LiftMaster Smart Garage Camera Review – Night Vision, Motion Detector & 2-Way Audio

While at CES a few weeks ago, we happened to meet up with and take part in a discussion about garage security with LiftMaster.  It was a totally unexpected meeting, but rather fortunate as we had just recently finished a two story 40’x30′ three garage and were very happy with our purchase of three Chamberlain RJ020C Wall-Mounted WiFi Garage Door Openers, Chamberlain and LiftMaster being sister companies.  This is a picture of that installation:

Our conversation turned to the contents stored within and the LiftMaster representative suggested that we might be interested in looking at their newest LiftMaster Smart Garage  Camera.  This cam is smartphone app based and provided real-time live monitoring of the garage, as well as motion notifications should an intruder attempt entry.  Truth be told, my greater worry is the wife deciding to take ‘the car’ for a leisurely country ride in my absence… and this takes care of that situation as we will soon discuss. Here she is (the car not my wife);  thought I might pull her out for a bit of a breather just for this article.

So… let’s get to the meat and gravy of this article, the LiftMaster Smart Garage Camera. This Camera is a brand new release and is available from the LiftMaster website right now for a price of $149.99US. It comes in very attractive packaging, and the contents consist of the camera, a lengthy 10′ (3m) microUSB cable, power adapter and installation instructions. 

Installation took all of 10 minutes and this camera was immediately picked up by the myQ App that was installed with our garage door openers that allow remote monitoring, opening and closing through the App. Simply plug the microUSB into the camera, the power adapter into the wall, open the myQ App and let it discover your new camera.

The LiftMaster Smart Garage Camera contains a 1080p HD lens that has a wide angle range of 140 degrees. It works from its built-in 2.4GHz/5GHz dual band WiFi and utilizes Bluetooth for initial setup, has a 360 degree manually adjustable view, climate range of -13 to 130DegF, and has night vision for greater image quality in low light environments.

There is a hidden mic and speaker integrated into the back of the device that provides for two way communication in real time. The ‘Talk Back’ volume is adjustable, as well as the ability to mute sound completely in the myQ App. 

For ease of installation, the bottom is magnetic so the unit can easily be simply placed on existing LiftMaster/Chamberlain Garage Door openers (or stick it on your fridge as we did), or it can be screwed into the surface and the device then clicked onto the base plate. 

This is how our LiftMaster Smart Garage Camera is placed for our particular set up; dead centre of the back wall and about 7 ft up.  You might notice a small hole on the left hand side.  This is a reset switch if the system doesn’t work as expected.

A bit unexpected perhaps, is that the LiftMaster Smart Garage Camera comes with a 30 day introductory subscription to their cloud based storage, without the need to input your credit card information.  If you choose to continue after that 30 days, you can sign up for 7-day or 30-day video storage available through a monthly or yearly subscription.  Initial thoughts for storage pricing was $3USD monthly/$30USD yearly for the 7-day cloud storage plan and $10USD monthly/$100USD yearly for the  30-day plan.

Check the next page for photo and video reproduction.