If you have an extra couple of hundred dollars ($499 to be exact) and want to save yourself the hassle of monthly bills for home security all while keeping tabs on every portion of your home, you should take a look at the Aura Home.
Using your homes Wi-Fi connection and powered by a source outlet, the Aura Home’s sole purpose is to detection motion in your home. Not everyone wants an intrusive camera in their home, and as someone who does, I can say that it does look very mom & pop store-ish to have cameras strategically placed in your place. The Aura Home is the first and only true solution to this while giving the same type of monitoring you’d possibly pay a company to come in to install and use monthly.
Developed by Cognitive Systems, the Aura is nothing but a white box that’s about half the size of a box of Q-Tips that you place strategically in places with no more than two walls in between them. I received the four-unit model so I was able to place into the most important places in our home, without many obstacles being in the way, and the setup was seamless. Luckily the Aura is as simple as remembering the code on the top of each individual Aura and adding them to the included Aura Home app which happens to be free in the App Store (and Google Play as well).
What the Aura does do well is detect motion, especially in pets. If you happen to leave your dog out of their crate during the day while at work, there are settings that you can configure that allow you to let your pup roam free according to the weight of your animal and it will not alert you when they are running around free.
However, when you do decide to come back home, or if someone else decides to enter your place, you will receive alerts as to which areas they are in according to what you’ve set up in the app. I will say, the alerts need to be customized accordingly, as I set mine up to alert me when I am away from home, but my fiancé needed to be set up as well because you will literally get tens of alerts about their movements according to the room. And while this is helpful to know if someone is home, it’s rather useless since there’s no screen to record them or their actions, so you’re essentially paying a premium price to know if someone walked down the hallway in your home. However, if you are in your home, this is great, so if you’re upstairs, and you get an alert that there id movement in your living room and nobody is home with you, it’s a discreet acknowledgment that could save you in the long run.
The Aura Home also works with IFTTT which allows you to set up “if this then that” situations where if there’s movement you can call a person, or make an alert to turn on lights, baring that your home is somewhat connected via smart accessories. This will require you buying additional gadgets like the Phillips Hue Lights, or anything that works with IFTTT, which now has grown to over 100 different variety of home and tech products.
All of this being said, I do like the premise of the Aura Home, but I absolutely hate the price. For $499, you’d expect a camera app, or some type of monitoring system with a little more smarts than just what Cognitive Systems has deemed available, which is IFTTT. It does truly keep the privacy of your home just that, private, but giving you no true access to the visuals, however, what’s the point in home monitoring if the only alert you get is motion? That can only go so far, especially with the competition that Aura has in this market space. So would I suggest it? Only if you can afford it. And even then, do you need it? Probably not. However, you can check out the Aura Home here today for yourself.
Source: Manufacturer supplied review unit
What I like: Unobtrusive and simple setup; Nice for apartments; Welcome IFTTT compatibility
What Needs Improvement: Price
