Nest Dropcam Pro

The Dropcam Pro ($199 direct) outshines ip camera 1080P not only its predecessor, the Dropcam HD, but its top competitors as well. Dropcam Pro has twice the digital zoom power (8x) of the original (4x)—normally nothing to brag about, but newly enhanced visual quality makes it better than the pan/tilt/zoom on mechanized cameras of the same price (like the Compro Cloud Network Camera TN600W). Couple that with easy PC-free setup and the industry’s best cloud-based recording, hd ip camera and it’s a no brainer: The Dropcam Pro is our Editors’ Choice in consumer home surveillance.

Design and Setup

One look at the packaging for the new Dropcam Pro$252.99 at Amazon and it’s obvious the company is channeling Apple’s product presentation. Even the box is a beaut, containing the absolute minimal paperwork to ptz ip camera get up and running: a postcard sized quick start guide.

The appearance of the Dropcam Pro is identical to the Dropcam (still available at $149.99). The camera itself is a small puck that clips into a metal stand on a hinge. The stand rotates as needed in the base you attach to wall or ceiling, so you can view any area of a room. In the stand, Dropcam Pro measures 4.5 by 3.15 by 3.15 inches (HWD). Without the stand, the puck-shaped camera itself is hard to position, but not impossible, if you want to add some stealth to your deployment. It’s nice that the outdoor ptz camera Pro’s stand is now black to match the camera, but it’s a shame the 10-foot long USB-power cord and wall adapter are still white, so they don’t exactly match.

Dropcam Pro is one of the few cameras that lack an Ethernet port. It’s all about the wireless: Inside the camera is not just Wi-Fi, but dual-band 802.11n, so you can connect via 2.4GHz (the typical setup) or 5GHz. Dropcam Pro is the only surveillance camera on the market with dual-band. The camera actually picks the band for you, generally going 5GHz if available.

Your installation options include outdoor ip camera plugging the camera directly into a PC to access the setup files for Mac or Windows and going from there, but that’s old-school. Much easier: Plug the Dropcam Pro into power, open up the free Dropcam app on an iOS device (or eventually Android 4.3 device), wireless ptz camera create or log in to a Dropcam account, and let it find the camera. Give the camera your Wi-Fi network login credentials, give it a unique name, and you’re done.