I recently received my Canary security and I have to say that I am impressed and very satisfied. I don't get the opportunity to write a lot of reviews but I wanted to take a moment to give my honest feedback in hopes that it helps someone that is considering buying this. First of all. I brought the device on Dec 30, late evening and it arrived at my door on Dec 31 at 2pm. That alone blew my mind because I selected standard shipping and didn't expect it until Jan 3-4. I couldn't wait to set it up and there was a little nervousness on if the set up would be easy especially when dealing with tech products. The set up took all but 10 minutes. . I've only had it for a few days but so far so good. I would also highly recommend this product to a college student living alone away from home in a dorm or apartment. Or someone that wants to keep an eye on an elderly parent living alone. I live in a one bedroom apartment and since the crime in my area is very low, I thought its better to be safe than sorry plus I love gadgets and have been eyeing this product for awhile. Now my feedback on the good and the bad.

The Good:
Very small and compact. I was surprised by how small it is. Which is a good thing because its very discreet.

The video is amazing. Its a little freaky at first to see yourself on video as you test the system out. One good thing is that it has motivated me to lose weight. lol And the night vision camera is also very good and clear. Also you can adjust the sensitivity on the camera so that it doesn't pick up every SINGLE movement. The first day I tested it (the camera is on my front door and living room). The camera recorded shadows moving along my wall. It freaked me out. I thought my place was haunted until I realized I left the TV on and every time the TV changed screens. The camera picked up the shadows on the wall.

When I leave the home. The system arms itself. And when I arrive home. The system goes into privacy mode (no recording or notification). You can also have the choice of disarm mode (recording but no notification) when you arrive home. Its really a set up and forget it system. Not having too punch in a keypad when entering and exiting your house is one less thing to remember.

The alarm is loud and will definitely startled an intruder who wasn't expecting an alarm thinking he picked an easy place to hit. For me. I stepped outside of my apartment but couldn't hear the alarm. Not a big deal but it would have been cool if the alarm was faintly heard it outside of the home.

One thing that is nice is having complete control over your system using the app. If you get an alert. You check the live video. See something that you don't like and you activate the alarm and call the police. Based on your location when you set up the system. Your local fire and police department numbers are stored in the app. The reason that this is important is if you are on vacation in California but live in Texas, You dont lose valuable time trying to the find the number to your local police station. Also having complete control over when to hit the alarm is a major plus since a few cities are now implementing fines for too many false alarms from wired systems.

The Bad:
In the box you receive Security by Canary stickers. I opted not to put the stickers on the unit because I don't want anyone especially intruders to know that it is a security system. I will probably put a air freshner sticker on the side to hide what it is. If you are homeowner. Go online and buy a few ADT yard signs and stick them in your front yard. That way the intruder is wasting his time outside trying to find a phone line to cut.

The app notification is too quiet for me. There is no bells or whistle to alert you that there is activity going on in the home. If you don't pay attention to your phone. You can easily miss it. Hopefully in future updates that will be changed. The main reason I didn't give it five stars.

No backup battery. If you lose power in your home or Internet connection for even a few minutes. Then you lose your security system. It would be nice if the system had an internal backup battery that last for at least 30 minutes to and hour until power or internet is restored. For example I don't think there is alert that you've lost power at home. So if you are out. You would never know to go back home and check on things. I could be wrong but I haven't seen anything on the app.

All in all this a great security system for keeping tabs on your home without a bunch of window and door sensors. Monthly fees or long term contracts. A good deal for under two hundred bucks.

Update 17OCT17
The Canary has been a steller performer for me this past year. I have changed wireless network gear a few times and reconfiguring it to access the new network was a breeze. The quality of the night-vision still amazes me! What a great product!

The Canary is the best all-in-one solution available today! When I decided to purchase an All-in-one security solution for my home, I couldn't decide what to buy so I bought the Canary and the Piper to compare them against one another. After a detailed comparison, I discovered the following...
Pros
The camera on the Canary is far superior during the day.
The night mode is fantastic as shown below and the PIPER DOES NOT HAVE A NIGHT CAMERA unless you spend $80 more than the Canary.
The timeline is much more intuitive and, unlike the Piper, there's not a 15 second break between alerts and the next set of recordings.
The Canary is much more aesthetically pleasing and, in addition, does not stand out and draw attention to itself for what it is intended to do.
The wide angle camera covers my entire living room when situated correctly.
The setup was far easier than with the Piper and the audio cable setup is ingenious!
The air quality monitor is a nice advantage.
The power cable is very long and allows for strategic placement.
The status light ring at the bottom is a nice plus.
Ethernet connectivity is a nice feature I utilized instead of the wireless setup.

Cons
Only the Piper has a "loud noise alert" which I discovered to be very handy in alerting me when my dogs go at one another or there's some other disturbance in the house not necessarily related to movement. It allows the event to stand out and that's a nice feature for sure.
I can talk through the Piper unit when away from home to tell the dogs to knock it off or to communicate with my family of need be. Nice feature not available on the Canary
There's no battery backup if power is lost with the Canary. Piper has battery backup. I have it plugged into my UPS to ensure it operates if I lose power for a period of time.

Overall, my use proved the Canary immediately fostered a feeling of positivism and trust. This was due in part to the easy setup and rock solid performance. The Piper was difficult to setup and would not record event after event unless I enabled the auto-rearm feature which makes no sense to me as a technical person. I highly recommend the Canary to anyone who wants to secure their apartment or home and have ease of use and intuitive design. Perhaps you will find, like I did, a number of additional uses for the Canary than just a passive security system.

As a side note... most of the independent reviews on YouTube and other sites indicate you cannot download videos, etc. These are early reviews not indicative of features currently available. You can indeed download videos and features will be added over time I imagine to make the Canary more and more valuable for the owner. Pictures below are real images extracted from my phone:

**Update**
I have thoroughly tested the Canary and found it to be exceptional. It automatically arms the unit when I leave home and alerts me via push messaging when there's an issue. I also launched it on my iPad Air 2 and watched the camera live, in pitch black darkness no less, and was presented with a wonderfully clear video which I left running for 2 hours. During the 2 hours I had it running, it never dropped video nor did it hiccup in any way. If asked, I can't think of anything else I'd add to this device besides the loud noise alert. The Canary is so very rock solid it's very much worth your consideration.

This is genuine customer review. I have no been paid for my review and I purchased my Canary unit from Amazon like everyone else.

I ordered two Canary security devices and I have very high praise for the optical quality of the surveillance images, the archiving of monitored events, the unobtrusive form-factor of the unit, and the very effective, loud alarm located on the Canary units. Canary uses a system that stores "evidence" in a Canary-cloud which cannot be stolen and carted-off or destroyed like other systems that simply record to a memory card INSIDE a monitoring device (where a criminal can access it).

But I did send both of my Canary units back. Why?

I need a system that will alert me no matter where I am in the world (within reach of an internet connection) -- and make enough NOISE to get my attention, including waking me up from a sound sleep if there is an intrusion. The Canary will give you a low-volume alert noise like a little "piano", but that's it! I need something much more robust than that.

If my property is broken into and I miss the whole thing because I'm asleep or in a noisy area, then, unfortunately, the Canary is really of no use to me. Canary needs to get your attention so that you can make certain that the appropriate reaction is taken. It is a sad thing, but if you have ever dialed 911 with an emergency and reached nobody and instead were told to "leave a message", then you know how important follow-through is. You can't just leave it to the Police, or Fire, or Medical Service. YOU have to be right on top of the situation, and you can't do that if you're asleep while things are happening

It is not Canary's fault that 911 is so clogged up with calls in many cities in the U. S. today, but they really do need to improve the notification capability, and make it LOUD, if the user wants to set it that way. I want a smartphone/tablet alert that can be set to ear-splitting loud!

Understand, I love the basic idea of the Canary system, and the customer service people I worked with were uniformly EXCELLENT. I will surely buy another Canary system after they've made a few more modifications, but they're not there yet.

*** Also -- be aware that Canary does not officially support Android Tablets, even though I was using a Samsung Galaxy Tab A to interface with my Canary systems and everything was fully operational except for the dial-up of emergency numbers (obviously). I asked customer service if Skype could be used for that function and they said they were not sure. A little more R & D work is needed there, I think. ***

When I first saw the Canary product I thought it just looked cool just seeing it on the shelf. I discovered it is more, it is innovative and intuitive. It seems to solve my basic security & monitoring needs in a simple, all-in-one device. Very simple to set up and add multiple users. High quality video playback especially at night with lights off or dimmed.

I have been using my Canary since the day after Christmas and so far it has been flawless. This device is great for anyone not interested in the large traditional systems where you need to punch a code in a keypad multiple times a day or try to remember if you armed the system or not. The smartphone integration is the best feature - the device is controlled exclusively through the app (I use an android) - you can log in to check out your timeline, take a live look at random times and even sound the alarm remotely. My unit is in a media room facing the back door to the garage and that room is dark almost all the time. One thing I discovered was I was not getting motion alerts when I thought I should, it was not until later I figured out it was because I did not have my location services(or GPS) feature enabled on my smartphone.
Set up was very easy "“ Initially you are instructed to download the app, then go through a brief registration phase, next connect the Canary device to your smartphone via the provided aux cable. The phone updates the firmware for the Canary, connects the Canary to your WiFi, and then links your account and you're up and running.

Video quality crisp and clear "“ 1080p HD resolution and not 720p like many of the competitor's cameras. My internet speed is probably less than average with 12-15Mb download speed so I was impressed with the fluid video playback and the brief time it took to buffer.
There are three modes - privacy, disarmed, and armed. No keypads or need to remember to activate or disarm it intuitively does this on its own via your smartphone. Another intuitive feature I am fine tuning is the capability of the system to recognize normal or routine movements, i.e. pets, ceiling fans which I have set for it to ignore.
Definitely a great value for what it is supposed to do. I'm not interested in a lengthy 3-year monitoring contract with a security company, nor running wires all over the house to cameras outside and to windows and door sensors. Huge plus is the lack of a monthly subscription fee. Last thing I want is another monthly fixed fee with penalties if I move or terminate it.

The optional cloud storage plans are very competitive and far less expensive than Nest and Netgear Arlo.
And as a bonus, I just learned that State Farm will recognize my Canary device for a discount on my homeowners' policy because it monitors for excessive humidity (pipe breaks or water heater rupturing) and not just break-ins.

Knowing that I have my phone with me all times it gives me piece of mind being able to do random checks or receive alerts when anything abnormal happens at my residence.

After having this for a while, I can see a few pros and cons. It's good for peace of mind. It's not really a burglar alarm though. All alarms give false alarms, but this type of device does it quite often on days when clouds are moving fast causing lighting changes, wind is blowing trees, etc. If you want to be able to take a peek at home while you're away, and see that nothing is going on, it will be fine for that. But it's not really a "Home Security System".

Some aspects still seem to be in a "beta" state. In addition to alarm features, the device also tracks air quality, which is a really interesting feature. Supposedly it is looking for carbon monoxide, particulates, maybe radon and other things. But the user interface just reports "Normal", "Abnormal", and "Very Abnormal". You have no idea what's actually going on. Are you being poisoned by carbon monoxide? Is there pollen in the air? Does it smell the trash can? You just have no idea, and in this respect it is really worse than nothing. They need to figure out a meaningful user interface for this information, or remove it and stop advertising it as a feature. Because what it does now is useless. You might as well ask the Magic 8 Ball about your air quality, "Outlook Not Good" has just as much meaning as what you get from the Canary.

Another seemingly "beta" oversight is that the unit forgets the privacy setting every time you leave and return. There are two modes of operation. One where you want things watched when you are not there, and the other where you want things watched when you are home (like watching the kids room). You can switch to "Privacy" mode if you don't want video of yourself uploaded to the cloud. Then when you leave, the system automatically arms itself and starts watching. But when you return, it always goes back into "Creepy Stalker" mode, sending video of you up to the cloud. If you're not interested in that feature, you'll have to remember to turn on "Privacy" mode every blasted time you come back home. To me, this is a really dumb human factors oversight. Or perhaps the company is so in love with the self-monitoring concept that they just can't imagine that anyone would not be on board with uploading video of themselves 24x7. In any case, this stupid behavior is probably the single most annoying part of the system. If it weren't for that, I could just set it the way I want it, and forget it.

All in all though, it's pretty useful. If you've ever gone on a trip and just wondered after a few days if everything is really OK, then you know that feeling of uncertainty. And this device is a great way to address that anxiety. Super-easy to set up, with a paid archiving service if you want it, or no recurring charges if you just want monitoring.