Review: Put a security cam anywhere with Sticker-Eye
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The Sticker-Eye Security Camera. Photo ©2019, Steven Sande
The most common “Internet of Things” devices that people install in their homes are wireless security cameras. Whether you’re using them to see what’s going on with your pets while you’re out of town or want to catch potential thieves in the act, these devices are popular. There’s one bad point about 99% of all security cameras, though — they need power and in some case even require a wired connect of some sort. A new wireless home security camera that was funded by a very successful Kickstarter project is now available and it’s incredibly easy to install and use. Today I’ll tell you about my hands-on experiences with the Sticker-Eye security camera ($110.49 on Amazon, affiliate link) from EyeCloud AI.
Design
The design of the Sticker-Eye camera is why it was so popular during the funding phase on Kickstarter. When I installed an outdoor security camera above my garage door in April of 2018, I found it to be a tiresome exercise. I had to run wiring from near a garage door opener to the location of the camera, install an exterior mount, drill a hole that the power cable could run through, and more.
Not so with the Sticker-Eye. If you have anything that attracts a magnet, you have a mounting site for the camera. If that doesn’t work, there’s a small magnetic mount that attaches to any wood or brick surface with two screws. Inside the house, you can just place the attractive camera anywhere.
Sticker-Eye doesn’t need a power cable or adapter of any sort, as it has a built-in 6000mAh rechargeable battery pack that allegedly runs for up to two months on a charge. Using 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, the camera can send 1080P FHD video to the free app. Sticker-Eye has 8GB of built-in storage (or 32GB that can keep up to two months of recordings, so there’s no need for you to worry about your privacy since the video is all stored locally and can only be viewed by you or others that you give access to. The company says that there’s a separate 32GB model, but I was unable to find it on either the Sticker-Eye website or Amazon.
The camera has a tilting head (not controllable - this is not a PTZ camera) so you can get just the right angle of view in a room or outdoors, and it uses infrared to “see” at night. It’s highly weather resistant for outdoor use, but the best thing about it is its ability to recognize humans and faces through artificial intelligence. That feature alone is great, since it cuts down on the number of false alarms. You can train it to recognize family members and friends; anyone outside of that list will set off an alert. Alerts can just be notifications made to your iPhone or Apple Watch, or you can choose to have the Sticker-Eye set off a loud alarm.
Function
My only complaint about Sticker-Eye is that while it comes with a USB-A to USB-C charging cable, it does NOT come with an AC adapter of any sort. I kept having the device tell me that it was out of power; it turned out that it wasn’t getting enough power from two adapters I tried to use to charge the battery. For the price and for convenience, the company should include an AC adapter or at least recommend one.
Once charged up, the device was incredibly easy to use. Setup was easy, and placing the mount in my backyard on a wood post took less than two minutes. When you receive notification that the battery is low, you can just walk to the Sticker-Eye, pick it up, plug it in for a few hours, and then you’re good for a few more months. If you’re concerned about the Sticker-Eye being stolen, there’s a theft-proof mount available for $9.99
A wide-angle view from the Sticker-Eye security camera
The color images and video captured by Sticker-Eye are clear and bright compared to other security cameras tested. 1080p video is good enough to see details on faces, and it’s probably necessary for the AI functions of the camera. The IR night vision is also clear, although monochrome (as are all IR cameras).
When Sticker-Eye detects a warm object in front of it, it wakes up from standby mode. It then analyzes what it sees and tries to detect human activity. If it detects people, it records and stores a video from 5 to 30 seconds long, and sends a notification snapshot. I rather enjoyed getting those snapshots on my Apple Watch!
If a person is detected, a thin green box is drawn around that person and the alert is sent to you. For face detection, it’s possible to add up to 20 faces to a library that is then synced to the device. In my tests, Sticker-Eye was 100% accurate in properly identifying two people in my face library under different lighting conditions.
Using the Sticker-Eye app, it’s possible to set a schedule during which alerts are not sent. By default, it’s set to send alerts 24/7. Let’s say that you don’t want alerts sounded when you’re at home — you can select days and times when you are away. This is one place where it would be helpful for the Sticker-Eye to be integrated into standard intelligent assistants and other smart devices, so that it could automatically be set to send alerts when you’ve either told the assistant you’ve left your home or it recognizes that nobody is around.
Some of the settings in the Sticker-Eye app.
If you’re using the Sticker-Eye to keep an eye on pets while you’re away, you’ll love the fact that there’s a built-in microphone that allows you to hear what’s going on, as well as a speaker for talking from the app to the camera. There is a slight delay in sound that can make a conversation through the camera rather problematic, but the microphone is impressively sensitive.
One other concern is that one of the FAQs says that the IP54 weatherproofing rating can only survive “light rain”. So far it has made it through two fairly intense rainstorms at my location… EyeCloud AI says that the operating range is between 14°F and 122°F (-10C to 50°C), which means that the device will probably stall out this winter — I live in an area where it’s not uncommon to have temperatures down to -10°F (-23.3°C) at night. I may bring the camera in during the winter months and just use it as another indoor security cam.
My only other suggestions to the company would be to make storage user-expandable with the addition of a micro-SD card slot, and to work on making sure that the Sticker-Eye gets much better weatherproofing. Other than that, and my minor complaints and concerns, I highly recommend Sticker-Eye. The ability to place it just about anywhere without the need to plug it in makes it a winner in my book.
