Professional’s Score
Execs
- Simple to put in
- Glorious video high quality, day and night time
- Intuitive to function, for each residents and guests
Cons
- “Non-obligatory” subscription plan could be very costly
- It takes all day to cost its battery
- We encountered the occasional glitch within the myQ app
Our Verdict
Chamberlain’s myQ model combines a video doorbell with an exterior door controller to make a no brainer improve for any storage with a sensible storage door opener.
Greatest Costs Immediately: myQ Sensible Storage Video Keypad
$84.23
$99.99
The world has lengthy since come round to doorbells doing double obligation as safety cameras. Chamberlain and its myQ model of sensible storage door merchandise brings that idea to your storage door with the myQ Sensible Storage Video Keypad.
It’s a basically easy concept, changing the outside storage door opener keypad you would possibly have already got. The acquainted numeric keypad is replicated on this system, together with a movement sensor and a 1080p video digicam with a 160-degree viewing angle (measured diagonally).
The unit is suitable with LiftMaster, Chamberlain, Craftsman, Raynor, and AccessMaster storage door openers manufactured after 1993, and it requires no direct wiring to the opener; in reality, there’s no everlasting wiring of any sort.
Video recordings are simple to sift by through the app’s Historical past tab, and clips are fast to load
Powered by a beefy lithium-ion battery, which myQ says ought to final for 1 to three months earlier than a recharge is required (relying on frequency of utilization). I’d advise planning forward when endeavor your preliminary battery cost or recharging, nonetheless; after I linked it to a PC through a micro-USB cable, the battery took practically 10 hours to totally cost.
The myQ Sensible Storage Video Keypad comes with a full-featured app, however you’ll must pay for a subscription if you would like any video historical past of what occurred at your storage door.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Set up and setup
Charging time apart, set up is a straightforward course of. When you have an older storage door opener, you merely observe the directions within the myQ cell app to pair the keypad together with your opener by urgent the study button on the unit on the acceptable time. New storage door openers which have built-in Wi-Fi can skip this step and pair straight with the keypad.
I examined the keypad with each sorts of opener—an outdated Chamberlain and a brand-new myQ-connected Liftmaster—and located the method seamless both means. When you have a myQ opener, the method is much more painless, as you needn’t climb a ladder to hit that “study” button. Connectivity is through 2.4GHz Wi-Fi solely, however I had no points linking the keypad to my residence community.
As soon as configured and up to date with new firmware, the unit mounts to the wall outdoors your storage with an included, angled bracket and two screws. (The adjustable myQ “swivel mount” that gives an extra 100 levels of customization, which you’ll be able to see on the corporate’s web site is a separate $30 buy.)
The keypad then affixes to the bracket and might be held in place with an extra screw on the underside of the keypad to stop hooligans from working off with it.
The myQ Sensible Storage Video Keypad has a numeric keypad with two additional buttons: one that folks can use to provoke a two-way name to your smartphone, and one other that closes an open door without having a PIN.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Day-to-day utilization
Operation is sort of easy from right here: You’ll be able to open and shut the storage door by tapping within the code you set, and extra visitor PINs will also be added—together with auto-expiring momentary PINs and recurring PINs that permit entry solely on sure days and at sure instances every week. A complete of 16 PINs might be created.
A telephone button is included that works very like a video doorbell, alerting you in your cell phone that somebody at your storage door, and permitting you to interact a two-way audio function so you’ll be able to determine if you wish to let the customer into your storage. Notifications can take just a few seconds to succeed in your telephone, however I discovered them speedy sufficient for typical use.
Efficiency
The built-in movement sensor is fast to interact and start capturing any exercise round your storage door, and its sensitivity might be adjusted to eradicate false alarms from issues like leaves blowing within the wind. It’s also possible to set the system to alert just for folks detection, although for my residence, I like a broader view that can alert me if both a automotive or an animal arrives within the driveway.
That mentioned, you’ll must fastidiously think about placement if you wish to get a big view of your environment, as a typical set up can be dominated by the storage door to the tune of about 40 % of the video picture.
Video appears to be like surprisingly good for 1080p decision. Daytime clips have been clear and colourful, and customary infrared night time imaginative and prescient illuminates nighttime clips crisply to not less than 30 toes. (When it’s darkish outdoors, the keypad additionally lights up when a button is pressed.)
All video is saved on myQ’s cloud service, and if there’s a catch with the system, that is it. With no native storage possibility obtainable, a plan is required if you wish to do a lot of something other than see a stay stream of video, get movement alerts, and use the two-way audio function.
A beefy lithion-ion battery seemingly accounts for not less than among the myQ Sensible Storage Video Keypad’s thick dimensions.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Folks detection and video clip storage, playback, and downloading are all locked to a subscription plan. The plan prices $4/month or $40/12 months for a single system with seven days of historical past included. Improve to $10/month or $100/12 months to assist a number of units with a 30-day storage plan. For a person who simply desires the occasional have a look at what’s occurring on the storage door, these are each expensive choices—particularly in the event you’re already paying different safety digicam and doorbell producers for cloud storage.
Subscription probably not optionally available
For those who do have a subscription plan—a 30-day trial is included totally free—video recordings are simple to sift by through the Historical past tab within the app, and clips are fast to load. Clips are restricted to 50 seconds in size, longer if they’re initiated by somebody urgent the decision button. There’s no official cooldown between clips apart from a 3.5-second timeout required for the system to wake itself again up.
All advised, I encountered just a few issues in each day use; specifically, just a few thriller errors often saying “There’s an error together with your keypad” with no additional steering. This normally occurred whereas attempting to load a stay stream. A force-quit and restart of the app normally resolved these points.
One caveat price mentioning: it’s vital to notice that the myQ Video Keypad is an unbiased system from the myQ Sensible Storage Management Hub, which helps you to function a storage door opener utilizing your telephone. The 2 units do not work collectively. Particularly, the Video Keypad permits you to open and shut the door by punching in a PIN code straight on the system whereas additionally offering a video feed to your telephone. However you can’t use your telephone to open the storage door in the event you solely have the Video Keypad.
To do this, you need to even have a separate myQ Sensible Storage Management hub (or a storage door with myQ in-built). It’s a bizarre omission, as you effectively would possibly want to rapidly open the door for a customer in entrance of the digicam, akin to a supply individual, as a substitute of giving them a PIN (otherwise you won’t have an additional PIN arrange). Needing two units for such a state of affairs borders on obnoxious.
Do you have to purchase the myQ Sensible Storage Video Keypad?
Like all myQ merchandise, the Video Keypad integrates with Ring and Vivint sensible residence environments, in addition to Amazon Key and IFTTT. An costly subscription and one sadly lacking function however, the myQ Sensible Storage Video Keypad is an effective worth by itself. For those who use both of the famous ecosystems, it’s much more so.
This text was first printed on TechHive.