Bosch Smart Home 360 Panoramic Indoor Camera

News from IFA trade show in Berlin German, Bosh Smart Home demonstrated its 360 degree indoor camera that can recede into its housing like a turtle. The new camera leverages a 2 megapixel CMOS image sensor to capture Full HD 1080p resolution video, while equipped with a 360 degree fisheye lens to provide you panoramic viewing angle.

According to the new report released by Bosch Smart Home, the camera will be available to European customers (Germany, Austria, and the UK), the retail price is 250 euros, which converts to roughly $275, or £225 . That’s very expensive if comparing the cameras from other brands. Spending 250 euros, you can get +4 sets of our D1000G. Furthermore, if add this camera to the existing Bosch indoor home automation starter package, the total price will be approximately 600 euros.  

1#. What’s special to this camera?

Users can simply tap the top of device or using the App to hide the camera lens (its head will recede into its shell), meanwhile the camera will stop video streaming. This can help you to protect your privacy. It also comes with a microphone and a speaker built-in to offer audio intercom function. 

In terms of smart detection, Bosch 360° indoor camera also comes with a Passive Infrared motion sensor that combing video analysis to provide low false rate and accurate motion detection. When motion alarm is triggered, the camera can automatically record HD footage to its microSD/TF card or upload the video footage to the Bosch cloud server. 

Similar to other cameras, it also has infrared illuminators to enable camera capturing image at night. We can’t find its datasheet, so the night vision distance capability is not yet to know. Bosch will also offer a new camera app for Android and iOS users. The new app can allow users to quickly setup the camera through using the WiFi connection. The App allows you to control up to 10 indoor and outdoor cameras. Once complete the setup procedures, you can share the camera with your friends.

2#. Should you buy a 360 degree security camera?

In conclusion, the Bosch Smart Home 360° indoor camera can provide you 360° panoramic video surveillance experience that can cover the whole area without having blind-spots. It also provides PIR-based motion detection and audio intercom, SD card video storage, cloud storage etc. 

However, as the panoramic camera, the 2-megapixel resolution is not sufficient. 2MP panoramic video displays on smartphone will look quite crisp and high quality. Once users enlarge the details or zoom in, the image quality will degrade and become worse. We suppose many customers will not be satisfied on this. This is also the reason why we haven’t launched any panoramic cameras yet.

3#. 360° fisheye/panoramic camera versus Pan/Tilt camera

Dewarping is the key technology to a single fisheye lens based panoramic cameras. Today, this technology is no longer monopolized by several giants. For example many Chinese companies launched cost-effective 360 panoramic cameras (some cameras referred as VR cameras) support panoramic viewing and ePTZ (digital pan/tilt/zoom) on smartphone by running the App. How to choose among different types of security cameras ? A panoramic camera or a traditional pan/tilt camera?

360 degree coverage is the major advantage to the panoramic camera. It's ideal for indoor video surveillance. Typically, a 360 degree camera can't provide much detailed image due to its massive data received by the image sensor. If you can find a place to install camera on ceiling, and image details are not so important, you can choose 720p/1080p panoramic cameras. Therefore, when selecting a single lens based panoramic camera, ensuring select the one that offers higher image resolution. 5-megapixel is the lowest requirement to ensure the panoramic image can retain fine details.

Pan/tilt camera offers limited viewing angle at a time, however users can move the camera horizontally and vertically to cover up to 355 degree viewing angle. Pan/tilt camera is suitable for both indoor and outdoor video surveillance. People are delighted to use the PT cameras, because they can provide crisp image retaining fine details.