Industry | Consumer electronics |
---|---|
Founded | January 2009 |
Founders | Greg Duffy Aamir Virani |
Fate | Acquired by Google / Nest, rebranded as Nest Cameras |
Successor | Nest Cam |
Headquarters | , United States |
Area served | United States Canada |
Products | Dropcam Pro Cloud Recording Dropcam App |
Owner |
Google Inc (2014-2015) Alphabet Inc. (2015-present) |
Parent | Nest Labs (2014-present) |
Website | www.dropcam.com |
Dropcam, Inc. was an American technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company is known for its Wi-Fi video streaming cameras, Dropcam and Dropcam Pro, that allow people to view live feeds through Dropcam's cloud-based service. On June 20, 2014, it was announced that Google's Nest Labs bought Dropcam for $555 million, [1] [2] a decision Dropcam co-founder Greg Duffy later described as a "mistake". [3] In June 2015, Nest introduced the Nest Cam, [4] a successor to the Dropcam Pro. [5] Support for Dropcam services ended on April 8, 2024. [6]
Software engineers Greg Duffy and Aamir Virani founded Dropcam in 2009. [7] Duffy served as Dropcam's CEO and Virani served as COO. [8] They originally developed software for cameras made by Swedish company AXIS. Wanting to develop a less expensive camera, the two companies parted ways and Dropcam started producing its own cameras that primarily provided video monitoring for homes and small businesses. [9] Duffy and Virani credit Duffy's dad with at least part of the inspiration for Dropcam. [10] He wanted to identify the neighbor who was letting their dog poop on his lawn but they were having trouble finding a security camera that made it easy to record, stream and monitor large amounts of data. [11] [12]
Dropcam received early funding from technology investor Mitch Kapor, [13] and in June 2012, Dropcam secured $12 million in venture capital funding led by Menlo Ventures and previous investors, Accel Partners and Bay Partners. [14] Dropcam has also received funding from Felicis Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. [15] [16] The following year, it received $30 million more in funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, bringing the total raised to $47.8 million. [17] [18] Duffy said Dropcam's revenue grew 500 percent year over year. [17]
Dropcam hosts cloud data through Amazon Web Services [19] and Duffy said in 2014 that Dropcam presently records more video than YouTube. [9] [20]
Dropcam has become popular in families watching their children, [21] through monitoring pets at home, at pet stores [22] and in adoption centers. Users have also reportedly caught home-burglaries in progress. [23] Duffy has said, “Moms are using it to catch their babies' first steps when they're not around, checking that older kids have arrived home safely; contacting children who are ignoring their cell phones; and sharing footage from birthday parties.” [24]
Due to the success of Dropcam, several companies launched similar products and services in 2014 and 2015, such as SpotCam and simplicam. [25]
In June 2015, the parent company Nest has introduced Nest Cam as a successor to Dropcam Pro. [26]
On April 7, 2023, Google announced that it would end support for both Dropcam and Nest Secure on April 8, 2024. [6]
Dropcam provides optional encrypted digital video recording through the cloud. The Cloud Recording service automatically saves video on a rolling basis, so users can review the past week or month of footage, depending on their plan. All users, with or without the service, can still view the live feed. [27] Dropcam allows users to download the video and create video clips while also allowing for the creation of a public stream. About 40% of Dropcam users sign up for the cloud service. [23]
As part of Dropcam's Cloud Recording service, markers are placed on a user's video timeline when motion or audio is detected, so a user may go back and view those specific events rather than watch the whole feed to search for notable activities. [27] Dropcam introduced a beta version of its Activity Recognition feature for Cloud Recording, which learns typical motion patterns in a user's video stream, allowing for customized motion alerts. [28]