OMNA Wire-Free Indoor/Outdoor Camera Kit – DCS-2802KT performance

Image quality

I guess the most important aspect for any security camera would be the image quality. You could have the most sophisticated features but if the very fundamentals are overlooked it’s a recipe for disaster.

Each camera offered in this kit has a 2 mega pixel CMOS sensor and capable of full HD 1080p 24FPS recording. They have a 140 degree viewing angle, 7.5 meter night vision, PIR motion sensor and is IP65 weatherproof. IP65 rating makes these cameras both dust and rain proof allowing you to install them outdoors without any concern.

Below are image captures taken from the camera.

Overall image quality is quite impressive during the day and we certainly can’t fault it at all. While night vision quality is decent it requires more clarity when the environment is pitch black. You can compensate for this by installing motion activated spot lights. Another thing to keep in mind is we’re dealing with a sub $1000 security camera system here, so there will be slight drawbacks compared to ones that are double the price tag

PIR Motion sensor

What we really like about the DCS-2802KT cameras is that even if it’s in complete darkness, the cameras are able to pickup movement and alert you. While the picture quality for night vision isn’t the best you can get, in our opinion this is still great as you can alert the relevant authorities if it’s an intruder.

2 Way Audio

This is again another very useful feature. We can think of many use cases for having the ability to have a 2 way voice conversation while being able to see outdoors. You could be overseas, at the mall, or even indoors, the simple fact that you can have a 2 way voice conversation while having a clear picture outside without needing to open a single door is awesome.

This is one of the reasons we earlier mentioned to install one of these cameras at your entrance. Picture this, you’re expecting a delivery at home while at work. The motion sensor picks up movement and alerts you; opening the app you see the delivery guy holding your package. Simply talk to the guy through the camera and provide instructions for his next steps. That to me is extremely impressive and using the technology available smartly.

It’s also a good way to keep tabs of your kids while they are at home and you’re at work. And if you want to prank your kids this works equally well. (You didn’t hear that from us)

Battery capacity

Both cameras are powered by a 6700 mAh rechargeable li-ion battery which D-Link say will last a few months. While that’s quite an open ended statement, we found the camera batteries to be very effective. We have had this kit for around 3 weeks now and in the initial week played around with it quite significantly. Yet, after 3 weeks only a single bar had gone down after all that activity. The battery life will certainly depend on the amount of traffic the cameras will face, nevertheless the battery life simply hasn’t disappointed.

The batteries in the cameras aren’t removable which means they’ll be out of commission during recharging. We found that a full recharge would take approximately 8 hours. This is when you wish the design offered removable batteries, however given that they’ll last at least a couple of months on a single charge it’s not a major compromise.

WiFi Hub

One of the primary reasons for the cameras having a long battery life is the included WiFi Hub. All the processing of the cameras is handled by the Hub which is simply ingenious. The Hub handles all the communication between the cameras as well as uploading content to the cloud or local storage. If you don’t want to use cloud storage, you can attach an external USB drive or Micro SD card as we have done.

The Hub also includes a 100dB siren which can be set to activate if a camera motion sensor is triggered.

We wanted to relocate the Hub away from our internet router, hence we used a pair of Powerline adapters and moved the hub to a central point which would have an equal distance to both the cameras. One of the reasons for doing this is, we noticed slight drop outs from one of the cameras as it was reporting a low WiFi signal. Moving the hub to a central point eliminated this issue and we haven’t experienced any dropouts since.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. OMNA DCS-2802KT Package

3. Installing the DCS-2802KT Camera kit

4. OMNA DCS-2802KT Performance

5. Setting up mydlink Application

6. Improvements & Conclusion