Keeping an eye on things – the D-Link HD PoE Day/Night Mini Dome Cloud Camera – our review

More than ever it’s becoming easier and more affordable to add cameras to your home to keep an eye on things for you when you aren’t around.  Enter the D-Link HD PoE Day/Night Mini Dome Cloud Camera – putting more descriptions in a product name than ever before.

While the name is complex, it is what it says on the box:

• HD – High Definition (720p) video
• PoE – Power over Ethernet, so no separate power connection required
• Day/Night – With infra-red illumination you can see even when the lights are off
• Mini – It’s small, they call it “ultra-small” but I’ll just call it small
• Dome – Yep, the lens is within a dome which allows you to adjust across a large viewing angle
• Cloud – Using D-Link back-end you can link to a cloud account for remote viewing
• Camera – well, that’s its primary function!

So with that straight, what does it do? Well aside from what’s in the name it also has a microphone and audio output so you could rig up 2-way communication which is cool.

The installation into the ceiling was a breeze – mind you I replaced a previous camera so already had an Ethernet cable in place. However my first disappointment came when I realised the camera was fixed, I assumed I could move it around with software, but nope – you adjust to your required angle and that’s that.

It does have a MicroSD card slot on board, and can link to a NAS for storage, both of which are not optimal for home scenarios but could be good in a managed small business IT environment.

To fit in, it comes with both black and white housings.

Once installed the software side of things isn’t ideal, and when compared to a more complete system like Netgear Arlo it is hard to justify.

The real advantage of this is the ceiling mount system which keeps the camera discreet – something not possible with the Arlo and others which need to be wall or corner mounted.

Access via the D-Link app or website is easy, which is a great bonus for plenty of people relying on hard-drive based storage with no remote access right now.

At $299.95 it isn’t cheap, but for a small business looking for basic surveillance, It should be considered.  For home users, I think there are plenty of simpler installations available from companies like D-Link, Belkin or Netgear.

Web: D-Link

[schema type=”review” rev_name=”D-Link mini dome cloud camera” rev_body=”Not the best in cloud cameras, but great for a managed IT environment in a small business or office” author=”Trevor Long” pubdate=”2015-04-16″ user_review=”3.5″ min_review=”0″ max_review=”5″ ]