Myfox brings its innovative security camera, home alarm, and French fashion sense to U.S. markets

Credit: Myfox

Michael Brown | @brownieshq

Executive Editor, TechHive

• Jun 25, 2015 6:00 AM

One of Europe’s leading home-security providers is coming across the pond in a big way. The 10-year-old French manufacturer Myfox today announced the availability of its Myfox Home Security System and Myfox Security Camera at Amazon, Home Depot, and other online and brick-and-mortar retailers. From what I saw during a hands-on demo last week, I’m comfortable saying Myfox’s offerings are innovative and very different from what’s on the market today.

The $199 Myfox Security Camera features a motorized shutter that can be programmed to cover its lens when you arrive home, so you don’t need to worry that video footage of you dancing around the house naked is streaming to the cloud. Myfox executive Scott Ledterman told me during the briefing that the company added this feature after its research revealed that 30 percent of home-security cameras owners unplug the devices while they’re home in an effort to ensure privacy.

The camera determines whether you’re home or away via an app installed on your smartphone. If someone in the family doesn’t have a smartphone, they can carry a Bluetooth Low Energy keyfob ($30, not included) that can control the camera and perform other functions if you install additional Myfox components (more on that later). The camera has two-way audio, too, so it can function as a remote intercom.

class="credit">MYFOX

Myfox Home Alarm includes the siren, Wi-Fi bridge, one Bluetooth LE keyfob, one IntelliTag sensor, and the app to manage the system. The camera is sold separately.

I describe Myfox’s door/window sensor as unique because it’s a one-piece unit. The more typical sensor harbors a battery, a steel plate, and a radio transmitter in one enclosure and a small magnet in the other. One half is mounted to the door or window and the other is attached nearby on the door or window frame. The only time the sensor sends a signal to the alarm system is when the door or window is opened, thereby breaking the magnetic field formed by the magnet and the plate.

The one-piece IntelliTag houses not just a radio transmitter and a battery, but also a gyroscope, a vibration sensor, a motion sensor, a tilt sensor, and a CPU. Thanks to the presence of all that silicon, an IntelliTag can be installed on a garage door—not just a door or window—so that you can determine the door’s current state: open or closed (the Myfox system, however, isn’t capable of remotely opening or closing the door).

Myfox’s Ledterman told me that an algorithm running on that CPU can differentiate between a ball striking the door or window on which the sensor is mounted, a person knocking on the door or window, and someone hitting it with enough force to break it. Where most home-security systems register an alarm only after the thief has gained entry to the house, according to Ledterman, the Myfox system is designed to trigger an alarm before that happens.