Biometric Butterflye Migrates to Canada

Biometric surveillance technology for the home continues to spread, with the Ooma Butterflye having landed in Canada.

It’s a compact video surveillance camera that can be placed anywhere in a given home, and operates over wifi. While there are other smart home cameras on the market, the Butterflye distinguishes itself with its use of facial recognition: It can be trained to recognize faces, so that friends, family, roommates, and so on won’t set off any false alarms. It also allows for two-way audio communications through its connect app for Android or iOS, with users able to talk to whoever is onscreen through their phones; and it can be programmed to automatically turn off when a given user returns home.

Ooma first unveiled its Butterflye at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and launched it in the US in May. Its spread to Canada reflects the broader proliferation of biometric home surveillance technology, and the rise of facial recognition in consumer electronics in particular after Apple helped to popularize it with the Face ID system of the iPhone X.

Canadians eager to jump on the trend can get an Ooma Butterflye starting from $249.99 CDN, with Ooma offering its biometric surveillance services for $9.99 USD per month, or $99.99 USD per year. The Butterflye is available from Walmart, and will soon be sold online from Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, and Staples.

–

June 26, 2018 – by Alex Perala