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Build a smart home security system on a budget with these Amazon Prime Day deals on Arlo cameras

Popular Science

Amazon Prime Day is live. See the best deals HERE. You can create a comprehensive home security system with these high-end security cameras from Arlo. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Setting up a home security system used to be hard.


Eufy Smart Display E10 review: A visual home security panel

PCWorld

The Eufy Smart Display E10 is a fast, focused, and private way to manage your home security–provided you're living in Eufy's home security ecosystem. Smart displays aren't new, but Eufy's take on the category is a little different. Rather, it's a dedicated visual control panel for your Eufy-powered home security system, one that puts live video feeds, visitor alerts, and event summaries all in one place. Unlike an Echo Show or Nest Hub, it does it all without leaning on the cloud, serving up ads, or connecting to a server somewhere. The Eufy Smart Display E10 looks more like a small tablet than a security device.


Don't miss this budget-priced home security Prime Day bargain

PCWorld

Abode makes some of our favorite home security systems, and the Abode Security Kit is a great value made even better by Amazon's Prime Day sale. For just 60 bucks, you get the foundation of a robust security system that you can expand over time. This is an easy DIY product consisting of a central hub, one door/window sensor, and a keyfob for arming and disarming. Once you have it set up, you can add Abode's reasonably priced motion sensors, smart lock, security camera, video doorbell, and keypad (for arming/disarming) as you need them. You can also arm/disarm the system with the keyfob or the Abode app on your phone.


Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera (wired) review: A premium porch watcher

PCWorld

The Ecobee Smart Doorbell (wired) is a reliable, easy-to-use, high-end video doorbell. It depends on hardwired power, but it can trigger a homeowner's existing chimes. As with many of its competitors, you'll need to pay for a subscription to unlock all its features, but it can be incorporated into a robust home security system with professional monitoring at a very reasonable price. If you're already using one of Ecobee's smart home thermostats or security systems--or you're thinking about installing one--you'll want to consider the company's first video doorbell. The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera (wired) doesn't just compete with category leaders Ring, Nest, and Arlo, it also brings a few smart ideas of its own--and it plays especially well within Ecobee's larger smart home/home security ecosystem.


Abode home security systems can now be controlled from your Apple TV

PCWorld

The DIY smart home and home security specialists at Abode Systems have released their first Apple TV app, along with an upgraded version of the company's existing Android TV app. The new software promises to make it easier for Abode users to control their self-installed systems from their couch, using their TV or set-top box remote. The company already has apps for smartphones, smart watches, computers, and tablets. Users will be able to manage their security system and control their smart devices (lights, thermostat, from the Abode dashboard, but the primary attraction will be the ability to view live feeds from up to four Abode security cameras and/or video doorbells on their connected TVs. You can also watch recorded clips, and with AC-powered cameras that have 24/7 recording enabled (more on this in a bit), you can scrub back and forth along a 10-day timeline and jump to specific events.


The best smart home products of 2024

PCWorld

The pace of smart home innovation hasn't slowed a whit in 2024, with new products such as the Amazon Echo Show 21 being unveiled just this week. The better news is that the smart home is no longer a niche market appealing only to enthusiasts willing to tolerate steep learning curves. We are, however, still living in a world of smart home silos; namely, Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and Google Home. The increasingly important Matter standard will unify those ecosystems one day, but that won't happen until Matter incorporates every smart home category. Considering that, we've picked more than one product in several categories, based primarily on which silo your smart home is in.


Here's how smart home tech will change this year

#artificialintelligence

It's been nearly a decade since the smart home introduced voice commands. Today, there are thousands of smart home devices, apps, services, skills and ways to add the internet to every inch of your home. In 2021, we saw small but significant updates to the smart home that set the stage for a big 2022. Here's what the next year in smart home tech could bring. Every year, we look forward to new products from major smart home brands and exciting new ideas from startups, too.


A Black Woman Invented Home Security. Why Did It Go So Wrong?

WIRED

There's a well-known story among surveillance studies scholars and students of Black innovation: that of Marie Van Brittan Brown, a Black woman from Jamaica, Queens, New York who is now recognized as having invented the home security system in 1966. Brown worked long hours as a nurse and often came home late at night. Her husband also worked "irregular hours," and Brown worried about who might knock on her door if she were home alone at night. Similar versions of Brown's story can be found at the MIT Lemelson Center and all around the internet, including on Wikipedia, the African American history site Blackpast, and the history site Timeline. It's understandable that attention would be paid to Brown's pioneering work as a Black woman inventor whose contribution has rightly been cited in the development of subsequent home security systems and as the origin point for a massive industry.


Amazon smart home focuses on artificial intelligence

#artificialintelligence

Over the course of an hour on Tuesday, September 28, Amazon rolled out a raft of new smart home products, including an Alexa-powered robot, a wall-mountable Echo smart display, an interactive video phone for kids, the first video doorbell from its Blink division, new home-security products from its Ring subsidiary, and more. Artificial intelligence--Amazon calls it "ambient" intelligence--was a common thread running through all these new products. The company says this will enable its disparate products to work together seamlessly to deliver an experience that's more than the sum of its parts. But with a nod to consumers' growing privacy concerns, each presenter emphasized the ways in which Amazon's development teams had focused on reducing their products' reliance on cloud computing, pushing more processing power to the device itself to keep information local and within the users' control. Here's a quick recap of the most significant new product announcements, along with links to our deeper dives.


Edge AI for IoT Developers

#artificialintelligence

What is Edge AI? What are some applications of this technology? Edge Computing runs processes locally on the device itself, instead of running them in the cloud. This reduced computing time allows data to be processed much faster, removes the security risk of transferring the data to a cloud-based server, and reduces the cost of data transfer, as well as the risks of bandwidth outages disrupting performance. Computer vision and AI at the edge are becoming instrumental in powering everything from factory assembly lines and retail inventory management, to hospital urgent care medical imaging equipment like X-ray and CAT scans. Drones, security cameras, robots, facial recognition on cell phones, self-driving vehicles, and more all utilize this technology as well.