As homeowners, it goes without saying that we want to ensure our home is as secure as possible. With long dark nights ahead of us and the Christmas holidays being a popular time for travel to see family and friends, it’s really important that we secure our home and put in measures to protect it. We’ve recently been introduced to Hive’s HomeShield, which enables us to protect our home from our smartphones and connect a range of smart home technology together.

What is HomeShield from Hive?

Hive HomeShield is a smart home security system that enables users to protect their homes from their phones with easy control, smart security reports, and intelligent alerts for the whole family. Through a combination of Hive products, the home security system protects your home so you can relax and enjoy time away from home. Hive smart security supports consumers with inside and out home protection, aiming to deter intruders and help you to monitor your home away from home.

Installing a Hive View Camera

We have been testing out a Hive View indoor smart camera over the last couple of weeks and we have been impressed with how easy to use it is set up and used. Not only is it very quick and easy to set up, but it is also a very stylish piece of home protection kit and it works well which enables us to live stream from our home and check in with family and pets with its two-way audio.

The Hive View camera is available in black & brushed copper design, or white & champagne gold so will look stylish amongst your belongings whilst keeping an eye on everything whilst you’re away.

The Hive View indoor camera connects to your home’s wifi connection and allows you to check in on the action at home via an app on your phone. The camera automatically records when it detects people, motion, and sound and sends a notification via the app. You can even connect your tablet and Apple Watch for ease of access.

We installed the Hive View camera in our living room which is the ideal place for us to keep an eye on what is going on at home. Living in a terraced home, there are only 2 entry points at the back and front of our home; via the front and back door or through the windows. We have been able to live stream and record both day and night what has been going in our lounge (and who may be looking through our windows) in full 1080p HD. It’s a brilliantly clear picture thanks to the wide-angle 130° lens and allows you to identify faces and get a closer look with up to 8x digital zoom. It can even detect motion up to 60ft away during the day giving extra peace of mind whilst at night Hive View has built-in night vision that detects people up to 15ft away.

We love that the camera is portable so you can take the camera off its base and use its in-built one-hour battery to keep an eye on activity in another room. It’s such a handy feature!

Tailor notifications to suit you

Via the app, you can modify the notification settings and you can even get notifications via email. The app is really easy to use, allowing you to change motion and sound detection settings, allows you to modify the device settings including status chimes and you can even set it up with Siri (to use with Apple devices) to check your camera live feed in an instant. Recorded footage can be played, downloaded, and shared from the previous 24 hours or you can update to 30-day HD video storge from as little as £3.99 per month.

It’s really simple to tailor the device to your personal requirements and it works really well.

We already use the Hive app for our home heating system and it works well so we are keen to explore more of the Hive home security devices to use in our home. We are due to move house in the next few months so will definitely be taking the Hive View camera with us and looking to upgrade our home security system to ensure our new home is as safe as possible.

You can find out more about Hive’s Home Shield and its range of products including the Hive View Outdoor camera here.

This post is in conjunction with Hive but all thoughts are my own.