Reviewing three cameras for Digital Camera World wasn't without its problems
(Image credit: Future)
I was delighted to be given three cameras to review for Digital Camera World. My lodger? Well, 'delighted' would be a stretch. 'When are they coming down?' she asked suspiciously.
I had really been hoping not to have to take them down at all, and allow the three new devices to monitor my house along with my Ring cameras. I suffer from extreme anxiety, and being able to view the house remotely and check that it was still standing would have done a lot to calm my nerves.
But I didn't reckon on a paranoid lodger: 'I feel like I'm in Big Brother,' she complained. 'I'm not even on social media. I'm a very private person.'
She's also a lovely person and I was desperate to make her happy and keep her living here, so I tried to assuage her fears. 'The garden one [the IMOU Knight] can't actually film you through the bi-fold doors,' I told her, bringing up the app on my phone and showing her the screen. She waved at the garden camera and frowned when she could see movement.
As for the Eufy Indoor Cam S350, it apparently looked like a 'scary robot'. The Blink Mini 2, on the other hand, was thankfully too small for my lodger to have noticed it.
The Eufy Indoor Cam S350 (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
'Maybe I've been watching too many horror movies,' she admitted, 'but I don't like the thought of being watched.'
She seemed so disturbed that I showed her my commission briefs from DCW so I could prove that I had installed the cameras for work reasons.
We settled on a compromise - I could have Ring cameras watching the front door and the back door and keep the Knight in the garden, but I needed to take the Eufy (and I guess the Blink Mini 2) up to my room, where they could presumably both guard my iMac vigilantly.
The other problem with my lodgers was them obscuring the lens of the cameras by putting objects directly in front of it. It was no doubt accidental, but at various points, the Eufy's view of the kitchen was obscured by a stack of towels, a vase and a large glass.
However, my lodgers weren't the only thing getting in the way of me using the security cameras successfully. The neighbour's fluffy ginger cat decided that the dangling cord of the IMOU Knight was his new favourite play toy. We started a fun game: he would jump up and rip the cable out of its holder; I would sigh, return to the garden when he had gone and replace the cable. Later, he would slink back and rip the cable out again.
(Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
It could have been worse: he could have gnawed through the cable altogether. As it was, he just gave me a bit of exercise (before he had a rest on the table!)
So in summary: these cameras must be anxiety-quelling if you live on your own with no paranoid humans or curious furry creatures nearby. But if you have lodgers, prepare for them to object. And as for the cat, maybe a battery-powered outdoor camera would make more sense.
Ariane Sherine is an author and journalist on many subjects including interiors, and singer-songwriter (under the artist name Ariane X). She has written for the Guardian, Times, Independent, Telegraph, Spectator, Mail, New Statesman, Esquire, NME, Sun and Metro. She regularly appears on television and radio.
She's also written comedy for the BBC and Channel 4, and is still known worldwide for the 2008 Atheist Bus Campaign, featuring adverts on buses which proclaimed 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life' sponsored by Richard Dawkins.
As a result, Ariane went on to edit and compile the bestselling celebrity charity anthology The Atheist's Guide to Christmas (HarperCollins). She has also written three self-help books for major publisher Hachette: Talk Yourself Better, How to Live to 100 and The How of Happy (the last two co-written with public health consultant David Conrad). Ariane's debut novel Shitcom was published in 2021, and is a hilarious body swap comedy. Her latest book is the biography The Real Sinéad O'Connor by White Owl Books.
