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D-Link
mydlink Pro
FRUSTR ATINGLY, PLENTY OF GOOD
THINGS BUT PLENTY OF IRRITATING
QUIR KS TOO.THIS ONE HAD us torn. On the one hand, it’s a well
designed camera and hub combo, with a long-lasting
battery, at a decent price. On the other, there are some
big issues to look past.
To begin with, the picture quality is a tad
questionable. Detail actually isn’t too bad, with an
excellent level of sharpness when zoomed in, but when
placed side-by-side the picture pales in comparison to
its competitors here. It’s much more murky, both in
broad daylight and at night. When it’s bright out,
shadows burn through, while bright areas like sky
bleach out – though thankfully we didn’t spot any
significant blooming, so you should still be able to
pick out a backlit intruder. With the lights off, its night
vision reach isn’t the strongest, and it’s a gloomy,
shadowy picture. There are no options in the app to
adjust the exposure of the sensor, which is something
of a disappointment – though we don’t think the
colour depth would be enough to ruin evidential
footage entirely.
That app is disappointing, too. D-Link has clearly
tried to give it an attractive edge, and we have to give
credit to its ability to show what’s going on from up to
four cameras at a time. However, its combination of soft
focus lifestyle backgrounds, clunky device wheels and
poorly labelled controls makes it awkward and slow to
use – and when it comes to security, you really need
something immediate. Connecting to the camera for a
live view is similarly languid and, at times, we found the
app needed a restart to connect – not the most
reassuring, particularly given that the individual
cameras hook up to a central hub which should, in
theory, be dealing with connection reliability.
That’s the bad news, but there’s plenty of good. That
hub takes seconds to set up, and arguably offers more
than Arlo’s equivalent, since it not only includes
microSD backup of recordings (just like the Arlo), but
also includes a USB port for hard drive recording.
There’s a central 100dB siren (silenced by the top
button) which could be helpful if your cameras are all
mounted outside; doing so isn’t a problem, with each
carrying an IP65 rating (which means they’ll
withstand a jet from a hose) and the option of either a
strong magnetic ball mount or a standard tripod
screw, with a single adjustable arm included in the
two-camera package.
This isn’t a bad investment at all.Picture quality is not as impressive as others, but the D-Link cameras are easy to set up not just in the
software, but also in terms of their flexibility.BARGAINHUNTERWIRELESSSMARTSECURITYCAMS