iFamCare Home Helmet Cam

November 2015 – New for the holiday season is the iFamCare Helmet cam is a web cam, night vision camera, motion and sound sensor, and pet play laser. The system uses a secure transfer system for the video feed and transfer to social media. The unit is designed to be controlled from a smart phone on either iOS or Android. The app is easy to find at both iTunes and the Google Play Store. The applications install and recognize if extra storage (SD cards) are installed. If the system is set for use of the SD card, the program defaults there for primary video storage.

iBaby Labs iFam Helmet Cam SmartPhone app view

The installation of the unit was straight forward for a home network. The device ONLY connects to a home network with a 192.168.x.x IP address range on the wireless router. The WiFi is a standard 2.4GHz 802.11n single antenna interface. The DHCP does not carry over to SOHO networks or high speed fiber networks that have a 10.1.x.x IP address ranges.

The base functions of the home web cam works well. The images are clear, and based on where the unit is placed, the sound is good. The streaming to the smart phone works when the phone is connected to WiFi, but does not pass images when there is just 3G or 4G coverage on a standard cellular network. The night time mode is OK for telling what is going on, but is not a detailed high contrast night vision system. The motion sensor has an acceptably short delay time in turning on when there is motion or sound in the room. The control of the play laser is pretty easy, however without pets, it is hard to tell the enjoyment/annoyance response to the light that can be expected.

As an early generation product moving into an already crowded field, it is an OK product, nothing truly amazing about it, however the ability to connect to non-low bandwidth home IP networks may become a challenge to scaling the product in the future.