Finally, there's a vendor with a surveillance camera that realizes that yes, people want online video storage (also known as a DVR service), but they don't want to pay through the nose for it. Y-Cam's HomeMonitor is exactly that. It's an easy-to-install camera that has a reasonable price of $199.99 (direct) and all the features we've come to expect. But best of all, that price includes seven days' worth of online video storage at your disposal. It's priced higher than the Dropcam HD ($149) and similar to the Samsung SmartCam, but beats out both with that permanently free 7-day video buffer. A few performance issues keep the Y-Cam HomeMonitor (Indoor) from winning our Editors' Choice over the Logitech Alert 750n Indoor Master System, but it's still a great buy.

Design and Setup

The Y-Cam HomeMonitor Indoor camera measures 3.3 by 3.3 by 1.2 inches (HWD), plus a one-inch antenna. It comes with a steel bracket that adds some height and depth, but is perfect for wall, ceiling, or shelf mounting. Also in the box is an Ethernet cable to use during setup, and a power supply with extra plugs for use overseas.

Also available: an outdoor version of the HomeMonitor that sells for $349.99 and works with the same HomeMonitor online service. Those are the only two cameras that do; Y-Cam has an entire ecosystem of cameras that don't. In fact, the HomeMonitor Outdoor version looks similar to the no-frills Y-Cam Bullet HD 1080.)

Setup is simple enough: Hook the HomeMonitor camera up to AC power and connect it to your router using the included Ethernet cable. Visit http://monitor.y-cam.com/login.php, create a HomeMonitor account, and enter the "Camera ID" listed on the back of the camera below the serial number. From there you'll be walked through the rest of the configuration. I had a hiccup where the camera didn't see my Wi-Fi network at first, so I manually entered the SSID, which worked—too bad the HomeMonitor doesn't support Wi-Fi Protected Setup like the Samsung SmartCam. I got a steady green light to indicate the camera was online; blinking green indicates network traffic, meaning the camera is sending a video to the HomeMonitor service.

Motion detection zones can be configured once the camera is setup. In the browser, drag to create a box in the video window and limit detection to those areas. Two zones are allowed, and they can detect motion on a sliding scale of "small movement" to "large movement"—experiment to see what works best. Detecting too much movement can mean far too many alerts sent to email. Those detection zones can also be scheduled, so you only detect motion when you want (such as at night, for example). There's only one schedule even if you use two motion detection zones. You can also create "problematic zones" to avoid detection from pets, kids, fans, and other possible false alarms.

Once the setup is complete, the camera appears in your My Cameras page. Here, you can turn a camera's monitoring on or off, adjust motion zones, and turn on/off motion recording and alerts. It's handy when you only want alerts for certain areas—for example, only get an email when there's movement by the garage camera, not a camera set out front. There's no audio detection, nor is there a two-way audio feature like that found on the Dropcam HD, Samsung SmartCam, and Compro Cloud Network Camera.

The site also offers tabs for a Live View and access to the Video Archive. This is where you go to see your 7-day backlog of clips recorded to the cloud by the HomeMonitor service (and you can get 30 days of DVR service if you pay extra: $40 per year per camera). Unlike Dropcam, which provides one constant stream that you can check for highlights, here you only get clips. You can delete a clip, delete all clips, or download a clip as a 640x480 MP4 file to save forever. There's a User Manager tab for changing your email address or password, and a Camera Manager tab where you make upgrades to your service, access camera and Wi-Fi settings, or upgrade the firmware.

The upside of these cameras is always the mobile side, and HomeMonitor has the now-expected Android and iOS apps. It does the competition one better by supporting AirPlay and having an app for Roku, so you can watch a video stream right on your big screen HDTV. There's also a mobile version of the website at http://monitor.y-cam.com/mobile if you don't want to install the apps.

Performance

The live video view on the Y-cam website is pretty good for a 640-by-480 feed with a low frame rate, between 5 to 10 frames per second depending on bandwidth. (Y-Cam says the camera itself is capable of 30 fps, but that won't be something users see until paying for a potential service upgrade in the future.) And the night vision is especially good with the camera's overabundance of infrared LEDs. But like most of its competition, HomeMonitor has a few seconds of lag time as the video goes from the camera, to your router, out to a server, and then served back to your router and ultimately, your computer. That Internet setup is a breeze to use, but doesn't deliver killer performance.

When you access the camera from a mobile device, the lag is much worse—almost a minute behind real-time. It's easy to see the lag, because HomeMonitor places a time-stamp on all of its video feeds and stored clips. Thankfully, the Y-Cam HomeMonitor indoor camera's traffic won't kill your network, as it only uploads when motion is detected.

Ultimately, the HomeMonitor doesn't beat out the Logitech Alert system or Dropcam HD for quality. But neither of those products have dropped in price in a year, nor do they give you free DVR storage beyond a trial period—which means paying $80 per year to Logitech or $100 per year to Dropcam.

Conclusion

Perhaps the best way to decide on a surveillance camera is by answering this question: Do you care most about the absolutely highest quality video, or more about having a huge backlog of video you can access on the cheap? If you want quality images, stick with the Logitech and Dropcam systems, but know you'll pay for it in subscription fees. If you can live with some lag on "real-time" feeds and slow frame rates on all those clips captured by the camera, you'll find the money spent up front on the Y-Cam HomeMonitor well worth it.