New Tech Review – LukWerks’ Digital Video Surveillance System
The need for surveillance is not only important to protect your assets but also an affordable and incredibly easy to use. LukWerk’s latest development is a camera that only needs to be plugged in to work. It is a drill-free installation, which is the major selling point for this camera. Other systems require drilling and wiring that take time and skill to set up. There are four steps to setting of this camera, install software, plug in the camera to a wall socket, plug in the USB receiver in the wall and your computer and finally register online to view your camera. The video feed runs through the power lines and into your PC. There is no need for any additional cables since signal piggybacks on power lines running through your home or office.
This system supports both a 640×480 and a 320×240 resolution. The video is rather choppy coming in at 15 frames per second. The full motion video is double that rate to 30 fps. However, the color quality is great for this unit.
A wonderful selling point for this system is the motion detection capabilities. You can adjust the camera to only trigger in a predefined zone. Any movement in that zone will trigger the camera to start filming. Define the zones well to prevent any false alarms. Once you set that up, you can also adjust the system to send you video or pictures or even text alerts to notify you of a possible break in. You should experiment with the settings so you do not receive hundreds of email or text messages.
The downside is the camera is limited to 15 fps. This is choppier than other units are. Additionally, this system is designed to work indoors which limits its use to some applications. Those applications should be for a small collection of rare items or a pet that you want to keep an eye on. Due to the high cost of the system that will be explained later, setting up this system to survey a large home or office is not practical. It will cost thousands more to have this system compared to a professional one that is installed properly. If you are going to spend thousands, make sure it is on a system that has cameras that tilt and zoom. These cameras do not have that capabilities and it really limits it uses. That may cause you to buy more cameras, which will really add up.
The starter kit alone will retails for $300 with additional cameras available to purchase for $225 each. If you need multiple cameras, the price can really start to get high. The ease of this system to set up will cost a premium for the equipment. The system will support up to six cameras. This is a great investment that will keep your assets secure and not take days to set up if you can afford it.
