A new security camera from D-Link is built to use AI to tell you when humans are moving, and not just everything else.
One of the often frustrating pain points of security cameras is they’re not always built to recognise people, even if people are the primary reason you might set them up inside or outside your home.
While a security camera is there for your security, the sensor capability to tell the camera to record tends to need something to trigger it, and while that can be heat, it can also be flat out movement. A tree moving can trigger a camera, and as for the heat side, that might seem intelligent given humans are warm-blooded, but when a camera is aimed at a spot where the sun nestles its warmth at, well, you can guess what will happen.
The point is that security cameras can and will misfire, though technological improvements can help reduce the misfires, and mean the alerts you get will gradually over time improve. That means more useful updates in the long run for you, and more eyes on what’s happening in a more realistic way.
For instance, Ring recently updated its wired Video Doorbell Pro, launching a sonar-based version of its technology to pick up on motion from a certain place, able to provide an understanding on what the camera is picking up on, and it’s not the only instance where the tech has changed.
D-Link has announced a new wired security camera this week that uses artificial intelligence to identify human motion, working in day and night, and triggering alerts through its app so you can not only see the alert, but also have it stored in the cloud for later viewing. It’s called the D-Link DCS-8300LHV2, and while it won’t be one of those wire free cameras like D-Link’s Omna range, it will reportedly do things a little different.
Rather than just trigger on motion, the D-Link AI inside the the 8300LHV2 is reportedly built to pick up on humans as they move, though D-Link hasn’t quite said how beyond “edge detection”. However, if we had to guess, we’d expect it came from a machine learning and a paper on the field of edge detection for video, essentially watching the shapes of humans by their outline, and working out what’s going on by the movement.
Helping this to work is a camera capable of capturing 1080p Full HD video with a wide 120 degree field of view, as well as 360 degrees worth of positioning, though it won’t move for you. Rather, you’ll have all the versatility to set it up in whatever direction you want, but you’ll need to do it from outside the app, as it’s a physical in-real-life thing.
There’s also support for smart assistant in the DCS-8300LHV2, working with both the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa devices, and if you have a piece of hardware that’s always recording security footage, there’s support for ONVIF Profile S, which is basically a form of constant streaming and recording for video systems. However unlike other security cameras, and even some made by D-Link, this is not strictly an outdoor camera, missing out on water resistance.
It is available now, though, with the DCS-8300LHV2 priced at $129.95 in select stockists and stores around Australia.
