Available from Selfridges and B&Q for £159
With more and more people looking to increase home security I recently come across the Cocoon Home Security device and wanted to see if it lived up to all the hype.
So the Cocoon is a small cricket ball device that uses both video camera and sub-sound system to monitor the home. Now the device also requires you to download the app to your phone or tablet. This allows you to gain updates to your device whenever an alert/ suspicious activity occurs seems all good on paper right?
The Cocoon works as it listens to your house and after one week learns the normal sounds of the house which if something unusual was to happen it would alert you. Now the Cocoon also knows when you are in the house or not and does this by linking up to your phone/ device. Now you must also have the location setting turned on which does take a little battery but I accepted that for a safe home.
Now they tell you setting up this device is very easy to do and can be set up in under 1 min. Now once you get the device out of the box you get the cocoon itself, A power cable and a small stand for it to sit on. I agree you can set it up very quickly and once switched on you here some noises for both the cocoon and your phone but this is simply the pairing process.
Once set up one issue I had was my parents do not have the most up to date phones my mother phone was simple to connect but my dad has a doro which did not help connect him at all. I bypassed this issue as they normally go out together so it should not have been an issue.
The lens provides a very wide angle view so you need to make sure nothing obscures it in any way.
Now when deciding to place the Cocoon bare in mind it has a 120Ë wide angle lens which will pick up a lot. I first put this on this under the mirror in the living room next to the clock. What a mistake that was as when I went to work the next day I was getting alerts on the hour every hour as my clock was triggering an alert. So after a day of being driven mad, I moved it to near the front door which turns out to be a much better spot.
Now I like the fact you can use the app and check on the house when you want which I guess gives you the peace of mind everything is safe. Now if something does bring your attention you can record both video and audio of what is going on. Make sure you save them or they will be deleted.
If you do notice something you can hit the alarm on your phone that generates a siren which should scare people off but being someone that has been burgled before am not 100 percent convinced this will scare someone that wants to break in.
My view of this product is the first week of having the device it drives you mad will all the alerts but after a week it seems to sort itself out. Now I tested this so when my parents left home they informed me so I set the app to alarmed. This seems to work until my father who’s phone not connected to the app re-entered the property and unfortunately for me no alert now if this was to have been someone else we would have been in big trouble and with no alert, I was not impressed with the device.
Now personally I would not buy the product as I felt it could have worked better but my guess is if you have someone with a bigger house then it could be a good investment. At £159 it’s not a bad price and if you can get the kinks out if it am sure it will work very effectively and the app is simple to use. However, would I be going out to make the cocoon a long-term security system I think not.
The Cocoon is available from Selfridges and B&Q. You can find further information or buy online via the Cocoon website.
