Product Review: 2.4GHz Wireless Spy Camera and USB Receiver
(18 votes, average: 3.83 out of 5)
Thanks to Alan at the surveillance camera specialist Pakatak.co.uk, I had fun testing a Wireless Pinhole Spy Camera with USB Receiver. The camera kit comes with everything you need to get started, and it works with both a computer and a normal TV… so a versatile bit of kit really!
So what did I get in the kit? It’s a small box, but there’s quite a lot in the kit (you can see most of the items in the photo above):
- 2.4GHz pinhole spy camera transmitter set to a single channel.
- 2.4GHz receiver, with 4 selectable channels, small aerial with an SMA connector, USB socket, Audio/Video socket, 5Vdc power supply socket, and on/off switch.
- 9V PP3 battery connector for the camera.
- USB Cable (to connect to a PC’s USB port).
- Audio/Video (AV) cable (to connect to a TV).
- Metal camera ounting bracket, with screws and raw plugs.
- 3-pin UK main power supply for the camera and receiver
- Software installation CD.
- Printed instructions.
The camera itself is only 22 x 21 x 21mm in size (excluding battery and aerial), but is build to a high degree of robustness. Spy cameras are typically very fragile, but this camera has been built to survive normal use. You can see that the camera is not much larger than a 1 pence coin as shown in the top photo above.
The receiver is a compact unit, measuring 68mm x 77mm x 16mm, and the aerial adds little to its size. Since the receiver has a USB socket, you can power it from the PC, without the need for an additional power supply. This makes it very portable, and I can imagine that it would be an ideal unit to use with a laptop for surveillance operations in the field.
If you want to use the unit with a TV or video recorder, then you’ll need to use the power supply provided in the kit. It’s nice to see a kit that has genuine UK power supplies, as many imported units come with poor quality 2-pin variants. The provided AV cable is suitable for most PCs with a composite video input, but you will need a Scart to AV adaptor if your TV does not have any AV sockets.
The kit comes with 2 software packages, CamGuard Security System and SOHO Surveillance Software. CamGuard allows you to set the camera up with an alarm that can email you captured images when the software detects motion in front of the camera. The motion detection option is very well implemented, allowing you to very precisely set the sensitivity (on a scale of 0 to 600) and to set up trigger areas. When the software is triggered, it can also save snapshots and footage to your computer’s hard drive.
The screenshot above shows the CamGuard Security System software in action, showing actual footage from outside one of my windows. The software is impressively versatile, with many options to play around with to optimise your camera’s settings.
The SOHO Surveillance Software is provided as a free bonus with the package, as it is actually unsupported in this kit. However, if you’re familiar with the most basic of computer software, you’ll find this software easy to use. It does provide different functionality compared to the CamGuard Security System though. The SOHO software is more about scheduled recording rather than motion detection or alarms.
If you have more than one wireless camera, the SOHO software can cycle through all of the channels so that you can see all of them on the 4-window preview like the one above. The screenshot above shows only 1 camera, as only 1 camera is provided with the kit. The one downside to this software was the slight delay when the receiver tunes into each channel, i.e. its not instantaneous. Therefore you could end up with fragments of time when the unit has not recorded anything. But since the software is a free bonus, its not a big deal.
The screenshot above shows the SOHO software when you view just a single camera, and the image is really quite large. Since the camera has an adjustable lens, you can focus the camera on the target area. I had to do this because the path is about 10 metres from the window in which I mounted the camera.
If you have a wireless router near your receiver or spy camera, you will get some interference. Wireless networks work on 2.4GHz too, so a bit of noise is to be expected. However, this is not a fault of the kit or wireless networks, as 2.4GHz is just a busy frequency band.
The receiver is a standard 2.4GHz receiver, therefore you can use the SOHO software to have up to 4 cameras working with the receiver, as long as they are on different channels. Pakatak stock a number of 2.GHz wireless cameras, such as those with wider angle lenses or infra-red LEDs for night vision.
The only bad thing I found with this kit is that the instructions might be confusing to novice spy camera users. I’ve played around with loads in my career, so I knew what I was doing. Really simple step-by-step instructions would really help beginners get started. And that’s all that I could find wrong with this kit! So to summarise the pros and cons:
Pros:
- Compact receiver, portable enough to be used with a laptop
- Receiver can be used with a PC and a TV
- Receiver does not need a power supply when connected to a PC
- Stable and useful software
- Camera is built to be robust
- Camera transmits a nice strong signal with very little interference
- High quality UK power supply adaptors
Cons:
- Instructions might be too complicated for novices
- SOHO software doesn’t have instant channel switches, but its fast enough to be usable for most applications. However, it is a free bonus!
It was a real pleasure to play around with a high quality wireless camera kit, rather than the cheap imported rubbish. And it was a lot of fun playing with the surprisingly good software. Thank you again Alan, for letting me get my hands dirty and having a play with this cool bit of kit!
Please do pay a visit to Pakatak, and take a look at their other cool spy camera kits.
