As an Entrepreneur and owner of a small cash business I am no stranger to security systems and cameras. While cameras are not terribly difficult to pick out, once you know what your needs are, and familiarize yourself with the technological terms that tell you a cameras capabilities its merely the task of raising the money needed. The software for running these cameras however is a different story, in pictures and online videos they often look the same. It is also easy to ignore this aspect in general because one would think, "it displays and records the video how hard is that ? " The sad truth is a lot harder than you think. I have used some good, some bad and some ok software, which is what led me to find Xeoma, I was not currently really happy with the software I was using on a 4 camera soon to be 8 + setup I had running out of one of my establishments, nothing major just a horrible feel, even worse UI, and a few nitpicks on the capabilities, or lack thereof. All this being said lets dive into Xeoma and see how it stacks up!
Xeoma
The first thing that stuck out at me about Xeoma was the fact that its Cross-platform, I am a Linux guy at heart however any of us in the business world know that more times than not the software you need is Windows only. More importantly now there was no need to choose or compromise, I can run the security system on windows or what ever that machine needs to be, and still view, operate, command and control from any one of my Linux machines (Mac can be used as well) . So for the purpose of this review this is exactly what I did, server and cameras running off of a Windows machine, and used multiple Linux machines (one LAN, one a few miles away) to also view and control the system.
Installation
Installing the Xeoma software is pretty much a snap, download the software click to run it, it will start up and work, you actually don't need to install the software locally for you to try it, give it a few minutes to find you cameras , and away you go. With my setup the software found all my security cameras (and a few webcams) however none of them just started working as it tried to use unsupported resolutions. A quick click on the detailed settings and an adjustment to the resolution though got them up and running in Just a few minutes.
Modules
Xeoma uses what they call "modules" to control what is being done with your cameras, there are many modules and in my 48 hour trial I did not get to test them all, I did test the motion detection, and the email modules. They worked well and were very easy to set up, but I was disappointed that there did not appear to be anyway to have motion detecting on 24-7 and only have emails of pictures of movement sent during certain hours. For example I would always like motion detection recording on, but after close I would want any motion detected reported to me where as during the day when open clearly I would not want this feature. Manually I could go in and click the module on and off for when I want it and when I don't but I would prefer the option to schedule some of these modules so no user interaction is required again.
UI
The UI for Xeoma is clean, simple, and intuitive. Upon first entry into the software it is very simple just a screen with your cameras, this is good a welcomed change from other software where all the controls and options are hogging all of your screen real estate. From this main screen adding modules and setting everything up is as simple as clicking the camera you wish to make changes to (or click the * in the upper right corner of video feed to go straight to detailed settings). Here you can see the modules that you have on the camera and you can check them to turn them on or uncheck to turn them off, to add new modules or make changes to the setting of the modules click detailed settings.
From here either click the module you wish to edit or drag a new module from the top bar and connect it where you want it in the chain by clicking, holding and dragging between the module you added and the module you wish to link it to. Once your done just click the Big
"<---" in the upper left corner and get back to the home screen. Back at the home screen you will see 3 icons at the very bottom , the first is the main menu which includes install options, remote access, language options, etc. The second icon is to add more cameras, and the third is to choose the grid layout and how many cameras are visible on the home screen at a time.
Playback
Playback of the video is pretty simple from the home screen in the top right corner of the video feed you will see an icon that looks like this "|||\" mousing over it will cause "archive" to appear in text click it and it brings you to a quick access of the archived video feed where you can drag the slider to view different previously recorder times from the camera. On top of the slider bar you will notice 2 downword facing triangles with a line connecting them, this is to select a section of the archive to export. You can export the video selection in .avi (h264, or mpeg4) .wmv or grab a picture (.jpeg) of the current frame. If you are viewing the feed from a remote client you can also select to download the clip to your machine. Simply click the "X" icon to leave and you will return to the home screen with your position in the archived saved for next time.
Overall Review 8/10 (10 being perfect score)
After just 48 hours with the Xeoma software I am making the switch from mine, that says a lot! I like the minimalistic and intuitive UI , I like the modules , and I love the cross platform clients and servers. With only having 48 hours with the software before it reset everything I had set up ( condition of the free trial) I can only say so far that I really like what I see, with the exception of a few quirks. First of all I wish either there was an Android client, or that they would at least OS some of the client code so one could be created for it. I briefly attempted a few IP camera applications to connect to it but failed, and have not had time to further investigate, but the mobile space is a huge deal right now and considering how well their client works in Linux one can only imagine that an equally robust client on Android would be a huge advantage over competing products! Secondly although this is common for security camera software, it appears to be extremely CPU intensive keeping my CPU at 100% load when running on the windows machine, I wouldn't mind a little effort in trying to reduce that. Last I would like a few more settings in some modules, like mentioned above some direct scheduling of some of the modules would be a welcomed addition.
So the big question is " Is Xeoma right for me ?" and my answer is very likely! Even if you are 100% satisfied with your current software I still would recommend going to http://felenasoft.com/ downloading a copy and checking out the free trial. You don't have to install it to try it, you Don't have to remove your current software to compare, it only takes a few minutes to setup and get running, and the trial its free!! With nothing to loose and the importance of security camera software and reliability can you afford not to try it ?
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