Six months ago, I reviewed the new Aussie developed, Swann Max Ranger Security camera, at the time we thought it was good, six months on we have a different opinion because this device is definitely one of the best robust high performances 4K cameras being sold in Australia today it’s also devoid of security risks similar to Chinese cameras from the likes of Eufy and TP Link.
For more than 12 months, I have had this camera operational on a balcony facing outside, and it has not missed a beat especially as I was concerned about the operational capacity during winter when you can go days without sun.
I live in Sydney, and we had particularly cold winder and lots of storms but despite this and several days when there was basically little sunshine the Swann Max Ranger performed exceptionally well with the battery power falling to no less than 30%.
The camera was located next to a busy car park as I had recently moved into an apartment as our new house was being built.The camera was pointed to a visitor’s car park which attracted constant movements, at first, I thought it would impact the performance of the camera, but despite this the camera performed as good as it did on the day it was set up.
We also set up another Swann Max Ranger Security camera which came to grief during a heavy storm.
After falling two floors to the ground, I found that when rescued it still worked despite a solid fall.
As for the device itself the Swann Max Ranger is continually charges its 12,600 mAh battery while also delivering an excellent 4K (3840 x 2160-pixel resolution) at 15 frames per second video recording which I could not fault, even in reduced light.
The camera has a 105° diagonal field view and uses a Starvis sensor for enhanced colour recording which I found did enhance the image at twilight or in the evening when an area is bathed in artificial light.
Clips are recorded locally to a hub using a Micro SD card with a 64 GB capacity, expandable up to 256 GB, and you can also back up clips to your Dropbox account.
The other big benefit is the use of Halo Wi-Fi on the 900 MHz band, which delivered vision from over 600 metres, Swann claims that it can penetrate walls, ceilings, and obstacles with no signal dropouts.
While we do initial reviews of products, as per the one here, I do love to go back six or 12 months later and see if my reviews actually stack up.