The Smanos UFO Camera is a powerful internal camera for your home security. The Smanos security brand made a big impact in CES 2018 with live demonstrations of their K1 security system and the UFO camera with their ability to interact with Google Assistant (Google Home) and Amazon Alexa. The Smanos UFO is a DIY home security camera available for $279 RRP with no ongoing subscription costs.

Smanos UFO Panoramic WiFi HD Camera - Compatible Accessories and Box contents available on this page

Give me the highlights

The Smanos UFO has a couple of major points that make it a great option for your home.

• Excellent image quality at HD 1080p
• Built-in Microphone and speaker for two-way communication
• Built-in Motion Sensor
• 360-degree field of view
• Night vision
• Cost-effective
• DIY Install
• No ongoing costs

There is a huge range of home security cameras on the market with a slew of different features but very few are truly designed to be installed and controlled completely by you and even less offer 360-degree FOV.

Design and Features

Smanos has a suite of home security products like the K1 Smart Home Security System but the UFO Camera is a unique offering from them. This camera has an exceptional field of view while retaining clear picture clarity. This camera is also designed to be mounted in a variety of different orientations. Mounting options are mounting to the ceiling or wall though this option would likely need to be installed by a professional electrician to hide the cable. The other option would be to use the base mount that comes the package in the box and set it up on a table or somewhere raised to take advantage of its field of view.

The other major factors for this camera are the options for two-way communication and the motion sensor functionality. I tested the motion sensor detection and found it to work consistently from a variety of different angles, there is about a 15-30 second delay between me entering the camera's frame and receiving the notification, but the camera does take a quick shot of what it saw when the motion was detected.

Summary and verdict

The Smanos UFO camera is a sleek design with a versatile range of features and setup options. The big point in this device’s favour is the lack of features hidden behind ‘Premium’ subscription costs or features that need to be paid for on top of buying the device. I also prefer security devices that I can understand, control and install myself. The entire SMANOS range is perfect for DIY installation though depending on how professional you want everything to look I could see an electrician coming in handy to keep wiring tidy.

That being said there are a couple of small issues I've found when using the camera. The first issue is cheap audio quality, the speaker is the letdown here with most of what I transmit to the person facing the camera being unintelligible. The microphone built into the camera fairs a little better. The other point of contention for me was the motion detection clips, they should store in the notifications tab, but this consistently failed for me. I was able to find them in the alerts tab when viewing the video though so they were being recorded just not available where I'd expect to see them.

Overall the Camera does work, the motion detection is responsive, and the picture quality is excellent. The small audio issues are a factor of Smanos putting forward visual preference rather than an audio focus which is understandable considering the purpose of this product.