Kuna light is easy to install and link to my iPhone and it looks great. After I installed the kuna kight fixture after only one night i caught an individual aproach my home at 1:30 am with a sock on his hand he climbed my stairs and stole my light bulb. And he stole several more in my neighborhood with video i had we posted this on facebook many people saw the video . The story was picked up by a local radio station whose dj was also a victim of this creepy man it was then broadcast on wbz tv 4 in boston this thief is now known as the "charlestown light bulb bandit" if you google this charlestown light bulb bandit you can see the video. Well done kuna i will be installing more of these light at the other entrances to my house.
Very good. I almost gave it four stars because it doesn't massage feet.........
The images and video are good quality. SEE IMAGES. I annotated how far each person from directly in front of the camera.
Motion sensing is good. No alerts have been sent due to the palm or tree branches blowing in recent storms. I initially reduced motion sensing to 80% but have put it back to 100% since the only thing that triggers an alert is a person walking up or large bus. Small passing cars and people walking on the side walk are not a problem. Some one will have to be walking to your door for it to send an alert, as you can see in my pic it took a slow large school bus to get that alert. Your alert will have a lag. By the time you answer it from your phone the person or raccoon will have been at the door for maybe 15 seconds.
I have one account ((the basic) that I share with my wife's Iphone.....I hates the Iphone, i have android . The interface to each device is simple to use and intuitive. You got to be a real monkey to not understand it. I would like a feature to play my own pr- recorded sound files but they only give you what they give you ....first world problems. I
Watching live video will eat you data like a snack.....if you dont have a 12G+ plan and watch it all the time you will pay with your ass.
The bulb I use a 100W (florescent) they say to use less.....I want to see the world when it comes on. SO in order to reduce the glare I'm adding a small piece thin black plastic to cover the bottom. I tested this by attaching it with tape worked like charm and no one will notice it
Installation was practically nothing. over it under 5 minutes. Once the unit was powered I followed the app instructions and BAM!...done....added wife...BAM!..done.
The basic plan should be good enough for anyone. if you think your gona be watching your live feed and play back all you videos ...you'll get over that the first day. it records 2 hours worth of clips. Each clip is ~ 1 minute..........tis alot of clips.
I read several positive and negative reviews before pulling the plug and purchasing three of these.
Installation: The basic connection is the same as any other exterior wall mounted light so not much to say there. Kuna does provide a tool to help you set the length of the mounting screws, though I found on all three lights that the screws needed to be set out a bit more than the tool set them at. They also provide a handy hanger so the light can hang while you connect the electrical. A word of advice, if your exterior is rough (stucco) then you might want to temporarily place a towel over the fixture to prevent scratches while it's hanging. I did and I'm certain it would have been badly scratched if I hadn't.
Set up: Connecting to my Wi-Fi via the app was super easy. After you connect, don't even bother with the device's app settings. The first thing you need to do is update the firmware. This will take 10 minutes or so and I found if you close the app while it's doing this that it stops, causing you to start over again. I noticed too that the app says it's updating even after it's really done. If you close the settings for that camera and then go back in it then says Firmware Up To Date. So Kuna, please fix this. It occurred on all three devices so it's not me. After the update I made my preference settings.
Post Set up: The default sensitivity is set to 95. I had to play with it a bit to get my side garage and front door lights to not give false detection. I cannot figure out what was setting of the side light other than some fruit trees swaying in the wind. I ended up setting my front one to 89 and my side to 90. I've not had one false alert since doing this and it always kicks off when someone is there. Another note to Kuna here. The slider for sensitivity has a range of 0 to 100. You can have a nervous breakdown trying to get the thing to stay on the setting you want. It's too sensitive for the scale. When you lift your finger it tends to change from the desired setting. I also question the need for a 0 to 100 scale since I suspect you'll never go lower than 85 or above 95. Maybe a 0 to 20 scale would be sufficient plus the ability to directly type in a setting number? Also, please, please, please add a switch in the app to quickly turn detection off. I'm having guests over this weekend and I don't want the back yard detection going off and recording every few minutes. I can turn off the notifications, but it will still be recording videos like crazy, which would be eating up your server space!. I also don't want to just power it off.
Additional: Their price plan is not as competitive as Rings. Ring is $10/month for 6 month video storage for unlimited devices. They also warranty your devices for life under this plan with free replacement. Kuna on the other hand only gives you 14 days video storage for $9.99 for only 4 devices. To get this price you pay annually, otherwise it's $14.99/month. Yes, initial cost is $100 less than a ring, but I think you can do MUCH better with these plans. I hope you're reading this Kuna. Kuna did add Artificial Intelligence (AI) this Wednesday, but you only get it if you're on their $240/year Ultimate plan (can you say OUCH? $240, really????)). They say it will be available with the $9.99 plan in the next couple of weeks. Their AI will detect cars and people. It sounds like they are trying to develop this technology even further, so they got Ring beat in this area... for now. HOWEVR, I suspect there will be additional cost for the AI to be added to the plan. I don't see anything on their website regarding AI and its cost. I have the Ultimate Plan for the 2-week trial, but the AI doesn't work with that, which makes no sense to me. Coming back to cost... if AI will cost more then these plans will be exceedingly expensive given what you get in comparison to Ring's plans...IMHO.
Overall I'm very satisfied, though I only got my last camera light installed yesterday. Only time will tell how they will perform over the long haul. My main complaint is plan cost. Also, I don't know if it's Amazon or Kuna, but pricing has been all over the map this week. I paid $158 each. Then the next day the same ones were $179. Today they're $149 (not too happy about that). Set the darn price and leave it! The companion lights were $129 when I bought my camera lights and now they're $79. I'll be buying two of them soon.
One last word to Kuna... I think your selection of lights is perfect when it comes to style. However, can you please make a post mount light in the same styles? I have four more lights mounted to stucco fence posts in my front yard. Finding similar lights to match will be difficult to impossible. I'll happily buy four more if you make them.
[10 MONTH UPDATE] I've now owned this light for 10 months and maintaining its 4 star rating. App updates have improved the value of this product. The siren now sounds like an actual alarm that would create a cause for concern for bystanders versus the old version of a tugboat/fog horn. The sensitivity issues I had when I first bought the lamp are a thing of the past and I hardly ever get false alerts. The phone app is very stable and easy to use. I haven't had to power cycle the unit in the past 5 or so months. Great job on the improvements Kuna! I'm considering one of these for my back door as well. It would receive 5 stars if the flush mounting would have been perfect, and if the app didn't require a subscription to view video that is older than 2 hours.. but I understand why Kuna would want this cloud based and have to receive something to maintain their servers. The only issue I've experienced since I updated this review last is that my phone stopped receiving notifications/alerts. I contacted Kuna, and they had something get screwy on their end and fixed it immediately. Overall this purchase was a great decision!
[3 MONTH UPDATE] I've now owned this light for 3 months and have changed my rating from two stars to four. The first few weeks i had issues with it needing rebooted often & sensitivity problems. It seems like after the last firmware update and app update, things have drastically improved. No more rebooting needed, sensitivity issues only happen once in a while when a cloud passes by the sun quickly causing my tree in the yard' s shadow to appear & disappear triggering an alert. Happens maybe a couple times a week. I'm also loving that spiders don't seem to be able to build a web on the rounded camera like they do daily on my other security cameras. Even without a monthly subscription this product is giving me value. I eventually sealed around the lamp with a window sealant to provide a nice flush appearance due to the gap that the mounting hardware leaves.
[ORIGINAL REVIEW]:
[INSTALLATION]
I only had wires coming out of a hole in my wall that went to a small sized mounting block on my siding. I had to replace the mounting block with a larger one from a home store and reinforce things to support the weight of the light. With no junction box to bolt the lamp to, the last thing I wanted was this thing to fall off the wall. After careful and precision measuring and drilling and use of custom spacers etc, I trusted the handy spacing tool that was included with the lamp to set my screws that the lamp mounts with. Everything was ready to go after about 30 minutes.. or so I thought. It took me an additional hour trying to get this light to mount flush.. I couldn't get the screws to poke through the mounting holes. BUT I USED THE SPACING TOOL THEY PROVIDED.. HOW CAN THIS BE? Well, simply put; terrible mounting design and obvious mis-measurement on Kuna's behalf. The screws had to be MUCH longer than the tool calls for, and even worse -the black locking nuts are too large to fit inside the mounting holes on the lamp, creating a huge gap between the mounting block and the lamp base. I removed the screws, and placed the black locking nuts on the BACK of the mounting plate and locked them in at the correct length. This allowed my light to ALMOST mount flush. I still need to take it back down and grind down the mounting holes a bit for that extra 1/8".
[CONNECTION AND APP SETUP]
The app was an easy and quick download from the Play Store and setup was a breeze. The app connects to the lamp via bluetooth for initial startup, then enables the Wifi and gives you the option to update the lamp's firmware. 15 minutes later I was up and running. 1st thought; this thing is awesome and seems to work perfectly. Each time I would walk out the door in front of the camera lens, I received an alert to my phone stating someone was at the door. Nice!
[DAY 2 - ISSUES BEGIN]
My phone alerts, I excitedly check who's at my door while I'm at work; It's my wife leaving for work, then a few hours later it's the mailman. Nice, this thing is awesome. I get home and walk to the door and go inside. No alert on my phone? Wonder why. Go back outside and stand in front of the camera. Nothing. No recording, no alert, nothing. I power-cycle the lamp. A few minutes later, all is back to normal again. Now I'm getting alerts when cars drive by out in the distant roadway so I adjust the sensitivity a bit and everything seems fine again. {RESOLVED}
[DAY 3 - ISSUES RETURN]
I get alerts showing myself and my wife leaving in the morning, all seems good. No alert from the mailman, we have a relative stop by the house and go inside to get something while we're at work, nothing. We get home from work, nothing. I power cycle the lamp again, wait a while, everything seems normal for an hour or two.. until I hear our doorbell ring. No alert on the phone, no recording. I adjust the sensitivity up to about 90% and test things out. Nothing. {RESOLVED}
[FINAL THOUGHTS - PROS/CONS]
I should have listened closer to all the negative reviews and just waited until a competitor released a better product or Kuna gets their $#!T together and bugfixes this. It sickens me that something like this is marketed as cutting edge and advertises a feature that just plain doesn't work right. I didn't buy this with the hope that it would work sometimes, or that I would have to constantly switch it off and back on 2-3 times a day when it decides to bug-out. After the struggle of cutting up my siding and enlarging the mounting block and fighting this thing onto the wall as flush as I can get it, it's staying there with the hope they bugfix it with an update in the near future. {SEE UPDATED 3 & 10 MONTH REVIEWS AS MOST OF THESE ISSUES ARE RESOLVED}
PROS:
The light looks nice, it illuminates my porch nicely
Audio is pretty clear to my phone (sometimes it's choppy, but I'm chalking that up to phone signal as it's not always the case)
Daytime video is very crisp and clear no matter what the weather conditions
I can turn my porch light on/off remotely, or live-view/listen to my porch/entry area
CONS:
It doesn't work properly 75% of the time or more & requires to be power-cycled often to work. {RESOLVED}
Very small degree of camera direction adjustment, (mount it in the right spot!)
Installation measurement tool provided is way off
Flush-mounting without a gap is impossible without customizing things due to bad mount design
It's supposed to be a SECURITY accessory, but two thumb-screws to remove the whole unit isn't very secure. Can we get a proprietary tool and hardware with the lamp so not just anyone can remove it and steal it in 3 seconds please?
The app is fairly easy and straight forward, but lacks some features that could make it more useful such as an on-off scheduler for app notifications or a way to archive all recordings automatically to your SD Card (of course they wouldn't, they want you to pay them $5+/mo for your own footage)
When the camera is working, there's a long enough delay from the time someone arrives at the door, until it notifies your phone. Then you have to unlock you phone, open the app, wait for it to load, by that time some people are already turning around and walking away.
Siren sounds like a low-toned tugboat horn or the Spongebob Squarepants alarm clock to be exact.. not at all disorienting or anything that would cause concern such as a high-pitched siren or car-alarm. {RESOLVED, NEW SIREN IN RECENT UPDATE}
If Kuna/Maximus goes under, the lamp's camera is completely useless as all your video gets routed to their app/servers only.
Night video is washed out due to the light being shot downward in front of the lens, if your guest/suspect is very close to the camera you will get an image to work with though, just not crisp and clear.
Kuna lights are easy to install as a replacement for existing outdoor lighting fixtures, and we were in desperate need of an upgrade anyway. The smartphone interface is excellent and very easy to use. We started with one, and now have four!
Easy to install on Wi-Fi. We have one installed more than 50 feet away, and three of them the Wi-Fi have to go through multiple walls. The only thing we did a little differently was to wire them up to an old extension cord in the same room as the Wi-Fi access point to logon the first time and set the password. Don't know if we needed to do that, but we found in the past sometimes the first time a device mates with the Wi-Fi access point it does it better if it's close at hand.
They work well with CFL bulbs. The smartphone interface has lots of features--audio alert on your phone, talk with someone at the door, turn the light on/off, play pre-set message, sound an alarm, go back and view video clips from the motion-activated sensor, and more!
Limitations: No night vision mode. So at night you only see as far as there is light from the lamp, unless you live someplace with lots of outdoor lighting. It only saves clips activated by the motion sensor, not continuous video. So for example, one mounted on the front of the house or garage will not capture 24 hours of activity on the street in front of your house, but will just save people walking up within range.
Feature Product
- Compatible with Amazon Alexa. Control your Kuna powered smart lights. Kuna is a smart home security camera in a stylish outdoor light that detects and allows you to interact with people outside your door.
- The security device includes HD live and recorded video, two way intercom, alarm, smart motion detection alerts to your phone, and more
- Easy 15 minute installation with no batteries to replace so you have continuous protection around the clock; Weatherproof: Tested in -40F (-40C) and 131F (55C)
- Be protected at all times. Access HD live video with 720P wide angle camera and two way intercom, 100 dB alarm siren, smart light control. WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 for easy setup with iOS or Android devices. 120V to 240V Energy efficient continuous power supply. US and Canada ONLY
- Access live video or review and download events for 2 hours for 30 days on an optional subscription plan, starting as low as 4.99 per month
Description
Night or day, Kuna’s smart outdoor security camera system detects movement at your door and sends actionable alerts to your iOS or Android device, allowing you to safely take action using Kuna’s lights(s), HD live video feed, two-way intercom, prerecorded deterrent messages, and 100+ decibel siren.
On the positive side: The camera works great and was easy to install onto my phone. It has a few interesting (optional) features, such as "barking" if people get too close (sounds like a German Shepard is inside the house). The alarm is very loud and should scare away just about anyone (the birds and squirrels outside took off in a hurry!). I get notifications to my phone when the landscapers are around our deck. There's also an option to sound alarm/call police in case of less friendly visitors.
I would buy this light again, however, I will absolutely check to make sure all parts are secure and attached as they are supposed to be.
I chose the Maximus security porch light with video camera and speaker by Kuna over the Ring doorbell. It was a very good decision. I'm very happy with the quality, features and stylish good looks of Kuna's Maximus porch security light.
It was simple to change out my old porch light, which was looking a little tired anyway, and replace it with the new smart security porch lamp. I'm a woman in my 60s and I did it in about 15 minutes. Kuna provides very clear instructions and also a short video showing each step. Easy peazy.
The quality of the Kuna video is excellent and the speaker is clear, crisp and loud. I read earlier reviews that were critical of the quality of the night video but mine works just fine at night. The security porch light provides plenty of lighting for a sharp video of my porch which is what I'm most interested in but also I can see my front lawn and driveway with just the lighting provided the street lamp near my driveway.
The Kuna app is amazing. As soon as anyone approaches my front door a chime sounds and then my cellphone chimes immediately afterwards alerting me that there's someone on my porch. The Kuna app gives me the opportunity to speak directly to the visitor or to play some prerecorded messages in a man's voice (nice when you're an old lady living alone), or play a very realistic barking dog (that's a hoot). If you see someone on your security camera that doing something sketchy like looking in your window you can push a button on the app to sound a 100db alarm or even call 911. I haven't had to try those options but it's nice to know they're available.
The video camera height on the porch lamp is much more pleasing then a doorbell camera pointing at someone's belt buckle. And the Kuna video recording starts 10 seconds before the activation chime so you get some good footage of the person approaching your porch. You can see them clearly without distortion. This could come in handy identifying package thieves that just run up to your porch and grab a package and then beat feet thinking that by the time the camera comes on you'll just record the south end of a northbound thief. I signed up for the $4.99 / mo video storage with unlimited downloads of footage to my cellphone. I think Kuna's price is very reasonable but if you don't want to pay a fee, Kuna gives you two hours after each alert to look back at your recording. You get three free downloads to your cellphone each month and unless you live in crime central that should be enough. I don't understand when people complain about paying for extra video storage because of course having that opportunity is going to come at a price but it's not mandatory to pay any costs after your initial purchase it's an added feature they offer to those that are interested.
In short, the Maximus smart security porch light with video is a great addition to your home security at a very reasonable cost. I paid $179. The video and speaker quality is excellent and the Kuna app is clever and easy to use. I high recommend it!
1st, it is very sturdy- metal & glass. I really like the way it looks and that it blends the camera in. My neighborhood is littered with ugly blatant cameras and the ambiance is taken away with the Surveil(ance)-look. I don't like the look of the too many video doorbells either. This counters that with the camo camera that can be adjusted and the many other functions. I love the app and so many functions to control the light, camera, and microphone. I don't like carrying my phone when kids & I are playing outside, so my husband can see & yell to us through the microphone if he needs to reach or surprise us. It does not have night vision, but if there is street or neighboring lights you can still get a stealth look or just turn the light on from app to see more. ++ you can set light to turn on from dusk to dawn or set it for motion activation, control the sensitivity, and how long it will stay on. Plenty of prerecorded sound/greetings, or talk to someone at door, and notification option too. So far you only pay if you want constant storage.
Cons - the biggest is the delay sometimes to view present activity. The app might swirl for 30 seconds or more (seems long when you want to view now). I use a centurylink router that is not the best, but placed well in range.
I still highly recommend and I would buy over the ugly Ring and other ugly doorbell products.
I just installed this and paired it with its smart counterpart on the other side of the garage door. The pairing process was actually a bit more cumbersome than getting my three Coach Smart lights set up but alas all is well. As a side note, there has been a lot of customer support bashing in the reviews found on the Smart Light's product page. I've actually had pretty good service. About half of the time I have to leave a voicemail but they usually get right back to me and resolve my issue. Also, it's true that you have to purchase a plan if you want to receive more than limited services, but most purchasers know this if they do their research before they buy. All in all, a good product for now. Time will tell how they hold up.
Excellent Product. It is a fine addition to my security arsenal. The camera is 720p and with the night light the camera records perfectly better than infrared at night. I do have excellent street lamps as well outside. People are complaining about detection but it requires some setting up and new software is coming that will make it even better. For now the first version of software is working very well. I've had the camera for a couple of months now and it solves some interesting problems for me. It's a great deal for the price. The free service is just that a rolling window of video that gets wiped out after about two hours. But if you get an alert within that window and you want to save it you can download it to your device with no fear of deletion. The service is cheap enough if you want unlimited downloads, insurance against theft of the device and a good enough window before deletion. It's a week or a month depending on the plan.
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