For peace of mind, an indoor security camera can help. It’s good for small apartments or shops. Whether you want to keep an eye on pets or employee movement in small business establishments, there are plenty of options available. Recently, we had an opportunity to review Philips Home Safety Camera HSP 3500, which can detect sounds, movements and has good app support. A standalone Wi-Fi camera can let you know when the kids come home from school or if a trespasser has been spotted near your apartment.

Easy installation

Coming with the Philips indoor 360-degree Wi-Fi camera is a power brick, a USB cable (slightly short), screws and a mounting sticker. Before you install the camera, make sure you have a stable Wi-Fi network and your phone needs to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network that you intend to connect your camera with.

Next, download the Philips Home Safety app and get started with pairing your camera. I decided to sign in with Hide my Email ID feature on iOS. From past experience with other brands, these days I hide my email address if the option exists.

Once you have filled out the basic details, select the camera you want to connect. Once the camera is switched on, you will notice the LED on the device will blink red and it becomes green when paired. When the app asks you to verify the QR code, just point your security cam at the QR code on the phone screen, and from here it hardly takes a minute to get the camera running.

Enough tech chops

Over the few days that we tried Philips Home Safety Camera HSP 3500, there was no hum or whirring sound when the camera rotated. The different tracking modes work well and overall, it’s enough for a small apartment or shop.

Making the device usable is the app, which is well-designed. There is a trackpad that works well and the movement of the camera is smooth. All the usual functions are there, like capturing a screenshot and a “siren” mode, which plays an alarm but it’s not loud enough.

Working in its favour is full-HD resolution (I kept video output to 2,304 x 1,296), smart detection, two-way talk and night vision. The video that gets captured is stored in the SD card with encryption. It supports up to 128GB micro SD slot, which I think could have been higher. But what I liked is the visibility of images even in poor lighting conditions and there is IR visibility of up to 10m. The two-way microphone also works flawlessly. Under ‘events’ in the app, you can get an overview of all the movements that the camera has captured. The motion detection capability of the camera is quite good.

In case you are wondering how many people can share access, it’s 20 members. One more thing worth mentioning is the camera (Rs 3,599, discounted price on the official website; otherwise, Rs 5,295) offers a wide view so that you can see more of what’s in front of the device. What I would have wanted more on the camera is smart-home compatibility.