Reviews: eufy Security Wireless Requires Compatibility

My friend Kindle Customer tell us Not Impressed.

I was really excited about getting these. I read a ton of reviews on the different types of Eufy cams as well as the Arlos. I watched all of the youtube reviews and these seemed like the clear winner.

Installation was pretty easy but the range on these is HORRIBLE. The cameras need to be extremely close to the home base. Forget about trying to put a camera on each side of your house. They have to be within 6 meters of the home base if they are going through one wall. That’s 18’. I tried setting this up on WiFi to my internet and it kept dropping the signal and I would have to plug in the Ethernet cable, which is even farther from the front of my house. The home base creates its own wireless signal to the cameras, the cameras do not connect to your home WiFi. Just the base connects to your internet. So you can’t use a range extender to improve the signal to your camera.

I can still get a signal from the camera to the home base, but it says the signal is weak and I need to move it closer, which unless I want to put the camera in the house, is physically impossible.

If you’re going to use one camera on your front porch and you have an Ethernet plug in area nearby, this will work perfectly. If you have a decent sized home and you want to put this on your garage, but the nearest wired Ethernet is on the opposite corner of your house, forget it.

Another customer Michael Talk So far great cameras. Be forewarned the review is a bit long..

Just a forewarning, this might be a bit of a long review. I've been holding off on a review until I've had some time with the cameras. I got them just before New Year's Eve and put them up around Jan 4, so I've had them up a little over three weeks.

Pros:
0. Customer service is absolutely awesome! I really didn't have issues, I had questions and they always seemed to respond within 24-48 hours. I can't say enough good things about them.
1. Configuration is a breeze. Straight forward, I can't imagine how it could be easier.
2. The video in daytime is great. The video at night with the night vision is good. Obviously more light the better, but when I compared the live video in the Eufy app with night vision on, and the live video via HomeKit, HomeKit does not have night vision and the camera view is much better at night through the app.
3. Homekit compatible. (Main reason for me getting them.) And you can run HomeKit and the app simultaneously.
4. Local video storage on the base station and coming soon hopefully HomeKit Secure Video to store video in iCloud. No service contract.
5. The audio is very good. Very clear in both directions.
6. Mind you it's been just over three weeks, but the battery seems to be going strong. The first few days I had it installed I was playing with the settings and always checking video feeds to adjust the angle of the camera, so that will obviously drain the battery faster, but the battery still seems to be going strong.
7. The video starts recording before you get the alert. I would say you'll get an alert within 4 secs of motion being detected. I think they're saying is detect, record, alert.
8. Human detection is very good.
9. Very good app.

Cons:
I really wouldn't say they are cons, as I would hope that further firmware/OS updates would bring a few features, and some improvements.

1. During the setup, the instructions say to keep the camera about 1 meter away from your router/wireless AP setup. I found out why the hard way. Could be just my setup, I have an Netgear cable modem (so I don't rent the cable company's modem), and an Orbi mesh system. I just wanted to make sure the cameras were fully charged before I mounted them. You can plug in the power cable to the base station and power them up that way or use an adapter as you would for your cell phone and plug them into the wall. I initially opted for the base station method and already had the base station connected to my router. The cameras knocked out my wifi. A couple of reboots got everything back up and running, but my Orbi systems takes a little while to come up. Once up it's been rock solid. Maybe it's the magnets in the base of the cameras that messed with the HDs in the router/wifi gear. Long story short, heed that warning in the instructions and just connect the camera to the base station and move the cameras away from anything with a hard drive in it.

2. What I learned from customer service is at the moment the two way audio only works through the app. You can hear what's going on when using HomeKit, but to talk through the camera you'd need to open the app. Reason being I learned that the criteria for HomeKit is full duplex audio, meaning both parties can talk and/or listen at the same time without pressing a button. Currently the camera allows two-way audio, but only in one direction at a time. So on the Eufy app you have a button your press to talk, then release to hear the audio from the other party. This wasn't a deal breaker for me, I hope this will in a firmware update, but for me if it doesn't it's still not a deal breaker. I would like to see some of the features in the Eufy app in HomeKit, but as customer service told me, they have to influence over HomeKit.

At night, all motion detected and alerted. I would love to have a setting for just Human Detection all the time. I imagine the "all motion is detected at night" hard code is because it's darker and maybe the AI needs more light, and Eufy would rather have an unnecessary alert than no alert. Part of the reason I wanted HomeKit compatibility was I have the cameras trigger my HomeKit light switches to turn on the outdoor lights if motion is detected. Hopefully allowing me a better video of a would be burglar, and hopefully making them move on. I've gotten a few unnecessary alerts from my backyard camera at 0'dark thirty when a bird flew or a leaf fell in front of the camera, but it hasn't been to many. I'm not sure how the AI works, but during the daytime, it's been fantastic just alerting when a human is detected.

This brings me to motion zones. It's great that you can create a motion zone. I would love an enhancement where you could create a motion zone that wasn't just square. I live on a corner lot in a court and my front yard curves. I want to see if anyone enters my yard from the side, but I don't want to catch everyone walking their dog on the sidewalk. With only the rectangular motion zone, it was just a bit of a compromise. Someone would be able to take a couple of steps into my yard before being detected, in order for me not to have everyone on the sidewalk trigger an alert where the court curves.

These are all things I can get around, as they have been great cameras so far, and the fact that I don't have to pay for a cloud service is great. I don't have a ton of activity around my house, and I'm just happy I don't have to pay a subscription for all the AI I'm getting. Yes it would be great if animal and car were also a part of AI, but human detection is really what I'm after.

One other thing, which may be an Apple HomeKit issue. I can call up the cameras using Siri on my wife's phone (we are using her iCloud account for all our HomeKit devices), but when I try on my phone, I'm prompted to add the cameras to my "Home". Kind of strange because all of our HomeKit light switches can be activated via Siri on either phone. I'll reach out to Apple about that.

One more thing if Eufy reads this. About your flood light camera, please make a version that is HomeKit compatible. With so few outdoor HomeKit security cameras, on the market, Eufy can really grab some market share. Especially since the cameras are flexible being battery operated, and you don't have to pay a subscription fee, and the video and audio quality is quite good. I would say if some of those other items I mentioned could be enhanced in an OS update, you'd be ahead of most competitors.

A little background if you've made it this far and want to keep reading.

I was intially looking at Netatmo since they were the first HomeKit compatible security cameras I could find. They do need to be hardwired and at first thought they would be good for my front port and back door, since it does come with a spot light, and they have Human, Animal and Car detection. I do have some HomeKit switches, and the porch light I have set to come on at dusk. I wanted the Netatmo to turn the spot light on at dusk, as well as after I turned it off for the night to come on when it spotted motion. I was told by their customer service, that wasn't possible. It was motion detection or manually turning on/off the light. I also watched a Youtube review on it and was a little upset that it records all the activity first, then sends an alert. That's too slow.

Then I heard Arlo was finally going to add HomeKit to their cameras. My neighbor had an Arlo system and the video looked pretty good. I was just waiting on them to add HomeKit when they came out with the Arlo Ultra 4K. This seems really great, but the price was quite hefty, plus you have to pay the service fee for all the AI and extra to upload 4K videos. You would actually only get 4K on your local wifi. I understand this as 4K would obviously eat up a lot of bandwidth, but it seemed like to get all the bells and whistles you'll have to pay a hefty annual service fee.

During some Youtube reviews of Arlo, I ran across Eufy. This seemed to tick all the boxes especially have my video local and no service fees. I just really wanted HomeKit compatibility. Then Arlo announced the Arlo 3 which sat between the Pro 2 and the Ultra and that seemed like the sweet spot price and feature wise, but you still had to pay a service fee and many reviews showed the video looked gray, even thought it was supposedly 2K video. It really didn't look any better than 1080P, and quite honestly the 1080P looked better than the Arlo 3. Plus the audio, at least in the head to head comparisons videos was just on par, or not as good a Eufy.

Then word came Eufy was going to add HomeKit Secure Video, so I contacted the company and asked if that meant HomeKit would also be added. They responded letting me know that a new camera would have to be created that was HomeKit compatible. They made good and came out with a new camera, the Eufycam 2 and 2C. I do believe Eufy supports Google, and Amazon Alexa, but I'm only interested in HomeKit. Everything has been working great so far and I'm still digging into some of the features figuring out exactly how I want everything configured. Since I've mounted mine outside, I'm not too fussed about geofencing, although that is an option. I want them detecting and recording all the time. I did just try out the siren, and I thought that was limited to someone trying to steal the camera. We let the dog out and the camera picked him up and the siren went off. I think that would be good for when we're on vacation. Fully disclosure, although the siren is 100DB, it doesn't sound that loud. But hopefully it would be enough to have a would be thief move on.

Again, there are other options too, Home, Away, Disarmed, Geofencing, Schedule, Customize. These are indoor/outdoor cameras so if I had these inside I could see using more of these options.

I currently have them tied in with my HomeKit switches, so at night, if it detects motion, the outside lights come on to provide more light for better video capture and also hopefully to scare off any would be thieves. Eventually I want to get it all tied into my security system.

So far, great cameras. I have the two camera set, and plan on adding more to cover some other spots around the house.

I hope this helps. Sorry if it was too long. I'll most likely update as time goes on and I have more experience with them.

Another customer Malexiam experience A bit disappointed.

I hate to give a 4 star review to such a good quality camera and awesome app but learned today that the cameras "do not connect to the home wi-fi directly but only to the base, which explains why my signal to the outdoors was very poor and no matter how much better my wi-fi got better, the signal remain the same no matter what, I would recommend for smaller homes mostly indoors for that reason! no choice but to return!

While Iryn Robben said initial impressions: fully meeting expectations.

Just ordered the system, paid about $300 for it. Its a brand new offering it seems from eufy. Would have liked a higher resolution camera, like some of the arlo offerings, but those don't offer free cloud storage. Definitely didn't want to spend $$ on a system, only to have to pay a monthly subscription. This system avoids monthly fees.

This system records directly to the base station, and so far, judging by two cameras and total events a day, it seems like it will get 20-30 days of clips. I hope the system knows to overwrite old clips as it runs out of space.

Thoughts: App is very functional, everything works, no glaring bugs or anything on Andriod. Setup was easy. Mounting was easy. Note however, that the eufy cam uses heat (PIR) to detect motion, so it cant be mounted behind glass if you want to use this feature. After figuring that out and remounting, everything working as expected. Detection is accurate, quality is good, doesn't seem to have a lag from motion detected to recording time (ie. it records the whole clip without starting midway into the action). Connectivity is good, frame rate is good.

Overall I'm actually quite impressed. I put the base station and the router and modem on a UPS system as well, so if there is a power outage, app is still accessible and keeps recording. Initially only wanted plug-in cameras, but after hearing this could last a full year, the lack of cords is quite nice and keeps the entire setup clean.

I'll update if I run into big issues, or if something stops performing, and we'll see about that 1 year battery claim. I'll get back to you on that one.

Another customer Ning J tell us No cloud subscription and long battery life.

I have been keeping an eye on wireless/cordless security cameras for years. It is too much a hassle to wire electricity to where I want to mount the cameras, but I am also concerned about frequent replacements of batteries. This camera kit is supposed to last a full year on a single charge, which is what I am looking for. I will update this review when the battery drains out.

The installation was simple. It took me five minutes to set up the base, and 10 minutes for each camera. When it comes to mounting the cameras, all you need is a screwdriver and everything else is included, thanks to cord-free installation. I am using the cameras outdoors with the screw-on base. The kit also comes with a pair of magnetic mounts, for indoor mounting. I really appreciate the sticker mounting template, which made the pre-drilling easy .

I didn't like the idea of uploading video clips to cloud (like most wireless cameras do nowadays) for both monetary and privacy reasons. This camera stores its recordings on the base in your home, in a memory card, but there is no need to configure port forwarding on your wifi router like my old ip cameras do.

The app is intuitive, and the default settings are good enough for me. The only thing I had to change was to turn on anti-theft detection, which is off by default to allow initial adjustments after installation.

The picture is sharp regardless of the lighting conditions. See the attached images for what it looks like in a completely dark night.

The human detection works great. No false alarms in my first few days. Please note those cameras don't support face recognition as some other models seem to do,

Another customer Tim Wilkinson tell us Great cameras, easy to setup, but *HomeKit in Beta right now*.

I bought this product elsewhere (I could get it shipped to me earlier than Amazon promised) to replace my aging Blink cameras. These cameras are great, video is crisp and clear, setup is super simple; and I couldn't be more please ... except for the missing major feature - HomeKit. Anker's PR advertises these are HomeKit compatible and, what's more, HomeKit Secure Video compatible. As of today (Nov 14th, 2019) both of these features are missing. In fact, somewhat amusingly, there is an "Google Assistant" sticker on the box hiding the HomeKit label which is printed there.

I've decided to take Anker at their word and assume HomeKit will arrive very soon, but buyers beware because that promise has been made and broken by so many hardware companies over the years. If HomeKit is essential for you, best wait for now.

I'll update this review once HomeKit lands. Fingers crossed.

11/23/19 - Upgrading to 4 stars. HomeKit is now in beta. Anyone interested in joining the beta testing should contact Eufy customer service at support@eufylife.com.

Review Amazon Customer experience Adequate home system.

I am pleased with these cameras. So much so that I'm thinking about getting two more. They are very simple to install and the battery life seems to be very good. No, I don't expect to get anywhere near a years use before needing to recharge but if I can get half a year then I can deal with charging twice a year.

A system like this has limitations. The biggest one is range. The homebase needs to be able to connect to the internet. Which will probably be fine as it does support wifi as well as cable. But the cameras need to reach the homebase and that is a very short range. Going through two walls fifteen feet will reduce the quality to poor. If you have a large home you can forget about having one home base reach several different cameras.

Second is that being wireless, there is a lag before the camera starts recording. If you have a very short range of sight you will miss most of the recording. If you can angle the camera so that the target will be farther away when the recording starts, for example walking up the driveway, it will work great.

Even with the settings to the highest sensitivity and set to record all motion besides human, you will miss a recording every once in a while. I think it catches most of them but from my limited one month of use this is particularly true when it rains. The camera sees the rain and I'm guessing it makes it easier to miss other motion.

Still, for such an easy install, with no fees, this is a great home system.

Update: After a month I can report that I don’t believe I am missing any recordings when setting to the maximum sensitivity and leaving off human only recording. On the downside I now have regular recordings of a local stray cat and a squirrel. Still pleased with these cameras as they have now faced snow, rain, single digit weather, high wind and shown no problems.

This a word from Xi tell us Great security cam, recommended.

 Used it for a week and like it. Well made, sold feelings and clear video.

It has all the requirements I want: easy to install, long battery life, wire free and no subscription hidden fee.

Also the human detection and image identification are quite useful. I got a lot of notifications when I was using my previous cam. Most of them are from my own family or animals. I am glad eufy cam can filter them out.

Also like the magic mounts

Con:
it’s audio is a little sensitive so you can hear some background noise.

It comes with 2 cams but only one cable for charging.

While C. Sculpher tell us Truly wireless, can be installed anywhere.

We purchased these because 1) The EufyCam 2 is Homekit compatible (in Beta) 2) no subscription 3) wireless. I cannot judge on the full year use of the battery since they've only been installed 4 days, but the battery is still full. I am in the beta testing (you simply request it by emailing support@eufylife.com) and was thrilled that I can monitor these cameras in my HomeKit app alongside my Kwikset Premis door lock. I installed one to look over the backyard and one in the front. They come with very strong magnets, which can be used indoors. We ended up affixing these outside with regular strews that it comes with. The one in the front is attached to a wooden beam. Outside, we were getting to the edge of our wifi, so we might need a wifi extender if we install another on a tree outside (which I'd eventually like to do). In the picture, you'll see I took down a small sapling (set by the road now) in order to make the view clearer. We haven't had a single false alert since installing them. I can set movement; so I want to be alerted when someone walks on the sidewalk, but not when a car goes by, and it's worked perfectly. I wish there had been a coupon code; I paid bust out retail, but they were exactly what I wanted.

My friend Katie experience Good quality cam with easy setup.

Decided to buy a security camera with an easy setup. Got the eufycam2 about a week ago. The eufy security camera came with clean and straight forward packaging. The set up process was easy to follow. You just need to download the eufy security app and sync the camera to the hub. The app also has clean design where you can access key camera function such as arming the system with ease. The picture quality is good for the 1080p image quality. Cannot vouch for the waterproof of the camera due to indoor set up. Still need time to see if the battery can hold for the entire year as they claimed.

Room for improvement:
1. usb type c connection for the camera instead of micro usb for easier plug in
2. removable battery for easy recharge when battery is low
3. Cable packaging from the box can be more organize and easier to go through.

Overall, good camera with easy and straight forward setup. Would recommend the camera to friend and family.