Reviews: YI Waterproof Surveillance Detection Deterrent

Review Glen said Lasted only 3 months??.

Very good camera. Mounted it outside near the front door so I can view the driveway and front area of my house. True HD quality and you can download video right to your phone to save for future reference if needed. Highly recommend these!

Update as of 6/9/18 - one of the outdoor cameras has malfunctioned. There appears to be water inside the lens and the indicator light stays a steady green. Tried resetting the camera as well as removing the power from it for a period of time and still nothing. I have contacted YI support for further help. I am changing my rating from a 5 to 2 until the issue is resolved.

Update as of 6/11/18 - Customer support contacted me and will be sending me a new camera. But! I came home today to find that now my other outdoor camera is no longer working! I tried the reset and still nothing. I find it odd that both camera went out within a matter of just a couple days from each other. They're both mounted under the eve of my house near each other. One faces the front walkway and the other faces the driveway. I have contacted support once again for the second camera. But for now, I'm lowering my score down to a 1 now and would not recommend these cameras if they only last for 3 months. I'll update again once I receive the new cameras..

My friend Michael Willis experience A very nice camera with an easy to use phone app.

UPDATE 2017-12: I'm decreasing my rating from 5 down to 4. It's still a good camera and I just purchased two more of them, but it's not perfect. Unfortunately my home was burglarized a few weeks ago, coincidentally only about a week after I put up these cameras. Luckily the thief didn't get anything valuable and there was no damage to the house (hence I didn't even discover the burglary until a couple of days ago - I believe a neighbor arriving home spooked the thief and he left before finding anything of value).

That being said, when he approached from my backyard at night, he walked right by one of my Yi outdoor security cameras, and it did record him. However, since the camera was on night-vision mode, the framerate was only 20 fps, which the description here calls smooth, but it is NOT smooth. The result is that the recording of the thief is motion-blurred so much that his face is completely unrecognizable. He was walking quickly, but not running. In order to get a recognizable capture, he'd have to stop and stare at the camera. So unfortunately even though I have this nice video of him approaching my house and shining a flashlight in every window, there's no real useful evidence. That being said, I had the audible security alert turned off because I get a lot of false alarms in my yard despite it being on the lowest sensitivity level (birds etc). I imagine if I had it turned on and the camera sounded an alarm, it could very well have scared the thief off, which obviously I'd have been very happy about.

So again, good camera, but this was still a big disappointment.

Some other notes:
- I don't subscribe to the cloud service, and I discovered the burglary more than 1 week after it happened, so the clips on the cloud were no longer available. I do use SD cards in all of my cameras, so I figured it would be easy to download the clips from the SD cards using the Yi desktop app. Unfortunately that's not the case - it seems to be impossible to download an SD card clip through the app (although a cloud clip appears to be very easy to download). In order to retrieve the clips, I had to go to the camera and pull the SD card and pop it into my computer, copy the files over, and replace the card. I imagine (and hope) that this is an easy software fix that Yi will put through soon.

- Someone correctly pointed out in a comment to my review - it would also be a very good idea to install the SD cards BEFORE installing the camera. The SD card slot is covered by a little panel which is held in my two small screws, which wouldn't be easy to work with while up on a ladder or something. Much easier to take care of that in your house on a countertop.

Original review follows below:

I already have two indoor Yi cameras, and I've been waiting for them to release an outdoor one. Finally this fall they did, so I ordered three and just installed them today. The picture quality is great, and camera setup was a piece of cake. Here are some pros/cons/tips that I've found so far:

Pros:
- Very easy to set up the camera using the app on the phone. Just scan the QR code on the back of the camera with your phone, punch in your wifi password, then scan the QR code on your phone with the camera. Takes maybe 5 minutes per camera, when you include time to download new firmware etc.
- If you haven't used a Yi camera before, the app on the phone is great. You can name each of your cameras, and it shows a list of each camera on the main screen. Tap a camera and it brings up the live view. Very easy to use, never buggy. I've used Foscam (now Amcrest) cameras in the past and I've found their app to be very buggy (frequently can't connect, etc). Never had that problem with Yi.
- Image is very clear and has a wide angle. Objects in foreground and background are clear
- The camera is fairly small and lightweight - it's not very long lengthwise so it doesn't look bad. Because of the light weight, I was able to mount these on my soffits (eaves) without any extra support. I suppose if very big icicles form on them it could pull them down, but I don't expect that to happen.
- There are lots of extra screws, which is nice.

Cons:
- It's a nice wide angle view, but not very "tall" vertically. Not a big deal at all, but just something to be aware of.
- The zoom works, but it's digital zoom so things get blurry very quickly. Again, not a big deal and I knew that when I bought these.
- I wonder if it would have been possible to make the lens face mostly white instead of black. That would have blended in with my soffits more.

Tips:
Just one tip really, about installation. While the camera setup is easy, if you're installing these on your soffits, it's hard work. Be prepared to run extension cords in your attic etc. For example my installation process for three cameras was:

1. Connect each camera to the app on your phone BEFORE the real installation. You'll be glad you did, you don't want to do that QR scanning while standing on a ladder. Don't connect the camera to the mount yet.
2. Go outside and drill a hole up through the soffit for the power cord, a little more than 1/2" to be wide enough for the USB plug.
3. Feed the power cord up through the hole. Leave the camera resting on something so it doesn't fall (that would be really annoying).
4. Go up in your attic, lay on your stomach and get as close to the soffit as you can. Don't accidentally stab yourself in the head on the shingle nails sticking down through your roof. Use a long metal hook or something (maybe from a hanger or whatever is handy) to fish around in the unseen soffit area until you get lucky and snag the power cord. If there's insulation and stuff, you'll have to pull it all out of the way and replace it later (this makes it a dusty and messy job).
5. Once you finally get lucky and snag the power cord, thank whatever deity you worship, and pull it up and plug it in to an extension cord.
6. Run that extension cord to a power outlet, stapling it up and out of the way.
7. Go back outside and install the mount for the camera (I just screwed it straight into the soffit).
8. Screw the camera onto the mount.
9. Pull up the app on your phone and align the camera how you want it, then tighten it in place.

Anyway, it's not terrible, but the work in the attic isn't fun. Obviously this whole process can change depending on where you're installing the camera (except for the first and last steps I suppose).

This a word from Elmer experience CONTANTLY LOSSES CONNECTION.

I bougth this in May 11, 2018 the reason why Im just writing the review now is because i'm thinking about getting another one but that is not going to happened! It works for ONE MONTH after that slowly failing ( 65% DURING THE DAY IS OFFLINE sometime will come back on and off ) the worse is DURING THE NIGHT 85% IT WILL BE JUST OFFLINE THE ENTIRE NIGHT!!! and my internet signal is only TEN FEET away from the camera. I did follow the instruction on the manual but it doesn't help at all. the purpose of this Camera is to protect or keep an eye on my property. The camera is well build and the quality of the image is great. VERY DISAPPOINTED!

( I Did All Of This And Still Doesn't Work! )
1. reboot local WiFi router
2. make sure no VPN being in use / no firewall or restriction on local network
3. make sure the cam be set up under stable power condition
4. set up the camera under another network / hotspot
5. put smart phone under the same WiFi and test the connection speed under Yi Home app camera setting -> network

A review Dr. Jekyll Talk YI Home app needs some improvement.

Overall I like the camera but there is some room for improvement in the YI Home app (Android)

Things I like about this camera
1. micro SD card option.
2. Decent length micro USB cord
3. In preview mode you can select and delete multiple clips/alerts (unlike YI home camera 2 please make that available this one as well)
4. 2 way audio
5 Alarm/siren
6 It shows you only the clip where the motion is detected but saves the entire clip
7. You could scroll through the time and see when motion occurred. There are red bars to indicate exactly when motion occurred, very nice feature!

If you only have one camera then it is fine but If you have multiple cameras (which I think most people would) then you have to click each camera to see the live view which defeats the purpose of having multiple surveillance cameras.

Here are a few App improvements that I would like to see:
1. YI Home App needs to have a preview mode where you could glance all the cameras at the same time (see pictures below).
2. App ask only once for finger print/code to preview any camera. Currently the app is set up in a way that If you have lock enabled then you have to scan the fingerprint or enter the code separately for each camera.
3. During night mode the motion sensor goes off every time a bug flies in front of the camera which is annoying and then you have 20 motion detection alerts when you wake up.
4. Control the alarm/siren on demand currently you could have it on so it will go off every time it detects motion or off when it stays silent.

I hope the app developers get to see the feedback from its customers and make some improvements.
Still a good camera though.

While Mark H said Great video & instance live view..👍👍🖥.

 I bought 2 of the Yi outdoor Cameras and they are GREAT additions to my existing other 8=Yi 1080p Dome & Home cameras..the video quality is EXCEPTIONAL/Awesome on the outdoor cams and setup takes less then 2mins..the app loads the liveview on all the cams instantly/superfast and I can watch 4 cams at one time on my tablet with the Yi desktop/pc program without any lag to my internet..motion detections works great so does the nightvision..
The only issue I had is on one outdoor cam the sd card fell into the base unit and I had to send cam & sd card back to Amazon to get a replacement for both cam & sd card😮🙁...other then that the outdoor cams are working Great...here some pics & video on how I installed mine,as you can see I installed power cord underneath the base mount of the cam..👍👍

Review The Wolf say I like this!.

 I am a very critical reviewer and I like these. So far the software is working out good for me. It is very adjustable to meet your needs. I uploaded a sample video clip I got from my camera this morning. This is my cat, Snowball. I love seeing her on my camera and knowing what she is doing when she is outside. It makes me smile every time. Hopefully, my cat is all I'll ever see.
I installed mine over the garage eave, so it goes off whenever I pull in and out of my driveway and that's a great way to let you know its working.
The first camera I got made a crackling sound through the microphone, so when I saw the price drop, I ordered 2 more of these and sent the original back in case it was defective. I'm not sure, but like I said, I reordered 2 of them and am happy with them.
It gets very windy in my area so the real test will be to see how it holds up in the wind and adverse weather conditions.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask because when I was shopping for a camera I went through about 4 different ones before I
found this one so I know it can be confusing. This uses wifi and I have 5G and it connected ok. Who knows, I might even buy a 3rd one.

My friend W. Lockridge said Tread carefully, these outdoor cameras from this company seem to fail with regularity..

I hope I'm not writing a double review I don't know what happened last one posted before I was ready so I'll shorten it up. These cameras are good cameras for inside the house but for outside you probably should look for something else I hate to say that because I like this company but I have one that has never really worked right since the day I got it and the one I got yesterday is already on its way back to Amazon to be replaced. I got it installed and got it put up and it worked just fine until the sun went down and then no night-vision at all. I hate it because as I said I've got six of them in the house and I've never had a problem 1 but both of the outside cameras have had problems from day one. These outdoor cameras aren't exactly cheap and I just think for the price they can do a little better. I'm sorry fellas but that's the truth.

Another customer boverc say Yi didn't seem to have any customer support.

Yi cameras are actually pretty decent for the price. But their whole "cloud" strategy is a disaster. First, they don't have their own ordering and payment capabilities. Everything has to be processed through PayPal which means you aren't dealing directly with Yi (which is actually ANTS TECHNOLOGY (HK) LIMITED) so if anything gets the least little bit sideways it all falls apart. Second, I've had several issues with their cloud service. Once with trying to sign up initially, then another for trying to correct a subscription processing problem. So I've tried to contact them many times and, to date, I've never had Yi respond in any way. Beware of this one...

Review Amazon Customer said It has worked great until this month.

Purchased this camera Nov 2017. It has worked great until this month. It now turns off the motion detection setting constantly. I can't get it to stay on, thus making this camera completely useless. I lost the sound function a few months back as well. Considering how much I paid for this, and the fact that I've had it less than a year, having it abruptly break like this is very dissappointing, and enraging. Ive also lost the ability to contact the seller. Will not buy from this company again, and do not recommend.

My friend Fletch said Condensation Behind the Lens after short period of time.

After roughly 6 months of use, condensation built up behind the lens and can no longer see anything. Tried to contact customer support, but didn’t receive any response. Really like the ease of use for the app. Have over 7 cameras and never had an issue. Enjoyed this product, when it worked...