Chamberlain - myQ Smart Garage Security Camera - White

Couldn't resist as a Best Buy Deal of the day, only regret was that I should have bought 2 more. Super easy to install, the magnetic base makes it a snap to install directly under your garage door opener. Camera and sound quality is good. Receiving more Amazon deliveries and this camera makes it ideal to receive my shipments in my garage safely from the driver.

Awesome little camera. Perfect for keeping an eye on our new construction house.

Installation was quick. It connected to phone Bluetooth and was able to detect my home Wi-Fi in a few seconds using the MyQ app. I already had the MyQ garage control device and as soon I added the MQ smart garage camera, it allow me to link it to the smart garage control device on the MyQ app. With a quick software update it was up and running in under five minutes. It has a magnetic mounting base and also came with an magnetic strip option that can be screwed to the garage ceiling if needed. The camera itself is mounted on a swivel mount so you can adjust the view to get the best view. Video Quality and Field of View - The garage view for a 2 car garage is pretty good with the 130 wide angle view and 1080p resolution. Now I can monitor the motion in the garage with smart alerts and when my amazon packages get delivered inside my garage. The night vision is also pretty good with great image quality in low lights. Features - It has most of the smart camera features that you find in the outdoor or indoor smart cameras - people detection, video playback option, live video streaming, rich text notification, two-way communication, etc. but to avail most benefits you need to subscribe to their plan, else the notification will be bare minimal which I thought was good enough for my need. Overall, it’s a great add to my MyQ garage control system to monitor activities when the garage door opens and closes.

This little guy is a decent companion to an existing myQ garage door opener setup, but the nice part is that the camera can also serve double duty explicitly as a garage-door security camera, or you can deploy several around the house for an indoor security camera network with traditional (i.e., non-garage-door-related) daylight and night vision imaging, motion and person detection, live streaming, and 2-way audio talk-back. However, unless you’re willing to pay a subscription fee for video storage and retention, a “complete” myQ video system featuring this particular camera really only gives you real-time monitoring capability and notifications after the 30-day trial is over. In terms of setup, you can be up and running in just a few minutes. The articulated (and magnetic) base comes with a 3M adhesive mount and drywall screw kit to stick the camera and aim it pretty much anywhere you want–dangling underneath your garage door opener, hanging down from the ceiling, sticking out from a wall or cabinet, or just sitting on a shelf. The only thing you’re limited by is the 6-foot length of the power cable. However, the power connection port is micro-USB so it’s likely you can gain some extra installation flexibility with your own USB adapter and longer cable. Using the myQ app on your phone, connect to the camera via BT and then connect it to your WiFi network (both 2.4 and 5Ghz networks); a multi-color LED on the front of the camera offers a number of status indicators during setup and operation (setup ready, successful BT connection, firmware updating, motion detection active, etc.). Once you’ve added the camera to your myQ account, you’re good to go. The myQ app gives you a number of configuration options that are almost entirely self-evident just by the name of the feature you’re adjusting–very user friendly for those of you who tend not to consult manuals very often! For example, you can select the sensitivity of motion detection, activate video recording (if you have an active subscription), enable smart person detection, set schedules for notifications based on movement, people detection only, door activity (open, closed, stopped, or Amazon Key activated), turn night vision on/off, and flip the orientation of the image (in case you have it mounted upside down. Audio adjustments let you disable the microphone and increase the volume of your voice during 2-way talk back. You can also set the location of your camera and specifically link it to your myQ garage door opener if you like so that it either captures garage access/events based on garage door activity, or just provides standard video surveillance of people/motion detection without providing extra notifications whenever your myQ garage door system is used. Once the camera is configured to your liking, it’s pretty well set-it-and-forget-it. You’ll get notified on your phone if garage-door-linked activities occur, or movement or a person is detected (I even got notified on my Apple Watch as well!). Through the app you can then start a live stream of the action, take a snapshot from the stream, and even carry on a 2-way conversation using the mic on your phone and the mic/speaker on the camera (to scare away a would-be lurker, tell your neighbor where to find the keys or tools, etc.). If you’ve linked the camera to your myQ garage door opener in the app, you can even control the garage door from the same screen so you can close the door behind someone after you see them walk out and finish taking care of whatever you let them in the garage to do. The field of view is wide enough to give you more than edge-to-edge across at least a 2-car garage; strong-lighting provides a colorful picture while the B&W night vision image can be clear enough to make out faces so long as there’s at least some light trickling in. It’s all very straightforward to install and operate, and there’s a good deal of functionality packed into this unassuming little package, but there are some caveats and limitations you should be aware of. Chief among them is that you can save and download surveillance videos/events only if you have a paid storage plan subscription; without it, you’re limited to whatever photos you take while the stream is active and you cannot record video clips to your phone in real-time. A simple microSD reader would have increased the value proposition of this camera tremendously. The myQ app also has a tendency to cut the live feed off if you switch between open apps or navigate away from the live feed page at all, even if you stay within the other pages of myQ app itself. The 2-way audio is also great and a useful feature, but the speaker in the camera itself is pretty anemic and someone would be hard pressed to hear you if they weren’t REALLY close to the camera already. Low-light performance is also just fair without the help of some additional lighting; a few more IR illuminators or even a simple onboard bright LED to cast some light on the scene might have improved performance in this capacity. Similarly, that same simple white LED could be used as a visual alarm/deterrent that could be activated at night or simply programmed to work on a schedule–or even just triggered at the same time as your activity notifications–so that your camera could do more than just monitor, it could provide a little visual discouragement to anyone thinking of encroaching on the areas monitored by the camera. Again, such a simple and relatively low-cost addition would have dramatically increased the “security value” offered by this smart security camera. These shortcomings aside, the myQ integration really is slick and the basic security features offered by this camera make it a nice addition to your home security setup, *especially* if you’re already invested in the myQ ecosystem. In my opinion, the biggest thing you have to figure into your decision is the need for, and therefore subsequent cost of, ongoing video storage. If you don’t need/want anything beyond real-time video monitoring, the myQ Smart Garage Security Camera is a one-time good investment at a reasonable price that extends the functionality of your garage door automation into the security and monitoring realms. If not, you have to figure the additional cost of the basic plan for 7-day event/video storage at $3.99/mo or $39.99/yr for just one camera; or 30-day storage for $9.99/mo or $99.99/yr for multiple cameras (as of this review) into the purchase price.

Personal home security cameras are a dime a dozen nowadays. If anyone ever asks me which are the best ones, I would say it mostly depends on what equipment/services you are already invested in. If you don’t already have a smart garage opener (which I highly recommend) then this camera isn’t really for you - because while it would conceivably work, you might lose out on some of the features. But the one exception to a recommendation I might give is the MyQ line of products. While I much prefer seeing all my security video feeds in one app (I mostly use Arlo - and yes, you can connect them and my Nest cameras to Google Home for example, but they don’t always reliably work within the app) I’d make an exception for this camera which ties into the opening and closing of your garage door. The camera itself is basic. It has 1080p resolution, and offers a wide field of view. It has night vision and a two way microphone (the latter can be disabled within the app). It detects motion and audio. It’s not intended for outdoor use, so you’ll want to keep it inside your garage. It’s powered by micro-USB which seems outdated, but it isn’t really an issue. Installation is pretty straightforward. You can attach it to anything metal using the magnets, or you can attach the magnet plate to drywall using a single screw and anchor (there’s a single hole in the middle of the plate). The magnets are pretty strong, so there’s no worry about it falling off. Obviously you can hang it on the wall, or on the ceiling (so long as you flip the orientation of the camera). The real issue with the installation, to me, was the length of the power cord. Like I said, the power cord is micro-USB and it’s hardwired into the brick. I didn’t measure the length of the cord, but it seems really short and might pose a problem depending on where you want to place it and the nearest power outlet. Most people might want to hang it on the ceiling where presumably you could plug it into the same outlet as the garage door opener. If that was the case, then the short power cord might not be a problem. Should you want to mount it somewhere else in the garage, you will be limited in your options (again, depending on the placement of your power cables). At the end of the day, this is a minor problem as you can always purchase a longer micro-USB cable - but still, an annoying one. Setting up the camera and connecting it through the app was super simple. Once it was plugged in and I opened up the MyQ app (note, I already had it installed as I already have a smart garage door opener), I added a device and boom, it was right there. It connected within a minute or so, but then it had a firmware update. Luckily that didn’t take long. All-in-all, from installing it on my wall (I didn’t have an option to install it on my garage’s ceiling) and connecting it to my app, it took just a few minutes. But what separates this camera from others is its integration with your smart garage opener. After setting it up within the app you’ll be asked to link it to a garage opener. What this allows you to do is to see the live feed of the camera while being able to control the garage from the same screen. Within the app you’re able to find tune the motion detection, audio detection as well as tweaking your notifications. The latter is important - to me. The moment I had my camera up and running I was getting notifications constantly (my kids were outside playing int the garage/outside). It was more than annoying. There’s an option to mute notifications like this for 2 hours (like when you know someone will be working in the garage for a few hours and you don’t want to be inundated with notifications). But you can tweak when you’re notified, like when the camera detects ANY movement, or just when the garage is opened. You can also specifically disable notifications when the garage is closed - again, so as to not get notifications if someone is working within a closed garage. The paywall. The BIGGEST downside to this camera is that you have to pay for any storage. There’s no local storage, and no free cloud storage (outside a 30 day trial). It will cost you $99 a year ($9.99 a month) to have 30 day cloud storage and smart detection and the ability to download clips. In other words, unless you pay for the service you are effectively paying for a live feed camera. This is a huge drawback to me, and the reason I can only give this camera 3 stars. Most people are likely to already be paying for some home security, and adding another $10 subscription (don’t get me started on all things subscriptions) it just becomes too much. I think there should be some balance - maybe 7 day free cloud storage and downloads? I just don’t see the subscription as a good value proposition. Maybe for your specific use, paying an additional $10 a month for having some kind of peace of mind in your garage makes sense, but not for me. But I’m okay with using this as a live feed of my garage, especially knowing I can check it immediately whenever the garage door is opened.