Now I have to say I’m not a fan of staying home alone, I still don’t understand why I can’t be joined at the hip to my peep. However there are still places that dogs can’t go, or at least that is what my peep tells me.
However when my peep arrives back home after being away, I always greet her with a wagging tail, a few jumps and maybe even a twirl, just so she knows how much I had missed her while she was gone. Then I proceed straight into the kitchen for my treat for being such a good dog while I was home alone.
Little does she know…that when I’m home alone I like to:
howl my favourite tunes loud enough so the neighbours can hear. Bark my head off when I see the neighbours cat in my garden.Yup, I’ve become “that” dog in the neighbourhood!
Lucky for my peep, (not so much for me), Panasonic gave us a their home monitoring and control kit to try out.
About Home Monitoring
The Home Monitoring and Control Kit allows you to oversee and control your entire home from your smart phone or tablet. It can send you a notification when your dog gets home from the dog walker, and can be set up to turn on lights at a certain time.
- Easy to set up
- Good range
- No Monthly Subscription Fee Required
The Kit Includes
Setting up a home monitor system
Well I have to say I could not believe it didn’t come with treats, but it sure did come with everything you need to set it up.
First thing my peep did was take it out of the box and checked out all the instruction manuals. She’s a bit geeky that way. Next we set up the hub in our hallway near the WiFi box.
It was so easy to do…
- Plug in the hub
- Download the app to your mobile
- On the app just click the connect button and register your device
- Your set!
Next she set up the window/door sensors. She placed one on our back door to the garden and the other to our front door. It too took about 3 minutes and all you need to do is stick them where you want them.
Next was the indoor camera so she can keep an eye on me. Considering I do like roaming around it took my peep awhile before she decided that I usually hang out in the lounge when she’s away. She also added the smart plug to one of our lamps in the lounge too. She thought this would be a great idea considering the days are getting shorter and if she got home late she did not want me in the dark.
Check out the video on how easy it is to set up!
So in less than 20 minutes she had the whole house set up so that she could monitor me while she was away. What she wanted to know was
Did I howl? When the dog walker arrived. Did the lamp come on when it got dark?The App
Once you have set everything up, your app is ready to go and is pretty easy to use. Via the app the home monitoring 
system can be set to one of three settings:
- Disarm
- Arm away
- Arm at home
When armed, the hub activates the camera’s motion sensor and will track motion and sound and will also record when something is detected. All the recorded footage is stored in the hub on a microSD card.
You should also set up your app to alert you when any of the sensors are triggered. You can easily do this in the sub-menus for all your connected devices.
Results
Okay, it’s Monday, I’m home alone while my peep is out on a meeting for a secret project we are doing. I can’t go due to the office is not dog friendly. So I’m home alone waiting for her arrival and to see how everything went.
The first thing my peep did was alarm the hub which will let her know if I bark, howl or do something I’m not suppose to do. Second she has scheduled someone to walk me later in the day and lastly she wants the lounge light to come on around 6:30.
Did someone say woof?
Yup that sneaky little camera had its eye on me! It saw me jumping onto mum’s chair and barking like mad at the cat in the garden!
Hello dog walker
Awww….Ryan, my mum saw you come get me and she also saw you come through the lounge afterwards to feed me my dinner. She knew you entered by the sensor on the door and saw you by the camera in the lounge. In other woof, big peep was watching you!
Then there was light
Ryan didn’t even notice that the lounge light was on when we came back in from our walk. I had to wonder if that sneaky cat was able to come in through the garden door and turn on the light. However my peep assured me that it did not, and she knows because there was no alert that the door was opened.
Review
My peep really liked that she could remotely activate the lights in our house as well as monitoring me while I was home alone. Connecting via WiFi with use of her smart phone made it really easy to use with just a few taps.
She was also happy that the DECT-enabled hub connects all the devices in a secure range of up to 1000 feet and can be placed in any room.
The only thing she wished was that the kit had more! Being in a flat with two entrances, loads of windows and a roaming dog, a few extra cameras and sensors would have helped set up the whole home. Also connecting an outdoor camera would have been great too.
However the system is very easy to up grade where you can add up to four camera and over 50 devices to the system. They even have a smart home siren and a motion sensor that you can add to your home monitoring package.
My peep thinks the Panasonic Home Monitoring & Control Kit is perfectly suited for pet monitoring and does give you piece of mind.
I think it should serve me treats all day!
Get it Here
Panasonic Home Monitoring Get the App: Apple or Android Buy Here Contact 229.99Disclaimer: We would like to thank Panasonic UK for supplying us with their smart home monitoring & control kit for our review. All opinions are strictly our own.
