Zmodo Torch Pro - Review 2022

Touted as a full forepart porch solution, the Zmodo Torch Pro ($199) lets you see who is at your door in real-time and who has been there while you were away. It'southward a three slice-set consisting of a calorie-free bulb equipped with an embedded security photographic camera, a Wi-Fi doorbell, and a Axle Alarm range extender. The camera delivered sharp 720p video and well-baked two-way audio in our tests, and movement detection was accurate. But this solution does not integrate with other connected devices (even those from Zmodo), and information technology lacks support for IFTTT recipes. Moreover, the bulb is rather large and may not fit in some outdoor fixtures.

Design and Features

The Torch Pro comes with a Wi-Fi-enabled LED lite bulb that has a video camera embedded in its side. The multi-color bulb is rated at 350 lumens with a five,000K color temperature. It has an E26 base and a silverish metallic casing with a soft white lens. Embedded in the side of the casing is a 720p camera with a 4X digital zoom and a 132-degree field of view. At five.five by ii.9 inches (HW), it's bigger than your typical light seedling and may be a tight fit for some outdoor fixtures. The bulb is rated to terminal for 100,000 hours, or over 11 years of nonstop utilize. When it dies, at that place's no way to supercede it without also replacing the camera.

At 3.iii by ane.8 by 1.one inches (HWD), the doorbell is minor compared with the RemoBell (6.0 by 2.7 by 1.2 inches) and the Band Video Doorbell (four.ix by 2.4 by 0.8 inches), merely those both firm cameras while the Torch Pro does not. The silver enclosure has an IP51 weatherproof rating and a round LED backlit ringer button, an IR LED that supplies light for the photographic camera at night, a motion sensor, a speaker, and a microphone. The back of the doorbell slides off and contains ii wire terminals and mounting holes. The LED turns solid green when you power upward the doorbell, blinks green during setup, blinks blue when it connects to your Wi-Fi, and turns solid blue when setup is consummate.

Zmodo includes a Beam Alert range extender in instance your doorway lite and doorbell are located too far abroad from your Wi-Fi router. It measures 4.1 by two.4 by 2.0 inches and is glossy white. It plugs directly into a 3-pronged wall outlet and tin can extend an 802.11b/g/north signal by up to 656 feet. Since my forepart door is very close to my router I didn't demand to use it, merely it's a welcome inclusion.

Yous tin can admission the Torch Pro using an Android or iOS app, or you can log in to the spider web portal. The Abode screen has a snapshot of the terminal image captured by the photographic camera and displays the manner status (Abode, Abroad, Sleep). Y'all can create notification schedules for each mode and create your own custom manner. Below the snapshot are six large buttons including Live, Motion, Ring Alert, Light, Share, and Device Settings.

Live launches a existent-time video feed with buttons to tape video, take a snapshot, and initiate two-way audio. Motion takes you to a page where you can access all motility-activated video clips. And Ring Warning displays all alerts triggered by a doorbell printing.

Tapping the Light button takes you to a screen where y'all can turn the low-cal on and off and choose light color, effulgence, and saturation levels using the color cycle. Alternately, you can cull 1 of nine colour Themes including Lavender, Rose, and Breathing (in which each color fades in and out). It'south not nigh as advanced as a Philips Hue bulb, but the customizability is a prissy impact.

The Share push button allows you to share access to the Torch Pro using your telephone contacts or an email accost, and the Device Settings screen is where you go to enable and disable the microphone and ringer chime, configure mode alert settings, view shared users, schedule band alerts for specific times of the day and days of the calendar week, and create nighttime vision and lighting schedules.

At the bottom of the app is a button that takes you back to the Dwelling house screen, a People button that displays invitations and contacts, and an Events push button that presents a log of all triggered events and has a gallery of recorded video and snapshots. There's as well a Discovery button that provides links to sites that offer alive streams from restaurants, shops, and parks that are using Zmodo cameras.

You can't use the Torch Pro to trigger other smart abode devices such as door locks, sirens, and indoor lighting, nor does it interact with other Zmodo device such as the Pivot camera. Moreover, it lacks back up for If This So That (IFTTT), which allows yous to create recipes that trigger other compatible devices. In comparison, the Netatmo Presence has an IFTTT channel you can employ to send electronic mail alerts, enable connected lighting, and turn other devices on and off. Neither device works with Amazon's Alexa vocalization commands, however.

Installation and Performance

Installing the Torch Pro is like shooting fish in a barrel. I turned off power to my porch light and my doorbell and replaced the porch light with the Zmodo Torch light. I then removed my doorbell and connected the two doorbell wires to the bankroll plate of the Zmodo doorbell, fastened information technology to the house, and attached the doorbell to the mounting plate. Upon restoring power the Torch lite flashed several colors for a few seconds before flashing a steady dark-green. The doorbell LED also began flashing greenish.

I downloaded the app and tapped the plus icon in the upper right corner to add a device. I tapped 2 in the Number of Devices field (one for the photographic camera and one for the doorbell), connected to Torch Pro'south SSID using my phone's Wi-Fi settings, and returned to the app and clicked the blue checkmark icon. I went back to the Wi-Fi settings and reconnected my phone to my home's Wi-Fi network and waited effectually two minutes for the camera and doorbell to join the network.

The Torch Pro provided very good video quality in testing. Daytime video was sharp, with punchy colors and no pincushion distortion. Night vision video showed skillful definition out to 10 anxiety, only became soft and lacked detail beyond that. In addition to live, the camera records video and stores information technology in the cloud for 24 hours for free, simply extended storage plans are not even so bachelor.

The photographic camera never failed to record a doorbell ring or a motion event, and push notifications for both were received immediately. Two-way sound was make clean, with none of the lag I experienced with the RemoBell, and I didn't receive whatsoever imitation move alerts. The bulb provided more than enough light to illuminate my front steps and most of the walkway leading up to them, and the various colors were well saturated. Moreover, the Torch Pro followed my alert and lighting schedules to a tee.

Conclusions

With the Zmodo Torch Pro you tin utilize your smartphone or tablet to view live video of the area outside of your doorway and receive alerts when someone approaches or rings your doorbell. It also stores that video in the cloud for a 24-hour interval for free. It's fairly like shooting fish in a barrel to install and offers lighting and alert notification scheduling, but information technology's a standalone organisation that doesn't work with other devices such as smart locks and connected lighting, nor does it work with other Zmodo devices. If y'all prefer an outdoor light/camera device with a bit more than interoperability, the Netatmo Presence is good pick. It doesn't have multi-colour lighting, but it offers excellent motion detection, sharp 1080p video, and local video storage. It as well interacts with other IFTTT-enabled devices.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/digital-home/15746/zmodo-torch-pro

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