Owl Car Cam Saga: Part 2

Give a Hoot, ...

Last week I bought an Owl Car Cam and installed it on the dash of my vehicle.  I used it all week for work.  It's definitely not as wonderful as I had thought, but here are my experiences with it.

Keep your Phone Handy

If you've been a reader of this blog you might already know that I'm a fan of Android, although I do own a least one Apple device; an iPhone SE.  The Owl Car Cam requires iOS for now, so I had to begin to use the iPhone a bit more.  In fact, I had to carry it with me everywhere I went.

The Owl Car Cam uses the iPhone's Bluetooth connection to identify the driver when entering the vehicle. If I did not bring the iPhone with me, on which the app is installed, the Owl Car Cam would perceive me as an intruder and take clips of me when I accessed the vehicle. It would shine the interior lights on me and record my every move.  Your Owl "should" recognize you, when you come near it, otherwise it could antagonistic toward you.

Birds don't use Smartphones

Whether it be the App or the user, I had a great deal of difficulty getting to the features that I wanted in the Owl Car Cam app. While I did not talk about this in any detail in Part 1, I have had many opportunities to feel frustrated in using the app this week.

There are three sections of the app, not including the settings.  The sections are labeled; Clips, Cameras, and "From Owl".  Most of these features are merely access to videos, either belonging to you as taken by the Owl Car Cam or from the manufacturer's website / YouTube. 

Whenever you use the phrase "OK Presto", the camera archives a set amount of video, including the prior 10-20 seconds.  These clips are available via the LTE connection to the Camera.  I discovered that some aspects of the video files in the camera are ONLY available through LTE, not through the WiFi connection that is also available in the Camera. However, since I am not typically an iPhone user, I do not keep a SIM card in the iPhone, thereby eliminating my access via my iPhone to certain aspects of the camera.  I also learned today, that Owl  does not support iPads, with or without a SIM card.

Whether deliberately or by accident, the assumption made by the Owl Car Cam team and the iPhone / App team, decided that all devices accessing the camera would have a SIM card and did not really plan for any other situation.  Although, fortunately a little birdie told me, that the Android version of the App will be coming out in the next few weeks.

Owl Droppings

The section of the app called "Camera" allows direct access to the camera either to view the front / rear lens live or to see the last 24 plus hours of activity.  Using these features through the LTE connection uses up your credits for the month.  Currently the price of an Owl Car Cam comes with a $50 sub for a year of LTE from AT&T, that includes 60 credits per month. 

If you're interested in this device for your vehicle and its security, you may want to know that 1 minute of activity is equal to 1 credit.  Each time you connect to the Owl Car Cam remotely and pull out a couple of clips or watch some videos live, you are eating into your credits.  In my, barely one weeks-worth of testing the Camera, I've nearly run out of credits.

I've connected to the camera "live", successfully, possibly 5 times and 15 times have been for clip retrieval. I have only 12 of 60 credits remaining.  These connections appear to be rather costly against my total credits and there is, as previously mentioned, no way to access certain features via WiFi.

What's an Owl Lover to do?

It's probably the best advice in most situations, to be patient.  This product is new as of 2018, it's just getting started with features and functionality.  If anything more Owl Lovers are needed to help work out all the problems.

I have had the opportunity to speak with support at Owl and they seemed to be quite optimistic about their product and it's progress.  This makes me feel more at ease when using my Owl and it's App.

Here's to Part 3 of this Owl Car Cam Saga

Owl Car Cam Saga: Part 1

Like a Nest Cam for your Car

Intro

This thing is awesome, or so every YouTube Reviewer says.  Sometimes I get the impression that people are just hyped about new tech, not the particular product.  I too was hyped about it, it really seemed like the great new idea.  It is refined and Mobile Data-connected.  How bad could it be?
(you don't want to know, ... or do you?)

When comparing to so many other Dash Cam, the Owl cam is simple and robust  And, like the CEO and Co-Founder Andy Hodge, who previously worked for Apple and then Nest, the Owl Cam compares to favorably to the iPod, Nest Cam, and Nest Thermostat.  There is a centrist simplicity in all the products that the companies for which Mr Hodge has worked.

An Owl on your Dash

The Owl Cam is a unique product both on paper and in function.  At it's core it is a dash cam, but it includes an LTE connection and some interesting technology to make its use a bit easier to use.   In general public use Dash cams are becoming more common and although there are many, many options to choose from, most are cheap and lack the usability features.  In particular, the Owl Cam can keep an eye on your vehicle and alert you when it senses trouble, such as someone bumping your vehicle or backing into it, or even breaking into it.  It has lights on it both on the front and back to indicate a security feature and for if someone does get inside who should not be there.

Owl's Like Nest, Cams

Like the Nest Cam, the Owl Car Cam retains a full history of all activity in your vehicle.  Not only does it track activity while you drive, but while you do not.  So like the video above, it can capture a break in or just about anything else.  It makes notes in the playback section of the app where it noticed activity around the vehicle. This is similar to how the Nest Cam makes similar notes about motion that it detects. 

Talk to your Owl

Although it is possible to talk to certain Nest Cams, there is a unique feature in the Owl Car Cam that lends itself directly the aspects of driving.  This is where the Owl Cam really shows off it's features.  It is possible to capture an event, as is one of the primary purposes of a Dash cam, using only your voice.   By saying a phrase that is similar to the modern age when speaking to a computer, "OK, Presto", you will capture the last 20 seconds as a permanent clip on the Owl Cam. It is possible to capture the event by tapping the screen, but the voice command is a faster and simpler idea.    

It is important to remember that once you have made the command "OK Presto", the very next thing that you say will be used to label the clip.  If you say nothing, the label will be blank.  But words that the Owl Car Cam hears following "OK Presto" will become the clip name. Both the clip action and the name will be spelled out on the screen following your naming of the clip.  

An Owl on your Phone

The app for Owl is definitely in the early stages of release.  It is finished in the sense that a 5 year-old is at the end of Kindergarten.  You can view the camera Live both inside and outside of the vehicle.  You can view your "OK Presto"-clips, there are a few options.  But the proper fit and finish of a fully functional app is yet to be seen.  

Find me again in Part 2: Issues for a continuation of the problems that the Owl Car Cam is suffering from and hopefully some decent resolution.  For now, Check out Owl Cameras on YouTube for some of the good and not so good benefits of owning an Owl Car Cam.