Wireless Camera System keeps your Home Safe

There are few things more important than feeling safe and security especially in your own home. It can be hard in this day and age to leave your home knowing that there is questionable activity in your neighborhood. One thing that can really help with feeling secure is to add a WiFi camera system inside your home. There are a lot out options out there, but in my opinion, the ones that detect sound and motion are the best for homes.

Unboxing
The Twist HD Camera Kit comes in a plain brown cardboard box with a branded sticky label on the top. The label isn’t very flashy, but it does have all the important information on it. I actually like this because it means that the company has more opportunity to put funding into their product rather than branded packaging. When you get the box open, there is a quick start guide sitting on top of two smaller boxes. The guide is a simple 5″ x 5″ fold-over brochure with only 4 pages. The guide is very concise and it only has three steps to it. I like that Home8 keeps in simple for users. Some companies have dozens of steps in their quick setup guides.

Inside the two boxes you will find all the equipment for the Twist HD setup. One box houses the security shuttle and cabling, while the other has the cameras and power adapters. Everything was very well wrapped and secure in the boxes. Each camera is shrink wrapped with its own power cable.  I like that because it means you can’t mix them up with any other parts. The same is true of the security shuttle. All of its accessories are shrink wrapped together. Home8 made this very easy for users.

Set Up
The quick start guide is very easy to follow. One point to note is that you need to be in the same room as your router when you set it up. One big difference between this camera kit and others like it is that it has the shuttle which links the cameras or other devices together. A lot of cameras just connect directly to the router, which means that you have to use the mobile phone’s WiFi settings to do it. To me, this is a bit daunting and can be difficult depending on how your phone connects. Connecting the cameras to the shuttle is much easier for set-up.

The nice thing about the shuttle set-up is that you only have to connect it to the app on your phone and the shuttle connects to the cameras. After you have everything connected, you then unplug the cameras and place them where you want them in your home or office. The amazing thing about this is that as long as you replug in the cameras within about 10 minutes of the first set up, they automatically reconnect to the shuttle.

As far as multiple camera set ups go, the Home8 Twist HD Camera Kit is definitely one of the easiest I’ve ever tested. The only thing that I would like to see different is a longer power cable. I wanted to place one of the cameras on top of a cabinet in my kitchen and the cable wasn’t long enough. Because it is powered by a standard Micro USB cable, you could replace it easily, but I feel like that’s something that could easily be included as standard.

Testing
With home security cameras, I typically look at a couple of things – the clarity of the video feed, the speed at which the camera connects, the features of the app, and the ease of use of the entire system. First, I am very happy with how easy it was to set up the system. From start to finish, I think it took me about 10 minutes – that includes the time it took for me to place the cameras around the house.

The cameras connect very quickly through the app. From app start up to when the live video feed was streaming, it was only about 10 seconds. That is very fast in my experience. When you are looking at the feed, you have the option to change the settings, open the speaker or microphone, start recording the feed, sound an alarm, or call an emergency number. The cameras do feature night vision as a viewing option and it’s just a clear as the daytime viewing.

I am completely impressed by how quickly the video feed loaded. There are some WiFi cameras that take up to 10 seconds to load, which can be an eternity if you are concerned about your home. Another thing that I am impressed by is the video feed delay. It seemed to be milliseconds instead of seconds like lots of cameras.

The app is very easy to use and it has a lot of options for adding more devices. Because I only have the 2-camera set up, I’ve really only used the video feature, which is very, very easy to understand. You can use it without seeing any instructions. One thing I found that could be adjusted is the camera rotation operation. There is a delay between when you tap the screen and when the video feed reflects the camera’s change in direction. That is something that can probably change with a software update.

Conclusions
The Home8 Twist HD Camera Kit is a really nice set up for home security cameras. It’s easy to use and provides you with a very nice option for viewing your home even when you aren’t there. If you are looking for WiFi cameras, this is a set that should definitely be in contention.