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- First reviewJune 1, 2015
- Last reviewJune 1, 2015
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Eric's Reviews
Secure your home and get help in seconds with this Canary all-in-one home security system. The small footprint doesn't take up much space and lets you monitor your home, infant or pets at a glance. This Canary all-in-one home security system offers one-touch access to emergency services with the compatible app.
Customer Rating
1
Decent hardware, but doesn't work, terrible app
on June 1, 2015
Posted by: Eric
I purchased 2 devices and neither worked as advertised.
I purchased the first one and set up. Installation went fairly well, it updated its firmware successfully, but the Live Video never worked. I tried adding it to two different WiFi networks, moved it to several rooms (even in the same rooms as the routers), and even hooked it up via an Ethernet cable. The device simply would not stream video. The app showed nothing but an endless spinning wheel whenever I tried to look at video. Even when the device triggered an event (motion sensor), the stored video never played. I could see a still shot from the video, but no video. My network is solid. My internet connection is 25/25 or better.
Another problem is the app (iOS). Several areas are simply not thought through well, or they made very poor decisions. Simply put, Canary is not Apple. Apple knows how to make a good user experience. Canary falls way short. When setting up the device, the only WiFi choice you have is the network your phone is connected to. You cannot choose any other network. You have to connect your phone to whatever network you want the Canary on first, and then setup the Canary. When the device was installed and working (partially), I noticed I could not turn off the light on the bottom of the unit. Why can't I turn the light off? Why do I want to guide a burger to the security device? When I ultimately could not get Live Video working I attempted to factory reset the device and start again. Guess what? No way to factory reset the device. There's a small reset button on the bottom of the device that does absolutely nothing. You cannot reset the device in the app either. You can look at your device in the app (which means you can see its name (that they give it), serial number, and firmware version number), but you cannot do anything with the device except change its network connection. Out of frustration I decided I would return this one and exchange it for another. I wanted to remove the device from my account, but guess what? You can't do that either. Now I have a device named "Canary 1" (because that's what they name it and you can't change that) in my app even though it doesn't exist on my network. I thought if I setup a second one I would get an option to delete the first. So I exchanged the device for a second one and set that one up - or I tried to. When I went through the installation steps it started its firmware update and then simply stopped. It sat there for hours and the app said nothing but "Step 3 of 5: Verifying." You can't do anything else. Now I have a device named "Canary 2" in my app that is completely useless. Can't remove either device from the account. The entire experience of setting the device up and then attempting to use it in the app felt very poor - like it was made by a group of developers trying to create an Apple experience but fell utterly short.
Another major problem: no support community. Look at TiVo. Look at Nest. You will find huge numbers of users contributing to the support forums on those companies' websites. No such luck with Canary. You're on your own with this, and it doesn't work.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
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