. This one can be defined in the Security app from Netatmo..

The automatic switching on of the LED spotlight is also coupled with object recognition. However, the lighting only turns on when people or cars are detected, Cats have to deal with it in the dark.

Krystian wrote about the Netatmo Security application, which is used to operate the camera and view video recordings, when reviewing another camera monitoring the interior - Netatmo Welcome. In the case of the external Netatmo Presence camera, it allows for the notification and video recording settings mentioned above when various objects appear in its field of view.

Netatmo Presence has been monitoring my property for several months now. It survived torrential rains and the last frosts (I live on the edge of the city, where it is one or two degrees cooler than in the center). Fortunately, for now, apart from stray cats or dogs, she has not registered anyone who would like to get onto our property without our knowledge, and let's hope it stays that way. Thanks to this camera, we certainly feel safer, having the ability to react quickly to the appearance of an intruder.

Update 2020-02-27

A few months later, a camera recorded my car being stolen in front of my house.

The Netatmo Presence camera is available in the MyApple store for PLN 1399.