Uniden's Guardian G2720 security kit homes or office surveillance systems as simple
as possible to install and use. The kit comprises two wireless cameras, one 7in
tablet-style monitor and a base for the tablet. Video can be monitored live on
the tablet, over a home network, or over the Internet. You don't even have to
know much about networking to get all that working either — it's very much
plug-and-play. The quality of the video from the cameras is adequate, though
video size is small in order to facilitate recording, and frame rates can vary
depending on how good the camera signals are.
Setting up the Uniden Guardian is just a matter of finding
appropriate locations and power points for the two cameras and then switching
everything on so that they can be found by the base unit. You probably won't
want to put the cameras too far from the base unit — when we placed the cameras
further than 10m from the base unit, the frame rate ended up falling
dramatically. The cameras can be fixed with screws up high on a wall or ceiling
if they are to be used for security purposes, but because the cameras have
external antennas that screw into the back, you'll need to make sure there is
enough space for the antenna above the camera's mounting spot.
The metal stands on the cameras are adjustable; they have
ball joints that allow for vertical and horizontal movement. This joint felt a
little too soft and loose, and we had to really tighten the butterfly screw
hard in order to make the camera not move at all from its desired angle. Each
camera will need to be plugged into a wall outlet and the power adapters have
about 4m worth of cable to work with. You can place the cameras outdoors as
they are weatherproof, and they also have infrared LEDs, which means they can
work at night.
As we mentioned earlier, you won't want to position the
cameras too far from the main base unit. The specs say they can do 150m, but we
found the range to be much less in our test environment at the office. The
cameras run in the 2.4GHz frequency spectrum (using frequency-hopping spread
spectrum and encryption), and they can, in some instances, cause interference
to your wireless network (unless you are running a 5GHz Wi-Fi network). We
noticed this after experiencing very slow file transfers (under 500KBps) to one
of our laptops while the Uniden Guardian was on, and faster transfers (up to
10MBps) while the unit was off.
Using the Guardian kit isn't hard. The cameras are paired to
the base station by default — we didn't have to do anything ourselves to
connect them — and you can see video on the screen practically straight away.
Up to four cameras are supported and viewable on the 7in screen at once. We
were able to view our two cameras with ease and the beauty of the system is
that it also allows you to record streams from these cameras directly to the
base's SD card (a 4GB card is supplied with the unit).
The 7in tablet unit is very easy to use as the screen
supports touch. It's resistive though, which means that sometimes you have to
press firmly in order to get something to work, and we found that we did have
to press quite hard most of the time (a new firmware was released to remedy
this somewhat). You can simply press on each quadrant of video to make it full
screen, and you can press on the menu button on the left to enter the system
settings — not there are many — and also to enable Internet mode (as long as
the base is connected to your local area network via an Ethernet cable).
The quality of the video from the Guardian's cameras was
generally good during our tests, but quite small at 320x240 pixels — we
couldn't find a way to change this. Because the cameras are designed to have a
wide field of view, there is some distortion on straight vertical lines, which
manifests as a slight curve. Microphones are also installed, and you can hear audio
through the tablet if you tap on the camera to full-screen the view
that you want to listen to. Frame rates were smooth as long
as we kept the cameras within a good distance of the base unit, but at the
outer reaches of the range the frame rate dropped to less than one per second.
Night vision worked well to illuminate an area, but for the
purposes of security, unless someone is quite still and close to the camera, it
can be hard to make out facial details. Motion detection is supported, and the
unit can start recording immediately when it detects movement in a scene. We
found it to be a little too sensitive, even when the sensitivity wasn't on
high. It would sometimes start recording when there was a change in the shadows
or lighting of an area. You can also perform scheduled recordings.
Remote viewing of the security cameras is provided via an
app called Uniden Guardian, which is available for both iOS and Android devices
from their respective stores. To use this app, you'll need to make sure that
the base unit is connected to your home network via Ethernet. You'll then need
to venture into the settings to grab the device ID of your unit (which you'll
need to enter into the app) and also set a security code. The process was
fairly easy and we were able to view the security system on our phone, both
over Wi-Fi and 3G.
The Uniden Guardian app in action over Wi-Fi.
There is a Web site through which you can also view the
Guardian system on a PC (Uniden Video), which requires you to create an account and
register your product on that site. However, it also requires an OCX plug-in and
only works with Internet Explorer. We could not get it to display video at all
during our tests. We used Uniden's email support to try and get a resolution,
and while the responses were relatively fast (24-48 hours for each query) and
generally helpful, we still couldn't make the plug-in work for us.
All up, if you want some basic surveillance of your home or
business through a system that is very easy to install, and which will offer
the possibility of remote viewing through a smartphone, then Uniden's Guardian
G2720 is worth checking out. You don't really have to know much about
technology in order to install and use this kit, and if you're a do-it-yourself
type of person, you can have these installed in no time. They are good for
outdoor areas, garages, and even inside the home or office, as long as you
don't mind the way they will look perched up high in the corners of your rooms.
We did experience some interference with our 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks though, and
we found the range of the cameras to be dramatically less than the quoted
figure of 150m.
