Eve Launches First Outdoor Floodlight Camera With HomeKit Secure Video

[CarlJ]

Eve Systems today announced the availability of its Eve Outdoor Cam, which is the first outdoor HomeKit-enabled camera that supports the HomeKit Secure Video feature.

@MacRumors the article needs clarification or correction. This is definitely not the first outdoor camera doing HomeKit Secure Video - maybe it's Eve's first one, but it's years late for the "the first" title. Starting off the first sentence of the article with a claim that's easily proven false, isn't good form.

 

[Iconoclysm]

@ $249 (floodlight version)
Wyze floodlight equipped cam $100

Doesn't have homekit secure video, requires a subscription to get a couple of basic features that are built into homekit, can't do any of the rest.

 

[Iconoclysm]

@MacRumors the article needs clarification or correction. This is definitely not the first outdoor camera doing HomeKit Secure Video - maybe it's Eve's first one, but it's years late for the "the first" title. Starting off the first sentence of the article with a claim that's easily proven false, isn't good form.

It's the first FLOODLIGHT homekit camera, according to Eve's site.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Your justification for it not being good is that it isn’t intended to be good?

It's good, never said it wasn't. I said good video quality, which isn't all this is about. Take a look at Eve's site where you'll see the pictures of its intended use. 4k would be absolute overkill at that range.

 

[hybra]

I have 4 of them, and they're garbage...they also require a Eufy base that costs $200 and are prone to failure because they have to communicate with the base before Homekit.

not true, you can use the cameras with Homekit without Eufy base, just add them as accessories to your home

 

[hybra]

still no support for PTZ in HSV

 

[twistedpixel8]

Anker / Eufy has shown that they can make an indoor HomeKit Secure Video camera and sell it for under $40. ($38 on Amazon in the US as of this post.)

Are these outdoor housings really that expensive?

Higher likelihood of failure (water ingress) so probability of replacement cost under warranty baked into price.

 

[TVreporter]

It's not technically an outdoor camera.

The plug-in is not water resistant but there are ways around it.

 

[twistedpixel8]

not true, you can use the cameras with Homekit without Eufy base, just add them as accessories to your home

I don’t think that works with all of them. The outdoor “all year battery” 2K ones I have require the Homebase. They can’t be added to Home separate from it. I think the indoor ones can (I have a couple but I can’t remember the exact process).

 

[4jasontv]

It's good, never said it wasn't. I said good video quality, which isn't all this is about. Take a look at Eve's site where you'll see the pictures of its intended use. 4k would be absolute overkill at that range.

You said it could either be a smart camera or a good camera.

As far as costs go, you can either have a smart camera or you can have a good camera.

Since this is a smart camera, from your words it's not a good camera.

Your 1080p camera captured the plate of a car driving past your home?

If you want both immediately, think around $500 if anyone makes it. If I was expecting an active shooter to be picked up by my camera 700 feet down the road, I'd go for something like Ubiquiti. But if I want motion detection, a flood light, and smart home integration, no options out there work without customization or way more money. I just checked my current 1080p camera and I can read the license plate across the street in my neighbor's driveway, which is plenty for my property.

No, it was stationary. It needs to be able to read a name tag on a person moving or a plate on a car driving past. You can't do that with 1080p.

It sounds like this product isn't for you, but it's certainly "sufficient".

You can't even see if someone has a healed scar or make out the details of a tattoo on 1080p. How is that sufficient?

 

[xpxp2002]

@MacRumors the article needs clarification or correction. This is definitely not the first outdoor camera doing HomeKit Secure Video - maybe it's Eve's first one, but it's years late for the "the first" title. Starting off the first sentence of the article with a claim that's easily proven false, isn't good form.

Came here to mention this. I saw another Apple news site that misreported this, as well. Seems like either Eve is misrepresenting themselves as first, or all of these sites are just blind to Netatmo. Based on the way Netatmo has been ignored or underrepresented on Apple news sites in the past, I wouldn't even be surprised if it's some of both.

The Netatmo Outdoor Camera has fully supported HKSV for over a year now, and has had HomeKit support since 2018. Despite having four years to build something better, this Eve camera looks like a clone of the Netatmo camera, both physically design-wise and component capability/feature-wise. 2.4 GHz-only 802.11b/g/n (no 5 GHz support) and 1080p/24fps in 2018 was barely acceptable on Netatmo's camera, but in 2022 is completely inadequate. Only differences I see are that the Eve camera has a wider FOV and a speaker for bidirectional communication.

 

[xpxp2002]

It's the first FLOODLIGHT homekit camera, according to Eve's site.

Which is also incorrect. While that may be Eve's claim, I think it's only unbiased and complete reporting to point out that it is an inaccurate claim.

 

[Iconoclysm]

not true, you can use the cameras with Homekit without Eufy base, just add them as accessories to your home

The outdoor cameras do not connect to WiFi, they connect to the base which connects to WiFi. Not sure how you'll just add them as they're RF devices.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Which is also incorrect. While that may be Eve's claim, I think it's only unbiased and complete reporting to point out that it is an inaccurate claim.

You're right, not sure why Netatmo isn't counted. Because they're French?

 

[Iconoclysm]

You said it could either be a smart camera or a good camera.

Since this is a smart camera, from your words it's not a good camera.

Your 1080p camera captured the plate of a car driving past your home?

No, it was stationary. It needs to be able to read a name tag on a person moving or a plate on a car driving past. You can't do that with 1080p.

You can't even see if someone has a healed scar or make out the details of a tattoo on 1080p. How is that sufficient?

I was referring to video quality...it's a good smart camera a bad good camera.

It captured the plate of the car across the street.

Motion is going to matter more to frame rate than resolution, really.

And you can't even unlock my door when you detect my face coming up the walkway with your 16k super microscope camera.

 

[Iconoclysm]

not true, you can use the cameras with Homekit without Eufy base, just add them as accessories to your home

https://support.eufylife.com/s/article/Does-eufy-cameras-have-to-be-used-with-HomeBase

 

[4jasontv]

I was referring to video quality...it's a good smart camera a bad good camera.

That's silly. If it isn't a good camera being smart becomes pointless.

It captured the plate of the car across the street.

Motion is going to matter more to frame rate than resolution, really.

So there is more than one reason it's bad.

And you can't even unlock my door when you detect my face coming up the walkway with your 16k super microscope camera.

To be fair my phone can't unlock when I use face ID. So that feature seems like a pipedream.

 

[CarlJ]

It's the first FLOODLIGHT homekit camera, according to Eve's site.

Then, as I said, the first line of the article needs correction.

 

[CarlJ]

Came here to mention this. I saw another Apple news site that misreported this, as well. Seems like either Eve is misrepresenting themselves as first, or all of these sites are just blind to Netatmo. Based on the way Netatmo has been ignored or underrepresented on Apple news sites in the past, I wouldn't even be surprised if it's some of both.

I'm guessing that Eve sent a press release written in the form of suggested article text, and MacRumors posted it without really reading through it to see if it appeared accurate. And then Eve fixed the text on their site (before or after they sent out the press release), but neglected to issue an update. But that's just my guess.

 

[HiRez]

With Apple pushing HEVC/H.265 video and integrating it into nearly all their products, and modern home wifi capable of very fast speeds and wide bandwidth, it's really weird that the HomeKit resolution is stuck at 1080. Come on Apple.

 

[HiRez]

Yes, and that is a bummer. On their site they recommend replacing an existing exterior light with this camera so that you have the wiring available. That is going to be a barrier to many people to adopt this.

Yeah, I don't have the lamp conveniently located right where I would want the camera to go like they show in their installation video. Routing power to these cameras would be a major operation involving stringing cables through interior walls, drilling holes through my exterior walls, and then weatherproofing them. Not fun and/or pretty expensive. Would like a battery powered camera, I liked the Eufy with their supposed 6 month battery but just too many reports about flakey connectivity, mediocre resolution and infrared, bad object detection/rejection, and of course no continuous or pre-recording.

 

[isomorphic]

I have 4 of them, and they're garbage...they also require a Eufy base that costs $200 and are prone to failure because they have to communicate with the base before Homekit.

I was referring to what Eufy now calls the "Solo IndoorCam C24" (when I bought mine they weren't called that). It's wired power; it can get power from a USB port. It connects to the network directly with WiFi. It does not use a hub. I have a few and they are NOT garbage. Unfortunately their resolution (2K native) is limited to 1080p on HomeKit.

Unfortunately, all of Eufy's outdoor cameras—as far as I know—are battery powered and require a hub, which is why I don't own any. They might have a couple of wired ones now, but they aren't HomeKit. If they made an outdoor AC/wired camera with WiFi that supports HomeKit Secure Video, I'd buy several. Not sure what their problem is.

 

[CarlJ]

With Apple pushing HEVC/H.265 video and integrating it into nearly all their products, and modern home wifi capable of very fast speeds and wide bandwidth, it's really weird that the HomeKit resolution is stuck at 1080. Come on Apple.

Another factor may be that HomeKit Secure Video involves uploading all that video to iCloud and Apple storing it for a period of time. They may not be in a rush to (nearly?) quadruple the storage demands on their end.

 

[slplss]

Eve's actual claim is that it's the first FLOODLIGHT homekit camera.

Ahh. Well at least there’s a distinction…haha

Well it’s not even that. Netatmo Smart Outdoor cam is the first outdoor HKSV cam with floodlight. And surprise, Eve even copied its design. Eve does 2 things better: higher field of vision (handy in some placements) and 2 way audio. I’d prefer Netatmo for the design and well, Legrand has made some name for itself. It’s the most (and so far only) selling HKSV floodlight cam in Apple Online store for a long time now.

 

[Scoob Redux]

Getting rid of Eufy for this. Their implementation has way too many points of failure and the requirement of that stupid base unit is just dumb. This was so they could use RF cameras instead of wifi to get around Apple's requirements.

I haven't experienced any "points of failure" affecting anything. I have 3 Eufy cameras outside, and they all function perfectly 100% of the time.