What the Guardian Monitor actually is
It is a single small camera on a magnetic foot, roughly the size of a large garlic clove, that connects to
your phone over Wi-Fi. There is no hub, no screwdriver and no installer: you charge it, pair it with the app
by scanning a code, and place it. The magnet lets you angle it through 360° on any steel surface —
a fridge, a radiator, a garage door frame, the underside of a shelf — or you can stand it on a flat
surface instead.
Because there is no wiring, the camera goes wherever you can carry it. That is the whole pitch, and for a
rented flat, a shared house, a shed or a hotel room it is a genuinely useful one. What it is not is a
monitored alarm: nothing calls the police, and nothing records to a vault you cannot delete.
What the specifications mean in practice
150° lens. One camera covers a corner of a room rather than a narrow tunnel of it.
That is the difference between catching someone entering and catching them leaving. The trade-off is
fisheye distortion at the edges, so faces are sharpest in the middle of the frame — aim it at the door,
not at the wall.
Infrared night vision. Below a certain light level the camera switches to IR and records
in black and white. It works in a dark room; it does not work through glass, because the IR reflects off the
window and blinds the sensor. If you plan to sit it on a windowsill, test that before you rely on it.
microSD storage. Footage sits on a card inside the camera instead of in a paid cloud. In
practice that means no monthly bill and no footage leaving your house — but it also means that whoever
takes the camera takes the evidence, and a large card overwrites itself after a few days of constant
recording.
Motion alerts. Push notifications arrive on the phone within a second or two of movement,
which is what makes the camera useful when you are out. Expect false triggers from pets, curtains and car
headlights; every camera at this price has that problem.
Where it falls short
- No published weather rating. Fine under cover, unwise in direct rain.
- One camera, one view. Covering a whole house means buying several.
- Battery life depends on how often motion triggers recording, and the brand publishes no figure.
- Night vision does not work aimed through a window.
- Edge distortion makes the very wide 150° view less useful for identifying faces at the frame edge.
Price and where to buy
The camera sells direct from Guardian Monitor at AU$59 for the AU version, and it is not stocked
in general retail, so the brand’s own site is the only place to buy it. That also means the price moves
with whatever promotion is running — the link below goes to the current live price rather than the one
printed here.
