Setup & Usage
Getting Spotcam setup is pretty easy. All you will need is either a smartphone, tablet or PC with a WiFi connection and internet access. If you happen to be on a PC head over to MySpotCam.com and click on “Add SpotCam”. If you are on an iOS on Android tablet or smartphone download the SpotCam App and once installed choose “Add Spotcam”.
From here either the downloaded program on PC or mobile app will guide you through getting your SpotCam connected to your home network. You first will turn the Spotcam to Access Point mode by the switch in the back. From there you will connect to it via your PC or mobile device. You will then be able to set your setting so it can connect to your local wireless network and get online.
Once it is all setup you are good to go. I decided to place my Spotcam on a ledge above my home office. I would assume if someone tried to steal anything from my apartment it would be from this area. The stand allowed me to angle my Spotcam facing down and the 10 foot power cable was more than long enough to reach the ground.
Once you log in to view your Spotcam you will see an interface like you see below. Here you will see a live feed of your camera. With this you have the ability to zoom in and out, take a snapshot, make a video, and even speak through the Spotcam. I really was not able to speak through the Spotcam is their flash player did not pick up any of the three microphones I have connected to my PC.
The mobile app works well enough to view live video. You can also use your mobile device to speak through the Spotcam. This did infact work, but there was a lot of static. The settings of the camera can be changed via the mobile app, but you cannot change the event settings using the mobile app, this is only available using a web browser. This would have been nice to have on the mobile app as if you forgot to turn on events when you left your house you could turn them back on easily with your phone when you left.
There is a settings section that allows you to turn the camera on or off, enable sleep mode, set a camera schedule, flip the video or enable 180 degree rotation, turn the status LED on, turn HD video on or off, set night vision to auto, on or off, set the flicker reduction, turn audio on or off, set the microphone sensitivity, change your WiFi settings, time zone and NVR plan.
Talking about the NVR plans you get Spotcam actually offers four different Spotcam cloud storage packages. The first package is free and gives you 1-day of free recording where you can make videos from the stored video. The next are payment plans where are detailed below.
To record a video from previously recorded footage all you have to do is click on the make film icon at the top of the page and you can select either a time-lapse video or a normal video. Then it will select a section of the video (in yellow), you can adjust it to your liking and hit save. Once you hit save it takes a few minutes but the video will appear in your My Film section of the website. Here you can view it and download it.
One thing that you might want to set up is event alerts. You can have the Spotcam send you alerts when there is motion or sound detected or when the Spotcam goes offline. These alerts will be sent to the mobile app and to an e-mail address that you provide. Below is a screenshot of the e-mail you get from a motion event alert.
The event notification email will give you a link to your live camera feed. When you bring it back up you will see motion event icons in the timeline and you can click on them to go back to those events and see what the motion was.
