3 Reasons To Buy Amazon’s Cloud Cam and 2 Reasons Not To

Powered by Alexa and customizable to fit your specific needs.

The Amazon Cloud Cam is the first branded plug-and-play camera released by the behemoth online retailer, and overall it’s a great option for anyone shopping for home security cameras.

There’s a number of compelling features that make the Amazon Cloud Cam a top consideration — and only a few drawbacks that might make you take pause. Let’s dive in!

Better price than the top competition

If the bottom line factor for your decision is price, the Amazon Cloud Cam can’t be beat. Priced at just $119 each, it beats out its top competition from Arlo and Nest Cam. If you’re planning to install more than one throughout your home, the deals simply get even better: buy two for $199.99 or three for $289.97.

You’re able to connect up to three cameras with 24 hours of cloud storage, alert notifications, and unlimited sharing included with your purchase, but if you want more advanced features or support for more cameras you will require a subscription plan — and I’ll be touching on those a bit further down.

• Amazon Cloud Cam vs. Nest Cam vs. Arlo: Which connected camera should you buy?

Works with your other Alexa-enabled products

One of the killer features of the Amazon Cloud Cam is the compatibility with Alexa. You probably expected that, but depending on the number of Alexa-enabled products you have in your house it could be a real game-changer.

You can tell Alexa to cast your Cloud Cam to your Fire TV, Fire Tablet, Echo Show, or Echo Spot to quickly see what’s happening in another room in your house — perfect for those times when your kids have been a little too quiet in their playroom.

This is where Amazon’s low-cost hardware really comes in handy, as you can pick up a Fire Tablet for $50 and get good use out of it just for monitoring your Cloud Cam on top of its other features. Amazon also offers a bundle that includes an Echo Show and Amazon Cloud Cam for just $300. Considering that the Echo Show itself sells for $229, that’s a great deal if you’re already somewhat committed to Amazon’s AI assistant ecosystem and are looking to build onto it.

Two-way communication, Person detection, and Zones

Another benefit of going with Amazon is the number of smart features included in its products. The Amazon Cloud Cam allows for two-way communication, meaning you’ll be able to send and receive audio using the camera’s built-in microphone and speaker.

Amazon Cloud Cam has some great premium features.

Other great features include person detection, which allows your Amazon Cloud Cam to use facial recognition to detect and tell the difference between a member of your family or an intruder. This means you won’t get alert notifications every time your kid comes home from school — unless that’s something that you want.

Another great feature designed to cut down on unnecessary alert notifications is Zones, which let you go into the Amazon Cloud Cam app and highlight areas of the camera’s viewing angle that it doesn’t need to monitor for movement alerts. This could be a ceiling fan that would otherwise constantly trigger the movement detection or a window that looks out on the street with passing pedestrians and cars.

These features highlight the incredible AI computing that powers Amazon’s products, but if you’re thinking they’re included for free, well…

The subscription service is expensive but necessary if you want the best features

Amazon offers three levels of subscription plans: Basic which includes 7 days of cloud storage, support for three cameras and the Person detection and Zones features for $6.99 a month (or $70 for the year), Extended which offers 14 days of cloud storage, support for up to five cameras and the advanced features for $9.99 a month (or $100 for the year), or the Pro level which supports up to 10 Cloud Cams and includes all the advanced features for $19.99 a month (or $200 for the year).

By comparison, Nest Cam offers a similar subscription plan model that’s a bit more expensive for the top-tiers but also allows for 24/7 continuous recording (Amazon only offers clip recording) and a cheaper basic option at just $5 a month, or $50 for the year.

Arlo’s cloud subscription plans start out offer 7 days of cloud recording and support for up to 5 cameras for free, with the mid-range tier offering 30-days of cloud recording and support for up to 10 cameras for $99, which is equivalent to Amazon’s Pro-level subscription but at half the price.

So while you might initially save money on hardware, Amazon certainly intends to make up the difference through its subscription service — but if the features offer exactly what you’re looking for it might be easy for you to justify the cost.

Ask yourself if you want Amazon peeking into your home

This one is a bit of a dilemma that we should always consider when dealing with Amazon, a company that ultimately wants to sell you more things. If you already have Amazon products in your home — and there’s a lot of options out there — chances are you’ve already considered this and are fine with it.

But when there are other options out there, it’s worth considering whether you want to install cloud cameras controlled by Amazon. Amazon states in its Cloud Cam Terms of Service that it will “process and retain your Cloud Cam Recordings in the cloud to provide and improve our products and services” — that’s a pretty vague statement when we’re talking about a company whose main service is getting you to buy more things.

See at Amazon

What do you like (or not like) about Amazon’s Cloud Cam?

The connected camera market is exploding, and Amazon is a reliable, trustworthy name that offers a good, affordable product. Do you use a connected camera, or a Cloud Cam in particular? Let us know in the comments!

Google’s Flutter pushes forward with its first Release Preview

On June 20, the team behind Flutter announced that its development platform was officially exiting the beta stage it entered in February and moving into Release Preview 1.

Flutter is a mobile UI framework that aims to help developers make high-quality apps that work on both Android and iOS as easily and seamlessly as possible. There was a sizable showcase for Flutter during Google I/O in May, and since then, the Flutter team says it’s seen a 50% increase for its active user-base.

Release Preview 1 is a big milestone for Flutter, with Editor Tim Sneath saying that it “signals our confidence in the stability and quality of what we have, and our focus on bug fixing and stabilization.”

Anyone using the Flutter beta can upgrade to Release Preview 1 by entering the command $ flutter upgrade, and once you do, you’ll have access to an updated extension for Visual Studio Code, improvements to the video playback package, a new tool that allows you to add Flutter widgets to existing Android/iOS apps, and more.

There have already been a number of apps created using Flutter, and as the software keeps progressing through Release Previews and eventually enters a stable channel, it’s going to be immensely exciting to see what else developers create with it.

Google Podcasts: Everything you need to know!

Switch up your Fitbit Versa with a Milanese Stainless Steel Band from $2

You’re just $2 away from refreshing the look of your Fitbit.

Swees at Amazon has a variety of Fitbit Versa Milanese Stainless Steel Replacement Bands on sale from $2 when you enter promo code 5ATTMQ3O during checkout. There are two sizes available too so you can find the right fit for yourself.

The least expensive option on sale is the Silver band which drops to $2 with the code. Other than the look, these bands are all made and function the same way. It features a strong magnetic closure and is constructed of woven stainless steel metal.

The options without added jewels, like Black, Champagne, and Rose Gold, fall to $2.50 with the code, while the bands with jewels are priced up to $3.50. Either way, you’re getting a great deal here no matter which band you go for.

Each of these bands comes with a one-year warranty.

See at Amazon

Metro: Exodus for PlayStation 4 – Hands-on impressions from E3 2018

Metro: Exodus promises freedom of choice and a challenge of a scavenging system, but it’s hard to get a good grasp of it from one demo

After several years of silence, Metro: Exodus reemerged from its nuclear bunker and is ready to continue the story originally conceived in the novels of Dmitry Glukhovsky. Its trailers have thus far promised a challenging scavenging and crafting system needed to fuel the game’s combat, but there’s far more to it than that.

I went hands-on with Metro: Exodus at E3 2018 and learned more about the game’s promises of freedom for the player to choose their own path. Rather than offering dialogue trees for good or evil, Metro wants your actions to matter. Are you a peacemaker? An explorer? Or a heartless killer? Sometimes you may want to be one, but the choices before you aren’t always immediately obvious.

See at Amazon

New beginnings

Metro: Exodus is set two years after Metro: Last Light and 23 years after a massive nuclear war that reduced Russia to a devastated wreck. You play as Artyom, who has joined the Spartan Rangers in their exodus from Moscow aboard a train called the Aurora, hoping to find a place to rebuild somewhere to the east. The story spans a full year of their travels, beginning in a harsh nuclear winter and continuing through each of the four seasons.

I was free to explore a huge area as I liked, with the understanding that some things like textures or collisions may be unfinished.

My demo took place at an encounter called The Bridge, where the titular landmark had collapsed and groups of people (hostile? no?) were out camping on the track. In order to bypass the obstructions, our engineer needed to do some work on the train, so I was sent out into the wilderness to determine if the nearby settlers were friends or foes. But had I not wanted to take that route, I didn’t have to!

The demo I was given was qualified by the presenters was something a bit different: rather than a narrowly-focused and polished demo of a small segment, I was free to explore a huge area as I liked, with the understanding that some things like textures or collisions may be unfinished. Even with the qualifier, the world looked lovely, snowy, and diverse despite the bleak terrain, though I did run into long loading screens and some collision issues as promised. I’m not worried on those fronts, though. Metro is allegedly content complete, leaving the team a whopping eight months to launch to polish, polish, polish.

Into the winter

I like to do what I’m told, so after my partner Anna yelled at me for ignoring the objective, I turned around and followed her into an area of deserted houses, picking up some crafting materials along the way. Having never played a Metro game, I was pleased to find that combat wasn’t around literally every last corner, though I had to keep my guard up. Metro is just as much about how you choose to interact with those you encounter as it is about fighting off wasteland horrors or those who want to stop you from finishing your objectives, as I’d soon find out.

You can fight your way through a lot in Metro: Exodus, but you can also approach situations from different angles.

After climbing into a small boat (don’t swim in Metro, trust me) and rowing across a small body of water I came to a strange, ramshackle church, where I was told all would be well if I came in peace. I sheathed my weapon in compliance. You can fight your way through a lot in Metro: Exodus, but you can also approach situations from different angles. With my weapon put away, I slowly guided my boat into a bizarre church service where the congregation followed the pastor in decrying technology with loud chants.

As I neared a spot to dock, though, things changed. A little girl came in and yelled at the congregation that they were wrong and that she refused to believe them, then scampered up the stairs. My boat was suddenly locked down between two doors that dropped, and I was forced to disembark and chase the girl up the stairs. I wasn’t fully sure if the congregation had intended to trap me, was mad at the girl, or if I had made a bad choice by following her, but I headed up and encountered the child and her mother, who desperately needed help to escape the weird cult they were in. I was told to make my escape first, but with the compound now hostile, that would prove a challenging task.

Choice or no choice?

At this point, I felt I had no choice but to fight. Gun combat is solid in Metro, and I was given a few different weapon choices along the way, but if you’re not actively picking up crafting supplies to augment your equipment and create more ammo, you’ll have a bad time…just like I did. I ran out of ammo just as I killed enough enemies to force everyone else to surrender, so I didn’t need to bother with whether or not to kill the remaining enemies, now on their knees and begging for mercy. I eventually found a new boat to escape in and headed out, Anna reassuring me over the radio that she would take care of the girl and her mother.

As I approached the Aurora again, I was waylayed by a huge mutant sea monster bursting up from the depths and trying to capsize my boat. With no ammo left, I thought for sure I was done for, but I was pulled from the water by another comrade and pointed in the direction of the Aurora on land. There, I met the mother and daughter, who were able to give me directions into the city to an engineer who could repair the train, which is about where my demo finally timed out.

Overall

I feel like I barely got a taste of Metro: Exodus, and that my lack of experience with other games in the series may have hurt me a bit. I spent a lot of time just sort of aimlessly trying to understand my objective, which can sometimes just be chalked up to the demo but could also be a result of the game’s density. Looking around the snowy world I was dropped in, I could see multiple major landmarks and several minor ones within a few minutes’ distance, and had I traveled to any of those others instead of the weird church, I may have encountered a different story entirely (while drawing the ire of my boss on the Aurora, probably). I’m curious to learn more about how decision-making and exploration affect things, as they’ll be what make Metro: Exodus stand out rather than its fairly standard, if resource-draining combat.

When can I embark on an exodus, too?

Metro: Exodus launches on February 22, 2019 for PlayStation 4 starting at $59.99.

See at Amazon

Need direction?

Have more questions about Metro: Exodus? Bust out the compass and map and leave a comment; I’ll try to help you out!

AMC announces Stubs A-List, its new $20 subscription movie pass

Includes IMAX, Dolby Cinema, RealD 3D, Prime and BigD formats.

AMC has announced Stubs A-List, it’s subscription movie service that allows movie lovers to see multiple movies per week for one flat monthly cost. The service, which will cost $19.95 per month, gets you access to the very best of AMC up to 3 times per week, including multiple movies per day and repeat visits to already-seen movies.

You’ll be able to use it at all AMC locations, including the Dine-in and Classic theaters across the U.S. In addition to being able to see the movies, you also get all the benefits of AMC’s Stubs Premiere, which includes VIP service at AMC theaters, no online ticketing fees, and savings on food and beverages while at the theater at no added cost.

Once you sign up for the service, you can use it right away. There’s no need to wait for a card to arrive; everything is done online and can be accessed right from your phone. You can see movies in the format of your choice, so if you want to go see something in IMAX or RealD 3D, you can without any additional charges. Enrollment for the service beings on June 26, and as soon as you enroll the benefits are immediately available.

The “week” period runs from Friday to Thursday, matching the traditional movie release schedule. If you don’t use your three visits that week, there is no carryover, so it’s a “use it or lose it” type of thing. You can see movies you’ve already seen again if you desire, or watch all new ones. If you don’t have time to make it back to the theater multiple times a day, you can see all three movies the same day, as long as there is a two-hour buffer in between showtimes.

Be sure to visit AMC’s site or use the free AMC Theaters app on iOS or Android to get started and reserve your future seats!

YouTube Premium is Google’s bundle future — and its only great streaming deal

Audio-only and casting to Google Home are Premium features, but please don’t pay YouTube Music Premium to get them.

Don’t get YouTube Music on its own.

YouTube made several announcements this month, from the announcement of a “brand new” YouTube Music to the evolution of YouTube Red into YouTube Premium. There were many things to get excited about in the new YouTube Music, but one thing made absolutely no sense: the pricing for YouTube Music Premium.

Well, the pricing makes a tiny amount of sense, but only in one way: YouTube Music Premium is here so that you feel better about paying more for the same service millions of subscribers have enjoyed for years.

Confusingly easy: The Google Play Music combo pack

There’s no point in denying how confusing Google’s subscription offerings for music have been for years now to the average consumer, but up until May of 2018, things were actually pretty easy to sum up:

If you subscribed to one of Google’s music/media apps, you subscribed to all three of them.

If you signed up for Google Play Music back in 2013 when it was called All Access, you paid $7.99/month ($9.99/month is the price today), and you have an unlimited subscription in Google Play Music, YouTube Red, and premium service in YouTube Music. And to early adopters still paying $7.99 today, meaning that you have saved $120 over the life of your subscription, good for you.

If you signed up for YouTube Red back in 2015, you paid $9.99/month, and you have an unlimited subscription in Google Play Music, YouTube Red, and premium service in YouTube Music.

This meant that while there may be some surface confusion about which subscription to get, the bottom line was dead simple: you buy one, you get them all.

Enter YouTube Music Premium

With the new YouTube Premium models, YouTube is splitting up if benefits. Now, you can:

• Pay $9.99/month for YouTube Music Premium to get rid of ads and enable background/offline playback in YouTube Music. (This includes the audio-only mode and the ability to cast to Chromecast Audio devices like Google Home.)
• Pay $11.99/month for YouTube Premium to get rid of ads and enable background/offline playback in YouTube, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, YouTube Gaming, YouTube VR, premium features in Google Play Music, AND access to YouTube Originals content.

YouTube Music premium is 83% the price of YouTube Premium with less than 20% of the benefits. While it matches the subscription prices for Spotify Premium and Apple Music, no one in their right mind should pay for YouTube Music Premium. You will be dramatically overpaying for your benefits. Pay for YouTube Premium instead.

Price hikes are a part of any long-term service. Netflix has raised prices; Amazon Prime has raised prices, and Hulu has used subscription add-ons for channels, No Commercials, and Live TV to stave off doing the same. Even with a $2 price hike, YouTube Premium is still a great value, eliminating ads and giving us background and offline capabilities for the most popular video platform in the world on just about every platform you could watch YouTube on.

Sign up for YouTube Premium ($11.99/month individual, $17.99/month family)

Updated June 2018: YouTube Red is dead. Long live YouTube Premium. We’ve replaced the links for the new service and updating the pricing and features available. You should’ve got Red when you had the chance!

Amazon Cloud Cam vs. Nest Cam IQ: Is Nest’s best worth three times as much?

AI features are great, but a low price can be even better.

It seems like every brand is trying its hand at the connected security camera game these days, from longtime accessory brands like Belkin and Logitech to more smart home-focused companies like Nest, and now even Amazon. The new Amazon Cloud Cam offers many of the same features you’ll find on industry-leading smart cameras, all at a much more affordable price.

At just $119.99, the Amazon Cloud Cam costs less than half the price of the popular Nest Cam IQ, which runs a pricey $299. In fact, Amazon bundles the cameras together at a discount, meaning you can grab three Cloud Cams for only $289.97. So why on Earth would you buy the Nest Cam IQ when you can literally order three of Amazon’s cameras for less money?

What the Amazon Cloud Cam does great

Don’t let the cheap price fool you, the Cloud Cam is a very capable security camera. It records 1080p video, day or night thanks to its built-in night vision, and features two-way audio so that you can remotely talk to any guests or unwanted intruders. With a free account, you can review the last 24 hours of activity from the camera — it doesn’t record continuously, but it’ll record clips any time it detects motion within its wide-angle view.

$120 is a steal for any smart security camera, let alone one this powerful.

With a paid subscription, you can get access to up to 30 days of video history, as well as person detection; in other words, the Cloud Cam is smart enough to be able to differentiate a person from, say, a dog or cat, and will only notify you of the former. If the Cloud Cam covers more ground than you care to see, though, you can also set up Zones so that you’re only alerted of motion within specific regions.

Even though the Cloud Cam doesn’t continuously record, you can still access the live feed at any time through the Cloud Cam app. Of course, being an Amazon product, the Cloud Cam integrates with Alexa-powered devices as well. You can use Alexa to display your live feed directly on your Fire TV, Fire Tablet, Echo Show, or Echo Spot.

If there’s one downside, it’s that the Amazon Cloud Cam is only available in the U.S. right now, whereas the Nest Cam IQ is sold in many countries, including the U.S.

See at Amazon

What the Nest Cam IQ does better

Just like the Cloud Cam, the Nest Cam IQ offers 1080p video with night vision and two-way audio, but it actually uses a 4K sensor to allow you to losslessly zoom into points of interest within the camera’s field of view. This allows you to retain clarity when punching into a subject, which can be especially helpful when trying to identify the face of an unwanted intruder.

Facial recognition cuts down on the number of false alarm notifications you’ll get.

Speaking of faces, the Cam IQ not only has person detection like the Cloud Cam, but it features facial recognition as well, able to identify specific people and only alert you to the presence of unknown faces. This helps cut down on the number of notifications you’ll get from the Cam IQ, as opposed to the Cloud Cam which notifies you of any person detected — including yourself.

With a paid subscription (which starts out at only $5 a month or $50 per year), you can also access 24/7 continuous video recording and between 5- and 30-day surveillance history. As smart as these connected cameras can be, they can sometimes miss things you might have wanted to see, so a full video stream of the last 24 hours can be useful to have. Like the Cloud Cam, you can also set up Activity Zones to only monitor specific areas within the camera’s view, and the Nest Aware subscription service can even automatically create zones if it detects doors.

The Nest Cam IQ isn’t compatible with Amazon’s Alexa service, but it does work with Google Assistant, allowing you to cast your Cam IQ’s video stream to a Chromecast-enabled device. On the flip side, it also has Google Assistant built in, allowing you to use the Cam IQ as a sort of Google Home through its included speaker.

See at Nest

Which is better for you?

I’ve owned and used the Nest Cam IQ in the past, and I absolutely loved its AI-based features, particularly the facial recognition to cut down on notifications. I also like the 4K sensor for lossless zooming, and that the Cam IQ integrates with Google Assistant, which is my assistant service of choice. By all means, the Nest Cam IQ is a more capable, higher quality security camera than the Amazon Cloud Cam in just about every way.

But is it really so much better that you should spend three times the price on one? For the vast majority of people, I’d say no. The main idea behind connected cameras is security, and in that respect, no amount of AI features can beat out simply having more cameras and covering more ground. Even for those who are deeply entrenched in Nest’s ecosystem of thermostats, doorbells, smoke alarms, and home security systems, you’re probably better off just downloading one more app and picking up a few Cloud Cams — even if you only need one, you’ll save nearly $200 by going with Amazon’s offering.

See at Amazon