Motorola Homesight Home Monitoring & Control System - Easy Start Kit

Pretty Cool

Strengths: Easy to set up....Does not work with Windows Vista as of today

Weakness: Requires a subscription kinda large camera

Weakness: $10 a month to have remote access to it and to have images and thing sent to your cell phone. Camera is a kinda large.

Pro's: easy to install. software is easy. Nice color. U.S.A. based Tech support. Transmit Pictures very well.

By skanknpunx - Feb 2, 2007

Too many limitations, Not a Clear Enough Image

Strengths: See Review

Weakness: See Review

First, let me say this was one of the easiest to setup video systems I've ever worked with. It truly does setup in under 30 minutes. Additionally, it does have some nice features, such as the following: 1) Ability to text message your phone with a text message of an event, or a picture from the camera 2) Ability to daisy chain events if you have multiple components (but there are limitations,...
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First, let me say this was one of the easiest to setup video systems I've ever worked with. It truly does setup in under 30 minutes. Additionally, it does have some nice features, such as the following:
1) Ability to text message your phone with a text message of an event, or a picture from the camera
2) Ability to daisy chain events if you have multiple components (but there are limitations, more on that in a sec)
3) Ability to send video to your email address (for example, the system could email you the video of a home event, such as the front door opening, to your work computer)
4) Ability to have multiple components in your system ranging from video, door/window sensors, to power controllers (for lamps, TV's, etc)

Ok, enough about the good, let's talk about the bad. This system unfortunately has too many limitations to be worth the price. Additionally, the limitations impair this system from doing what it's designed to do: Be a home security system. I'll take each limitation in order of severity (most severe to least severe):

1) This system can only record one video feed at a time. So let's take an example of a simple setup. Let's say you have the home base, one door sensor, and three cameras (one camera at your front door, the other in your living room, and the last in you master bedroom). You setup the logic of the system as follows:
- If the front door opens, arm all the cameras
- If motion is picked up by any camera, capture an image and send to my work email
- Additionally, if motion is detected, record a 60 second video (which is the maximum length of video you can record before the camera has to stop, reset itself, and wait for another motion event before it will record again), and send the video to my work email
So you feel really good knowing if your front door is opened, the system will arm itself and capture an image and a video of the intruder, and send it to you at work.

Well, here's what happens in reality. The front door is opened, and the system arms correctly. The front door camera detects the motion of the front door, and the intruder entering, so it snaps a image and sends to your work email. Then it starts to record. Well, the intruder quickly moves to the living room, so the second camera detects motion, and tries to capture an image. Unfortunately the front door camera is still recording, so the living room camera is ignored. No picture is taken, and no email is sent. The living room camera then tries to record video, but because the front door camera is still recording, again the living room camera is ignored. The same this happens as the intruder enters the master bedroom. In fact, all cameras other than the front door camera will be completely ignored until the front door camera finishes recording. So as you can see, this isn't much use as a security system as it will likely miss the action, unless there is only one camera in the entire system. I spoke to tech support about this, and they said the only thing I could do was to shorten the video time to the lowest setting (10 sec). I did this, and yes, this does sort of work, but you end up with multiple 10 sec videos, with some dead space of no recording in between the short clips. Additionally, you still end up missing events if two cameras trigger within 10 seconds of each other. Again, this is not an effective way to get a complete video of what's occurring at multiple cameras.

2) The system can accommodate a total of 12 wireless cameras, 3 wired cameras, and 16 other devices (door switches, repeaters, power controllers, key stations, and sirens). This makes the system sound very flexible, with the ability to capture a lot of different events, and control many aspects in your home. But the thing that is not highlighted or explained in any online reviews is that the system can only have a total of 16 events that it can monitor. And two of those events are already taken by the system for Home, and Away settings, and you cannot delete those from the event scheduler, so in reality, you only have 14 events that you can monitor. And keep in mind, if you want to monitor or do anything with any individual component, that will take up at least one event. So let's look at a somewhat complex system. Let's say you have 8 wireless cameras, 1 key pad, 1 siren, and 3 door switches. So obviously, you'd like to monitor each of the door sensors, and have them set off the alarm any time someone comes through the doors, so that will take up three events from the event scheduler, so now you are down to 9 events left. Now you want to monitor motion at all the cameras, so that's 8 more events, and now your left with one event left. Now you want to use the keypad to arm and disarm the system. Well, that's an additional two events, so too bad, you can only have the keypad do one or the other. And what if you wanted the system to auto arm and auto disarm during the week nights, and do the same during weekend nights, but at a different times for the week versus the weekend. You would need an additional 4 event slots to do that. So too bad, you are stuck, and will have to decide if you want to take back some cameras, forget about some door switches, or take back the keypad. To me, this was the most ridiculous part of the whole system, and really indicates to me that Motorola pushed this system out to consumers under-developed. I guess they figure the average person would only have one or two cameras. I had only 3 cameras, and one door sensor, and I still ran out of events.

3) Event Daisy Chaining - The system allows you to daisy chain actions in one event, or I should say, is supposed to allow you to. For example, let's say a door sensor is triggered, and you want to arm the system, take a picture at every camera, and sound the siren. Well, in theory it should work, and according to tech support the system should be able to do it, but in reality, its more than the hardware can handle. What really happens is that it arms the system correctly, takes a picture with the first camera listed in the daisy chain, and then stops and does nothing else (including sounding the alarm). Again, this is a clear indication of pushing this out on consumers before it was truly functional.

4) Picture Quality and Signal - This system works in the 2.4GHz range, the same as other wireless devices (routers, phones, lan cards, etc). It should be able to run in this space without any issues, but unfortunately that's not the case. All of the cameras had static, and a static line that would go from top to bottom ever 10-20 seconds, similar to old TV's with antennas (for those old enough to remember). And on top of that, the images/videos were not very clear. Granted, this is 320x240, so its not going to be high in detail, but after using other cameras using this same resolution, I can clearly say that Motorola just plain used a poor quality camera.

These were enough limitations to drive me to take this product back. I'm not sure if these limitations will be fixed over time, but I doubt they will be able to correct most of the problems, since I believe they are hardware related (such as one video at a time). I would highly recommend another solution if you are considering a multi-camera setup. I ended up going with the D-link DCS-5300W, which is a far superior product. I can now record up to 16 camera feeds at once, and they are crystal clear with no static whatsoever. Also, the cameras pan and tilt, giving me even greater flexibility. Granted, the price for the cameras is greater for the D-link, but you don't have to purchase a home base, nor do you even need a computer for that matter. So in the end, I paid about a $150 more for the D-links, but I'm a much happier customer.

Hope this helps in making your decision.

By jwhite16 - Mar 20, 2006

Security starter kit for real starter

Strengths: No wire. Operated with computer

Weakness: No siren, need to buy expensive accessory

At this price, you cannot find the other brand-name security system. The software on CD is easy to install. Moreover, the installed software is user-friendly. You can customize a scheme for you home protection. You can schedule the arming time of each sensor or camera. There are also few think that I don't like. You need to leave computer on 24x7 to monitor your home. The siren is not included in...
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At this price, you cannot find the other brand-name security system.

The software on CD is easy to install. Moreover, the installed software is user-friendly. You can customize a scheme for you home protection. You can schedule the arming time of each sensor or camera.

There are also few think that I don't like. You need to leave computer on 24x7 to monitor your home. The siren is not included in the starter kit. That means this starter kit is mute.

By kasidid - Nov 29, 2006

not really what i was looking for

Strengths: compact

Weakness: monitoring service required

if you want to make a purchase this system make sure that you have enough time to setup it and enough knowledge to use it; keep in mind that you will have to have remote service subscription in order to view live video from the camera

By npasic - Jan 12, 2007

Homesight Wireless Easy Start Kit

Strengths: Compact, Wirless. Expandable, controlled with computer

Weakness: Monitoring service required. Siren is not included in the starter kit.

This kit still has the best price/performance on the market. The configuration would take some time to do, but it is not too bad for most simple control scheme. For complex configuration that requires daisy-chaining a number of “Event” together, it could get hairy quickly and you would use up all the components included in this kit very quickly. The lack of siren in this started kit is a...
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This kit still has the best price/performance on the market.

The configuration would take some time to do, but it is not too bad for most simple control scheme. For complex configuration that requires daisy-chaining a number of “Event” together, it could get hairy quickly and you would use up all the components included in this kit very quickly.
The lack of siren in this started kit is a major oversight. Overall, this kit as is, is better suited for very simple configuration

By buzzly - Mar 8, 2007