Anker just launched a wireless security cam with 365-day battery life and A.I | Hacker News Reader

Anker just launched a wireless security cam with 365-day battery life and A.I

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25 pointscescc15 comments

They didn't launch anything, this is a kickstarter with estimated delivery of Sept 2018.

Based on my previous kickstarter experience, that means that you'll probably have it somewhere between Dec 2018 and Dec 2019 with a 25% chance that they never deliver. Unless they already have manufacturing samples, the timeline seems agressive, the funding deadline is June 15 so that's only 3 months before the delivery goal.

This is Eufy, Anker's brand for home products. I think with a $50K funding threshold, it is pretty clear they are simply leveraging Kickstarter as a go-to-market strategy. Informs their mfg schedule and possibly grants a better position in negotiating their mfg costs. Doing this also has the happy benefit of reducing initial capital investment.

Key: "EverCam records video to local storage,...For Free. Just insert the included microSD card* and you’re all set. Alternatively, by subscribing to our cloud storage plan, you can expand your security options to include simultaneous recording to the cloud. "

They get it right. cloud is a nice option, not a required part of the package for the thing to run.

Nice

Anker is a real company. So why are they doing crowdfunding? I like their stuff, but this doesn't give me confidence in their ability to deliver.

From the places Anker is mentioned on the linked page, it doesn't sound like Anker is doing this. It sounds like Anker is simply supplying (possibly custom) battery and charging technology to them.

My experience (both pledging and running my own campaigns) has been Kickstarter is mostly an early adopter marketing tool. They could easily fund this themselves and start selling it on Amazon.

They don't need another $50k to get this product to market, especially considering to get to this point (prototypes, market research, marketing) they have easily spent more than that. I bet they are spending $15k+ in video production and marketing just for this campaign. Campaigns frequently choose low targets in order to appear like they are wildly successful as well.

They managed to get onto HN with this campaign -- I wouldn't have heard of it otherwise.

Correction: a company claiming to use Anker's battery technology (what is that? their battery packs are just standard Lithium-Ion or LiPo cells) is crowdfunding for stated purpose of allegedly creating a security camera with an unverified and hard to believe 365-day battery life.

They state the one year of battery life is based on 10 videos a day, 30 seconds each. That means that on one charge they have 365 days of standby and 30 hours, 25 mins of video recording. All this plus self-discharge, and down to -4 degrees F (this is significant since extracting energy out of a Lithium-Ion or LiPo cell is rather hard at such low temperatures - you lose about 1/3 of the capacity, and see significantly lower cell voltage and higher internal resistance at -20C).

Sample data on lithium cells: https://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sites/default/pidsa/file...

I would be interested in replacing my Arlo with this but I don't see any integration with SmartThings, Homekit, Alexa, or Google Home except as a possible "stretch goal".

How has your experience been with the Arlo device?

Also, that Stretch Goal has been met so the integrations with Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT, etc. are supposed to happen via software update in the future.

I haven't had any issues at all with the Arlo Pro.

My experience with Arlo has been overall positive. I have three Arlo Pro cameras integrated with SmartThings, and while the integration is not perfect, it works well enough for my purposes.

Battery life is 3 months at best, and a lot less if it's recording often. They recharge pretty fast so it's not a big deal unless they are hard to get to.

Range is pretty good--one has been on a tree behind my house all winter, and only stopped working when it got very cold. Absolutely zero false alarms from moving tree branches/bushes/blowing leaves (although the sensitivity can be adjusted if needed).

This isn't made by Anker. They use Anker's battery technology.

They show 4 cells in the expanded view. Let's say (generously) that that's 20,000 mAh at 5V. That gives an average power consumption usage of 11 milliwatts. HD sensors use ~200mW, so that requires the sensor to be off at least 95% of the time to survive a year.

It's a subsidiary of Anker. https://www.eufylife.com/pages/about-us

I'm curious about the magnetic mount. Doesn't that mean you can just walk up and take the camera?

EDIT: Apparently it has an anti-theft alarm, so your camera theft will also require bagging it I suppose.

That magnetized mount makes it seem very easy to steal the camera.

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