eufy Security - SoloCam S220, 2-Outdoor Wireless 2K Solar Powered Security Cameras with Homebase 3 - White

These cameras are a great balance between low maintenance, low overhead, and usability.  With a solar panel recharging and wireless connectivity, your setup and maintenance are low, and there’s flexibility in mounting with some caveats.   Setup and installation were easy.  There are two screws and a bracket along with a placement sticker to help you with drilling holes.  Since they rely on the sun for recharging the batteries, you want to be careful about mounting under an awning or gutters.  If you’re drilling into masonry or vinyl, I would recommend getting some silicone sealant to use around the screws and bracket to keep up the weatherproofing.  I did find there are options online from 3rd-party sellers to mount using vinyl hooks or gutter hooks, so those are options available if you’re not comfortable drilling into your home.                    Once you decide where you want your cameras, go through the setup process for the base station and the cameras.  There’s a quick start guide, and you can follow prompts from the app on getting everything going.  I like how the app shows a QR code for you to point the camera at for quick pairing.  Also, during this process, you’ll be prompted to set up the AI feature for setting up “familiar faces”.  This is a feature that recognizes family members so you can reduce unwanted notifications and limit false positives.                    Finally, you’ll likely be prompted to check for software updates on both the base unit and the camera.  I recommend going ahead and doing this while also charging the cameras before first use and mounting them outside.                      Once set up, you do everything from the app.  You can click on the play button to go to the live feed.  From there, you can record a video clip, take a screenshot, toggle night view, sound an alarm, or speak through the speaker.  The camera resolution is great.  I can easily make out license plates of the vehicles in my driveway.  There is a sign in the yard across the street that becomes difficult to make out, but the view of my driveway is excellent, even in night mode.  In night mode, you can still easily make out people from cars.  I did notice there’s a bit of reflection off of my license plate, which makes it a bit hard to read at night, but this would happen with any IR camera, and if you have enough outdoor light, you can toggle off night vision.                      You can also easily look at clips captured.  The base station comes with 16GB of initial storage, but it is upgradable to 16TB.  Clips can be accessed by clicking the events button on the app, and you can look at clips by day, and they’re labeled by timestamp.  You can click the filter button and select additional filters such as event type, detection type, and by which device captured the footage you’re looking for. Once you view a clip, you have the option to download, share, mark as a favorite, or delete.  There’s also a donate option which allows you to provide videos to Eufy to help train its AI algorithms.  This is an opt-in feature you must agree to, but Eufy offers points for videos donated to the cause, and you can earn gifts with enough points.                      There are a few things I’ve noticed that are great as well as some improvements to be made.  The app itself is intuitive and easy to use.  I like how quickly it is to navigate in the app and the speed in which the videos load for viewing.  When viewing the live video in portrait, you have record, clip, speaker, and volume options and must click the menu to access the rest.  When you change to landscape, you only have the Alarm, sound, and record options and no clear way to access the other buttons.  Both have the hold to speak option, but I found that the speaker wasn’t quite as loud as I expected.  My guess is if there’s a lot of ambient noise, you’ll have a hard time hearing anyone through the speakers.                                      Battery life hasn’t been much of a concern.  I did an initial charge using a wall charger, then since they’ve been outside, I haven’t noticed any battery drain.  I do wish I could see a percentage value like I could when I was charging them so I can see if I need to adjust for more sunlight or optimize recording.                                      All in all, these are great security cameras.  Fast app with smart AI features for person recognition.  The local storage is great if you’re avoiding costly monthly fees and expandable with cloud backup as an option for a monthly fee.  I like the idea of not having to run wires if I decide to move them around and still keeping charged using the sun.    

Perfect quality Fast installation. and the price is totally worth

Several months back, I finally decided to dip my toe into the home security video system market and ordered a modest single ring camera. Through this, I learned several things about what I like and dislike. What I found out I disliked the most was: 1. Having to rely on an Internet connection to receive and view my video feed versus having a direct local area network (LAN) system set up with a direct feed. 2. A lack of local storage and being dependent on cloud storage 3. Having to pay a subscription service just to store and view footage. 4. Having to pay a subscription service for basic AI/motion/object detection to limit false alarms/warnings. 5. Higher resolution picture quality than 1080p. 6. Better night time image quality. Having spent several months figuring out what I did want, I settled on trying the Eufy 2k security kit. On paper, it checks all the boxes. It has two remote 2k cameras, a storage/control hub that not only includes 16GB of storage, but a slot for extra storage in a very common 2.5" form factor. The company touts its higher level of functionality without needing to pay a subscription fee and it includes AI capabilities for free. The box was heavier than I expected, but inside were two very high quality feeling cameras. I like the cameras because they are powered via solar charging and if needed, they have a USB-C port on the bottom for direct charging/power. The heft and build quality of the cameras is much better than the Ring units. Also included if needed is wall mounting hardware. The cameras are rated for both indoor and outdoor use. I used both cameras inside the house in window sills. Eufy did include a small USB-C cable for charging but no charging adapters themselves. Luckily, the cameras can plug into just about any standard USB-C charger/cable. The S380 homebase is also very VERY solid and feels like a top end cable modem in build quality. The top pops right off and inside you will see the slot for installing a 2.5" drive for extra video capture. I was very happy to see this, as I was worried about how quick 16GB would fill/recycle. The S380 also comes with a barrel power supply and an ethernet cable. I most reiterate just how well built and solid the S380 homebase is when held. While the kit comes with 2 cameras, the S380 can control up to 16 devices. I can't see needing that many ever, but it's nice to know in the future if I want to expand, I can just add in additional cameras. Physically setting up the S380 is as easy as plugging it into the wall and plugging in the supplied ethernet cable into your S380 and an open port on your router/hub. Configuration and setup is via a smartphone (iOS or Android) as always and you will need to download an app to get things going. All devices have voice prompts / indicators so don't jump when you hear your devices indicate their statuses. Compared to Ring, the setup is a bit more involved and your cameras and S380 will need to be on the same wifi network along with your smartphone. The S380 will also be sync'd up with the app and the cloud via its ethernet connection. Once everything is connected and setup, you can then remotely check your video feeds as long as you have internet data which most smart phones do these days. One thing I do like about the S220 cameras is you can use them either connected to the S380 or your router directly. This gives you the option of using a S220 as a stand alone monitoring device if you choose. There are firmware updates for both the S380 and the S220 once connected. I opted to connect them to my S380 for local streaming and storage options. Once the camera is connected and sync'd, the app will always let you know how strong the signal is at all times even when moving and positioning it. It really does make it quite easy and nice to get things up and running. My place is modest in size, but even placing it at max distance, the signal was a full five bars. As for the picture quality, it is much better than my Ring camera and with local streaming, everything is smoother and real time. The night mode camera is excellent and trounces the Ring in picture quality and clarity. You are given all the proper information you seek on screen. So far, everything seems to be going well, but nothing is perfect and neither is Eufy but it is really close: While many features are included not included with Ring, unfortunately cross tracking and other more enhanced features are behind a subscription paywall so for truly full functionality you will have to pay a subscription fee. There is a rear mount on the back of the S220, but I wish it also had a bottom mount as I am using it for a window sill and a bottom mount would work much better since these are rated for indoor and outdoor use. The power adapter and ethernet cable could be a bit longer for better placement in other areas. I ended up using an extensions. The app seems a little too busy for its own good trying to be a "one hub for everything" type experience including community features, ad type offers and an over abundance of auxiliary functionality that clouds the experience. I would like to see a more streamlined version of the app that just offers the functionality for the devices, period. In the end, the cons are really not much compared to the overall functionality you get with the Eufy kit. For the price with two very solid solar/battery equipped cameras and a very capable base unit, it has taken care of satisfying all the shortcomings I experienced with the very modest Ring setup I tried.