Blacksumac Piper Review; A Simple Security And Monitoring System

Our friends over at Blacksumac have sent us the Piper for us to review. We first met and saw the Piper at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show and soon after they we had some time to speak with the CEO of Blacksumac Russell Ure. Now we are here with the full review of Piper, and our tag line for the device would be a simple security and monitoring system. Essentially, the Piper is the brain of this system, but will this be an addition to your house? Keep reading to see our full thoughts on Piper!

The Piper unit itself is the main system in what can become a full home security and monitoring system. The Piper itself can be a full, but simple, security and monitoring system. The device itself comes in either white or black, both of these models feature a silver stand. With the stand the Piper can be stationed on a desk, a self, or you can use the included wall mount. You could mount it on the top of a wall or in a corner of the room. The area where you put it can virtually be changed, as the Piper has a fish eye lens. It is a plastic build and the white variant that I am testing, is a smooth and shiny build. On the top and on the bottom of the device is a grey piece with wholes drilled into it. This is where the loud siren will come out of and where the computers and processors inside of the Piper can send the hot air out. The sensors in which the Piper can monitor temperate and other vitals are housed inside of the unit as well. The fish eye camera lens is centered on the top front of the device, a microphone, a LED light, and some sensors are found below The design of the piper is very minimalistic and simple, while it is small in design, it does offer a good amount of features.

Unlike other security cameras on the market, like the Dropcam, the Piper does not currently offer a web interface. Although when I spoke to Russell Ure, the CEO of Blacksumac, he did say it might be something they consider in the future. With that being said, you will need a smartphone or tablet to use the Piper. The way the connection from the Piper gets to your smart device is over WiFi. Setup is a breeze, simply take out your smartphone install the Piper application, follow the onscreen instructions, and you should be good to go in a few minutes. It took me around five minutes before I was able to start panning and tilting around the room.

The Piper application has received several updates, which shows their commitment to getting rid of bugs and adding new features. There are four different modes in the Piper applications, those being Away, Home, Vacation, and Notify Only. Under each of these you can choose the rules for each of these modes. So, for instance if the Piper detects a sound you can have the siren go off or have Piper call you. The phone calls are automated, keep in mind that there is no call center with Piper. Since there are sensors inside of the Piper, if there is a drastic change in temperature, you can have the system react. Since the Piper is Z-Wave enabled system, you can hook up Z-Wave accessories with the device. So you can do a smart switch or a door sensor. Piper offers some of these Z-Wave sensors if you buy a bundle or you can buy them separately. You can add these Z-Wave accessories via the Piper application. The application will record 25 second videos when these events happen and they will store 1,000 of them. After that they will start by deleting the oldest ones, unfortunately as of this review being posted, there is not yet away to download these videos and save them to your phones.

Via the Piper application you can view the camera and check out your home. One of the reasons they went with fish eye lens, was so that you immerse yourself and feel like you are in the room. You can pan and zoom all around, all with gestures you are used to using, right from your phone. You can even get 4 different views and pan around these each individually. As you zoom in more, the quality does deteriorate a little bit and there is no night vision. A simple fix is to get a smart switch use it with a light and when an event is triggered, have the light turn on. Hopefully in future versions, they will create a Piper with night vision. Now, another feature I was looking for was two-way audio, in essence since you can hear whats going on in the room and the Piper has a speaker, why not be able to talk back. Piper has informed me that this feature will be coming soon via a software update.

The Piper gets the job done at being a simple security and monitoring system. In order to get the full system, I would recommend adding some of these Z-Wave sensors and maybe in the future, you will be able to integrate the Piper into a full home alarm system. For now, we have a great system that is perfect for apartments or if you are renting. A key feature of the Piper is that there are no monthly fees, but if you have a house and want to use Piper as the main security system you will have to get a Piper for more than one room, which might get expensive. I would totally recommend the Piper for an apartment or if you are renting, it does a great job of letting you monitor and keeps these locations secure. Looking towards the future, it is looking really good for Piper, considering they have a company behind that is committed to the product and that Piper is kind of future proof. Meaning that the Piper is a computer and it can handle these software updates and I am assured they will keep coming, bringing new and enhanced features to the system. Piper is available now and starts at $239, they offer many different bundles. Including a Piper plus a choice of 3 Z-Wave accessories for $359, they should have a Piper that fits your needs. For More Information On Piper, Please Click Here. We would like to thank Blacksumac for providing us with a copy of “Piper”.

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