Eufy/Anker products are consistently nice and at great value. Just got their RF (no wifi! no lag! use it anywhere!) baby monitor and it just works, with a nice user interface. And of course their braided 6ft USB-lightning cables are the dream.
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Anker Launches New eufyCam 2 Pro 2K Camera With HomeKit Secure Video Support
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I have the Eufy 2 C cameras, assuming most of the software is similar. It’s a solid camera and has been an improvement from the RING camera I tried a few months back.
There is a caveat though.. For those expecting it to be a flawless integration with HomeKit, you may be disappointed. The current integration with Eufy cameras isn’t the best. I’m sure this will improve with iOS14 and Eufy software updates..
There is a caveat though.. For those expecting it to be a flawless integration with HomeKit, you may be disappointed. The current integration with Eufy cameras isn’t the best. I’m sure this will improve with iOS14 and Eufy software updates..
- Excessive battery drain and false notifications - My battery goes 5-7% a day with HSV on. I get tons of false positive alerts to motion. No way to currently set activity zones or motion sensitivity on HomeKit.
- Ability to have 2 way conversations via the camera doesn’t currently work with HomeKit
- No way to turn on the light or siren via HomeKit
- Finding clips on HSV is just plain bad.
You're welcome.
It could easily be an argument against having a super wide FOV though. Reducing FOV to something saner is a much easier way to increase detail. For example, an indoor camera placed in the corner of a room doesn't really need more than a 90deg FOV.
Oddly, our basic baby monitor came with interchangeable lenses. I don't recall the exact specs, but the "normal" lense has a ~100deg FOV, you can add the wide-angle lense which gives you a ~140deg FOV, or you can add the zoom lense that has a bit of optical zoom but narrows the FOV to ~40deg. I thought it's the best solution - give people the option to choose detail or width. And it's not an expensive or complicated lense-mount; they're just little screw-on caps. I wish more of these WiFi security cameras had something similar.
Wow, I didn't realize how battery-draining Secure Video was. I have my 2C cameras connected to HomeKit but not using Secure Video and the battery is great. I'm losing maybe 1% every 2 or 3 days. I don't expect to get 365 day battery life, that's just marketing but I'd be surprised if I didn't get over 9 months and that's absolutely fine with me given the competition can barely manage 3 months with next to zero usage.
it's hard to see a battery advertised as lasting "12 months" that might last as little as two weeks, as anything other than deceptive advertising.
I'm more annoyed that there's no talk of when we will get the standalone motion sensors and entry keypad. We have the door sensors and cameras... so why not the rest of the security kit?
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It's not Eufy's fault that Apple's Secure Video is wildly battery-inefficient. I'm losing 1% every 2 or 3 days with just normal HomeKit integration with my 2C cameras.
Also the 365 day battery claim is 100% possible but it's based on having everything set optimally. Based on my usage, I can confirm you'd 100% get 365 days or more if you didn't use HK at all and never watched the feed. Is it underhand marketing? Yeah, I guess but it's still the best battery operated camera I've owned. If you ignore all the marketing fluff and just buy for the tech that's inside, they're probably the best cameras you can get in this price range. Anker/Eufy make quality hardware and their software is very good too.
Ah yes, I forgot that every single tech company in China is out to invade your privacy. Other countries would *never* do that, least of all American companies who are all 100% honest and trustworthy with your private data.
That’s true, but if you get it with the base station it can also record internally to the full 2K.
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I have a Logitech Circle View on my back porch now, connected to HSV. We’ve got a deer that come up on our porch. Not only can i tell it’s a deer, i can tell WHICH DEER becasue i can make out the distinctive markings on its nose.
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So first, HSV is new in ios 13, and will be updated and improved going forward, hopefully leading to better battery life. But this battery life is accurate when using the cameras with their own app, not using HSV.
It’s like saying your car battery will last five years, and then getting mad that it died when you left the lights and the radio on overnight. HSV is the equivalent of a high drain on a battery like that, and it’s not their responsibility to make a battery that can withstand the over-zealous power draw of HSV.
Part of the year long battery life is the in-camera activity zone limits, and the intelligent subject detection. That’s not part of the first version of HSV, so we’d expect that as that improves in HSV the battery life claims will be closer to accurate.
Personally, I’ll be fine if we get to real-world 3 months between changing batteries while using HSV.
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No one says better quality is not needed or noticeable. The point is that more pixels does not automatically equal better/sharper image.
Power cables and batteries are one thing... trusting a Chinese company (keyword: company, not people) to have streaming access inside of our homes is a completely other thing. Great price, but I'll pass. I barely trust a majority of the US ones.
As long as these devices require the company to have a server up and running, I'll pass.
They can hold you hostage at a later date by unilaterally increasing the price to connect or render your device unusable.
If I can't run a pice of software on my own computer or NAS ox, I'm not buying any of this crap.
Also since these IOT devices set up a persistent network connection, if the server is hacked, so are you.
Pass, pass, pass.
They can hold you hostage at a later date by unilaterally increasing the price to connect or render your device unusable.
If I can't run a pice of software on my own computer or NAS ox, I'm not buying any of this crap.
Also since these IOT devices set up a persistent network connection, if the server is hacked, so are you.
Pass, pass, pass.
They'd have to cut my power and/or my cable without getting caught on camera first.
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Did you read the article? No data is passed to Anker's servers. All processing is done locally, and data is stored on iCloud. It seems to be a pretty good deal that keeps user information out of the vendor's hands (and off their servers). Just set it to not auto-update its firmware, and it should keep working forever.
All that needs to be accomplished is to make your neighbor’s house a tastier target.
Eufy has a doorbell camera now, and they recently announced eventual HKSV support.
As a previous user said however, I pre-ordered the Eufy 2k Indoor which was promised to have HomeKit, and its been postponed to sometime this month.
Alot of people just don't like to run wires and drill holes in their house nor do they want to pay someone to do it.
Even with indoor applications, some people just prefer wireless, even if they have to take it down and recharge batteries 2-3 time a year. People like to put these in trees and stuff too where they also don't want to run wires through/under their yard and up a tree.
There's a huge chunk of the market that thrives off this type of quick easy use out the box type preference which is why these type of products are so popular in many industries.
Arlo kind of already proved how popular this approach with this particular design was which is probably why Eufy did their own version.
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I bought 3 of those pan and tilt cameras when Eufy was offering them on pre-order at 25% off the already competitive price. I am looking forward to the firmware update so I can use them with HSV. I am hoping Eufy will make the 2K doorbell and their floodlight cam also work with HSV.
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These cameras are wireless connected (not Wi-Fi) to the Eufy Hub which can easily be powered by a UPS. The Eufy hub contains an SD card for storing video and the hub connects to Wi-Fi. If your power & Wi-Fi went down, as long as you had the Eufy Hub on a UPS, it would still record everything from the cameras, you just would not be able to stream it until you restored your Wi-Fi (or pulled the SD card and put it in a card reader). I have my hub hidden in my home in place that allows it to have a strong connection to all my cameras while still being difficult and time consuming for an intruder to find (assuming they even knew to look for it).
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Like the ideas/features but pricing needs to get back to reality! This stuff is so expensive it’s just not worth the money. My current system still works $50/camera. $30 for ptz Cam why so much eufy?
I feel same about dash cams. The little expense could save huge in accident lawsuits or insurance claims.
Absolutely. It's actually sort of bananas to me that car companies and insurance companies aren't pushing dash cams more. They're relatively inexpensive, but a huge benefit. Tesla has it right by letting all those autonomous driving cams to be used for recording. But I would think insurance companies would be offering dash cams to their clients at cost and offering a nominal discount on the premium for using one.
What flipped me into purchasing:
a YouTube of a citizen vs police accident
police completely at fault
citizen would have been toast without the video
