Cricket IP Camera Claims "Exceptional Imaging, Unbeatable Price"

By John Honovich, Published Apr 04, 2013, 08:00pm EDT (Info+)

While OEMs and rebrands regularly enter the surveillance market, there are very few new 'real' manufacturers, especially coming from North America. However, a 15 year old Canadian camera manufacturer, Point Grey, historically specializing in machine vision / industrial applications, is entering surveillance with Cricket, a line they claim delivers exceptional imaging performance at an unbeatable price. In this note, we examine the line's positioning.

Key Points

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Competitive ***********

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Comments (5)

Vincent McCullough

04/08/13 06:21pm

"North America" and "Manufacturing" are not often used in the same sentence any more let alone this industry. Hopefully this Canadian company can pull it off. John is right, more features like Edge recording will be necessary if they truly want to compete in the security market.

Jeremiah Boughton

08/21/14 06:31pm

You should test the Cricket and update this post. I accidently found this camera while researching USB 3.0 cameras (28 ft) to see if USB 3.0 had any possible uses in the security world. (Note - Cricket is not USB but other PG cameras are) Point Grey Cricket store

Derek looks different in this video for some reason.

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John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Jeremiah Boughton | 08/21/14 07:49pm

Jeremiah, thanks for following up.

I see they have a 1/2" camera coming out at the end of this year for $349. That would be the one we'd be interested in testing. The other two are not terribly appealing, especially given how much low cost options from Dahua, Hikvision and Samsung have proliferated in the intervening 15 months.

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Rukmini Wilson

In reply to Jeremiah Boughton | 08/22/14 01:13am

The model in the video is clearly talented, it looks like he may have a background doing mug shots.

@John, @Ethan, @Derek: The validity of the vendor produced shoot-out vs. leading unamed competitor aside, have you considered adding color swatches, like in the video, to the IPVM chart? I know that color is not the biggest priority in security, but it seems easy enough.

And you know how those home surveillience people love their color? B&W might be better some times? You try tellin' em, they would rather watch a black screen, as long as its in color...

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John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Rukmini Wilson | 08/22/14 01:19am

We've done a color fidelity shootout last year. It was well received but poorly read. The bigger issue is that color fidelity differences tend to be minor to modest and vary based on lighting type used.

We might do another fidelity shootout a year from now but it's not likely to become a standard part of testing.

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