ifttt

Your cameras are now one click away from becoming friends with IFTTT

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We are excited to announce that Angelcam is now integrated with IFTTT, which means your Angelcam-connected cameras just became IFTTT-compatible!

You asked, and we listened! Integration with IFTTT was a top user request, and now your compatible cameras, doorbells, and other video devices are all capable of integrating with other smart home/IoT devices, including sensors and plenty of other IFTTT products and services.

For those unfamiliar, IFTTT is a free service that allows you to automate interactions between your cameras and other devices and services. For example, you can have your cameras start recording automatically upon leaving your house. How do they know you’ve left? Perhaps it was your Nest Thermostat’s schedule, the usage of your Nuki door locks, or any other IFTTT-compatible device’s event that could have triggered it. Even something as simple as leaving your home Wifi network can initiate your security cameras. For those that prefer manual control over recording, you’re set as well as you can easily set up a button in the widget area of your IFTTT mobile app and enable it with that.

 

      

You can mark events on a camera’s cloud-recording timeline with any IFTTT-compatible sensor (i.e. the D-Link Motion Sensor), allowing you to track events and watch related recordings at a later time (currently only available on the mobile app).

Want to be sure your garage doors are closed after you’ve left home? Capture a snapshot each time your garage doors close, giving you peace of mind.

 

How about scheduled cloud recordings to save bandwidth or protect your privacy? Maybe a scheduled public broadcast of your camera? Or even receive a text message when your camera goes offline? With IFTTT, you can do all of these things easily through the creation of custom applets.

Ultimately, with prices of IFTTT-compatible sensors starting at $30, combining Angelcam with IFTTT is a very cost-effective way to unlock some unique and powerful possibilities for your cloud-recording solutions.

Have you used IFTTT and Angelcam? Share your experiences with us!

Mobotix is opening their cameras to make integration with open platform systems easier

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mobotix logo

I was excited to hear that new Mobotix CEO announced they’ll finally open their cameras. This will make Mobotix camera owners definitely happier. Today you can find their customers complaining on support forums. And few of them, the most experienced, are sharing the horrific procedures hacking the lack of industry standards h.264 & RTSP. Soon they’ll be able to use any open platform, including Angelcam, to get more value from their cameras using any application from any developer.

Klaus Gessman, who became Mobotix CFO in 2013 and CEO in February 2014, comment his decision:

“It is a complete strategy change for Mobotix. We used to say that we didn’t care about H.264, ONVIF and so on – we’ll go our own way with Mobotix, including with our outstanding video codec. But then you have to convince customers who have already invested in a huge way in – let’s say Avigilon Vision or analogue systems – get rid of those and use only Mobotix systems. … We would take care of H.264 on all cameras. … I want to be open in the market.”
 

Our company always have “openness” as one of our values. The ability to connect any hardware to any software can mean more competition for suppliers, but we strongly believe that it brings many new opportunities for them too. It’s not only about providing freedom to your customers to change the supplier anytime. Today with the world of connected devices (and APIs and platforms like IFTTT or Zapier), openness is mainly about letting users to do with their cameras much more than any closed system will ever offer.

Just imagine some really useful use cases. Switching on Philips’s WiFi enabled light when camera detects movement during night hours? Switching off the video recording when you come to your office? Receiving a push notification to your smartphone, when a car with unknown car-plate number parked on your reserved parking lot? There are thousands of different use cases any company can make a use of.

I’m very happy that our team is part of this huge movement.