06 January 2012

New Year's resolutions

From the Orbicule headquarters, we wish you a very happy, healthy and safe New Year!

We have some awesome stuff in store for you in 2012. First and foremost, we will unveil Undercover 5. This is not just an upgrade: it's a complete rewrite of our critically acclaimed theft-recovery software. We have taken everything we have learned from 6 years of theft-recovery experience and started from scratch with a brand new system. No single line of code from version 4 remains untouched - literally! Undercover 5 will set a new bar for theft-recovery software. In addition, it will add exciting new features, and it will be even easier to set up. We are well on track to release Undercover 5 in the first half of this year.

Undercover 5 is not the only project we are working on, however. Since the launch of Witness in March 2011, thousands of Mac user have chosen to protect their homes, businesses or dorm rooms with a Witness alarm system. Not without success: Witness already assisted in catching a hospital thief in Virginia, US: http://www.orbicule.com/witness/success

As I'm writing this, we are putting the finishing touches on Witness 2, a major upgrade to our Mac-based home alarm system. Based on the feedback you have sent us, we have added the following features to Witness 2:

  • Sneak Peek: watch live images from any active Mac in your alarm system.
  • Auto-activation: Witness uses the location of your iOS device to automatically arm the alarm when leaving your house, and disarm it upon your return. It's magic!
  • Face detection: you can now setup Witness to only detect motion if it detects a human face. This may come in handy when you have pets running around the house.
  • Motion detection sensitivity: optimize camera settings for a specific environment.
  • Multiple cameras: connect and use up to 3 cameras per Mac, making it easier to cover larger areas.
  • Applescript support: it's now possible to have AppleScripts executed when arming and disarming the alarm, or when motion is detected.

As you can see, Witness 2 is a landmark upgrade. It will be released later this month and best of all it will be free for all registered Witness users. It's our way to say thank you to our early adopters.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will Witness 2 support, beside USB and Firewire webcams, network webcams?

Anonymous said...

We haven't added extra camera support for Witness 2. The general rule is that if the camera works with FaceTime, it will work with Witness. If you would like to see specific models supported, please contact us and we'll look into it.

Simo said...

Hi Peter,

Looking forward to both new versions of Undercover and Witness!

Can you tell me please; will the new Witness auto-activation iOS feature support more than one iOS device? At our place, we tend to leave and return at different times, though we have our own iPhones.

Cheers,
~Simo

Anonymous said...

Will undercover 5 be free upgrade for existing undercover users?

Anonymous said...

@Simo: for version 2.0, it will only support one iOS device. You could of course use multiple devices, but the alarm will arm as soon as the first one leaves the house-area. We are thinking of adding smarter support for multiple devices in a future update.

Anonymous said...

Our upgrade policy for UC5 still has to be established, but if you purchased in the last year, it will definitely be free!

Anonymous said...

@Kumagoro: this will be fixed in Witness 2.

Anonymous said...

Witness 2 auto-activation doesn't work. I use iPhone witness remote installed but the alarm don't switch on or off when I move away or come back to my Mac.
I didn't find any control or setup for this feature.

Anonymous said...

You first have to enable auto-activation on the Witness iOS Settings tab.

Anonymous said...

Ok! Now it works! Thanks Peter

Deviprasad Doddapaneni said...

I have upgraded to witness latest version which is supposed to support up to 3 usb cameras.
However when i try to use 1 USB camera along with built in iSight Camera, i am able to see video on only one of them. The other one just shows white screen.
Request you to let me know if i am missing something.


Thanks,
Deviprasad

Anonymous said...

@Deviprasad: please contact our support at support at orbicule dot com. Thanks!

Peter