Dear Loyal Customer,
It’s been a bit longer than usual since we sent our last newsletter and, I’m sure we have all experienced lots of challenges and changes in the last couple of months.
We hope you and your family have survived the rain and floods and all other manner of challenges sent your way and managed to keep on smiling, no matter what. After all, we still live in one of the best parts of Australia! So to help brighten the day, here is some lighter reading on some things that you may find interesting while having your morning cuppa! Enjoy
Security Camera Technology
There are 3 main improvements that have moved into the Domestic CCTV camera features list over the past 12 months.
1. Low Light Cameras – which give colour images in almost complete darkness and makes the image look like it is almost daylight. The result is the picture is far more detailed and in full colour which makes it easier to see what is going on and to identify people. This technology is called different things by different companies but “Starlight” technology is one of the best versions I have seen and this is promoted by a Chinese company called Tiandy. LTS, HIKvision and Hilook all have their own version which are also very good. So there’s lots of choice out there.
2. Facial Recognition – which is expanding and simplifying almost daily so that soon a domestic system will have almost all the features of the commercial systems. However, this feature (also sometimes called Biometric Technology) uses a large amount of processing power and requires facial recognition software, if you have high speed internet you can utilise the “cloud” to do the heavy lifting (if you will excuse the pun) and this is where all the wireless cameras from Google, Ring, Nest, Lynx and the likes, do their facial recognition work. So, as long as you have good internet, these are a good option for home. For small to medium business a camera system with the software in the recorder is a better option.
You have to program in the faces of the people you want recognised so for home it would be family and close friends and this way it won’t trigger to record them. It will trigger only on people you don’t know and send you an alert and you can quickly check the video on your mobile.
Personally I think the low light colour camera feature is the most useful for both personal and business use. The facial recognition does have some civil liberty and privacy issues to be worked through.
3. Line Detection – There is one more feature with new CCTV cameras that is useful and that is “Line detection” and this simply means you can set a position where if someone crosses that line the camera starts recording and sends you an alert. This is a great feature for driveways, sides of house and around the pool, etc. Also very handy for factories or offices where certain areas are out of bounds.
A final note on security cameras, it is not just the price of the camera or recorder that really matters long term. It is the accessibility to technical support because like anything where electronics and computers are concerned, there are always updates, changes and the occasional hiccups. That is where it really pays to have a proper installation company who can help support the product and in turn uses a product that is supported well. I like the LTS brand because they have given us consistent tech support over many years.
4K Projector Review
Optoma UHD35+
This projector is an upgrade on the very successful and cost effective UHD35, with slight increases in brightness from 3600 to 4000 lumins while still maintaining the 15,000 hour lamp life in Dynamic mode which is about 10 years or at its brightest setting still 4,000 hours which is about 3 years use.
This is a true 4K projector and is a very affordable way to get a real 4K picture at 16:9 for around $2,500 (with a 2 Year warranty)
The clarity on the UHD35 is brilliant and reviews are that the 35+ is as good or even a fraction better.
It is a very bright projector but the rule still applies that the darker the room, the crisper the picture.
This is a DLP projector which can affect some people with the strobe effect but it is not a visible effect and it is very rare that this causes a problem but we do need to mention it.
If you are interested give us a call and we can advise on the best set up including screen and mounting brackets.
Happy viewing!
Upcoming holidays
While most of us enjoy having the extra long weekend that comes from public holidays, April brings with it 3 weeks running of long weekends.
And as much as we love being out on the road, public holidays mean shorter weeks and less appointment times available.
Our office will be closed and our service Technicians off the road on Good Friday and Easter Monday – 15th & 18th April, then the following Monday is Anzac Day – 25th April, and the following Monday is Labour Day – 2nd May.
Please bear with us as we navigate the shorter weeks. As always, we will do our best to keep the wait times as short as possible and will book you for the next available appointment.
Until next time, Keep smiling and stay dry,
Phil and the Sunshine Antenna Service team.