A Security Camera Designed to Indicate When It’s Not Watching (You)

Home security cameras are intended to record intruders, not the homeowners themselves. It’s creepy to think that someone could hack into them to observe you, but that’s the trade-off these products require.One departure is this Smart Camera 4 Zoom by Xiaomi. It has two lenses that resemble eyes; one is an 8 MP ultra-wide and the other a 5 MP telephoto, so it can cover an entire room but still zoom in on people.  The motion-tracking camera can pan and tilt. Most notably, the camera has been designed so that homeowners know when it’s not watching them. When privacy is desired, homeowners press a button on the camera’s app, and it rotates its head downwards to hide its “eyes,” providing visual confirmation that you’re not being recorded. You can also manually move the head to the “closed” position. Moreover, the camera’s data is stored locally, not in the cloud. As of now the camera is Chinese-market-only.