Canary Flex Indoor/Outdoor, Wire-free or Plugged-in, Weatherproof HD Security Camera - Black

Ill Give it 5. Its not on them to expect it to be anything like a wired surveillance system. Please do not be silly and expect any wireless camera system to work just the same and record the same way!Before buying this product you need to ask your self what your looking for.Do I want something that will make a sound/alarm , then notify authorities in the event of fire or break in ?Or Do I just want a simple home surveillance system to send me alerts for any activity during the night or away ?If you are looking for both, this is not the right product for you. If you are fitting more into the second question. I'd say look into this.1. Do not expect an instant connection. It does take a few seconds to buffer. If this does not bother you -then no big deal. It does not personally bother me, and knowing how things work over wifii you can not fault the company for this. They do connect and hold connection with 1080p quality.2. It does have a Delay in time. What your seeing (depending on internet connection and speed) Can be anywhere from 15- 30 seconds behind. In most cases this shouldn't matter much. How ever in the event of an emergency it can be detrimental. But note this is not something I would say can replace an Alarm system. If that is what you are looking for. This is not the product for you. This is simply a Camera system that is smart. Use I would say best is to catch home burglaries/invasion, Pets, animals, kids. ect It does have emergency contact features, but these are not automatic based on a fire or break in. It only records people or movement and lets you know.3. It does work well. All of the features Canary offers seem to work very well. It works well With alexa. It certainly picks up people , It seems to be pretty accurate when your home and not home.4. Subscription. As of now. They are offering 9.99 a month for the service. Id say the service is absolutely worth it and a must have, if you are investing in this as a home security system. If you just want to keep an eye on pets. Their free service is more than sufficient. Their basic service offers a lot id say for free. You get 24 hours to view any recordings. It will still let you know if it spots anyone. The paid service enables the talk feature. 30 days to view videos and save them(you can not save clips with free service).So all in all. I do recommend this Product. With the understanding this is not going to be the same as having a wired surveillance system. It does not record all the time. It only starts recording once it picks up on someone or something moving. It is able to identify people and animals. It works very well in the dark. with 1080p. Ya really cant beat it. They do also offer emergency contact features in the app in the event of an emergency. Its a nice little system to have in your home. It is most certainly better then nothing. More than sufficient. I would put it more towards the easy way out for a surveillance system. Also battery life last about a week or more. Depends on how much stuff it keeps picking up / recording. If you can figure out a neat way to keep them plugged into an outlet , I would do that. If not battery mode is just as good.

I have bought this product hoping that I can monitor my corridor while away from home but I think it failed in many ways from my experience. The setup for the camera to my home network internet connection was pretty easy albeit slightly longer (it took around 3 mins for the Flex to connect to my wireless router while it was sitting just beside it). The setup was pretty straightforward on the app. Moving forward testing out the camera, while facing the camera towards myself and setting the sensitivity to the highest, it did not even sense my presence and all the while it was just in sleeping mode. I waved and walk in front of it but still it wouldn't wake up or post any activity notification on the app timeline. I was getting frustrated and try to adjust the camera's positioning. The camera only woke up and record bits and pieces of myself when i physically touch the Flex, Yes and I mean physically touch it such as tapping it and adjusting its position. It won't even record or sense any motion when i wave my hands 1 cm away from the sensor, that's how absurd it is.Next is the problem with live view. The live view only shows snippets of pre-recorded clips of myself again tapping and adjust the Flex, so it is not live view. They should have just name it "last pre-recorded clip". Sometimes, it will just show that my camera is offline while my home internet connection is working flawlessly.The battery lifetime is also of a concern. Thinking that the battery life was great or at least it could last at least 3 weeks with minimal usage was too demanding. In fact after charging the Flex to full bar and placing it at home (I just dumped it at a corner facing the wall without any recording because I was just frustrated over the performance), I received a notification on my phone saying that my canary is offline due to flat battery after 3 days I believe. If not for this notification I would have forgotten about this crap.I bought this product on amazon because of the great promises by Canary advertisement and some of the reviews here, but sad to say I am not satisfied at all. This is the worse security camera I have ever owned and I'm going to throw it into the box and send it back. I believe this product is still not fully functional at this time. If you need a real working security camera, please do look elsewhere until they have sort out these issues.