HomeKit Replace HKSV with Eufy or Ring?

[Madmic23]

I think I may be finished with HomeKit Secure Video. For many years, I’ve been building my smart home exclusively with HomeKit devices, and I was excited when HomeKit Secure video was announced. I had two Logitech Circle 2 cameras which I converted to HKSV, and I switched my Nest doorbell to the Logitech Circle View doorbell. I’ve never had a good experience.

The cameras are always losing connection. Going into the Home app, I frequently see “Camera Not Available.”

The doorbell misses so many events, it’s not even funny. I’ve had packages delivered with no record at all that someone was at the front door. If it can miss a package being delivered, it can miss a package being taken.

It’s time to replace these with something that will work reliably. The two options I’m considering are Eufy and Ring.

I’ve had experience with Ring and I liked it, but I’m not a fan of the monthly subscription.

I like that Eufy has a base station that stores the footage locally and doesn’t require a subscription, but I haven’t used the cameras before so I don’t know how responsive they are.

Any Eufy users here with a positive experience with them?

 

[Itinj24]

Call me a conspiracy theorist… but maybe this was planned by Apple so they will look like heroes coming in with their own rumored cameras lol.

I agree, HKSV has been horrible from the start. They had, what, five years to polish and perfect it and it’s still trash.

 

[seggy]

Isn't this just a wireless connectivity problem that you should be sorting out if you want your devices wireless (I don't know who in their right mind would trust an arbitrarily installed wireless connection for this)?

 

[jedimasterkyle]

I have multiple Eufy cameras. One hanging above my front door and three in my living room and one in my office.

Having each camera record events locally via SD card or Homebase station is nice.

I have mine working with HKSV and right now, everything is playing nice and cooperating but I have experienced the "Camera not available" error. In my troubleshooting the past few years, it seems that Eufy works with HKSV when two things happen:

1. Your router covers more square footage than what you intended or needed. I have an Eero router that covers my entire apartment and more in terms of coverage.
2. You have more than one HomeKit hub on your network. In my case, I have my primary Apple TV in my living room AND I have an older Apple TV in my office that is solely dedicated to being a secondary HomeKit hub.

Using a good router and having multiple HomeKit hubs seems to the be the trick for utilizing HKSV effectively. Is it a 100% guarantee? Not even a little bit but with the amount of smart home devices I've replaced over the years, this appears to be the perfect recipe.

As for the Eufy cameras, they do the job. If you dont use HKSV, you'll be able to utilize their version of AI in order to detect events such as people, animals, random movements etc. but you'll need to fine tune what you want each camera to look for.

Eufy support is basically useless. They'll replace cameras if they crap out on you for whatever reason but if you get to that point, be prepared to go through a mountain of repetitive troubleshooting.

The Eufy app allows you to group the cameras together so that you can quickly switch their modes to Home, Away, or whatever custom mode you setup. But word of warning...their Geofencing is pure garbage and is basically non-existent and has never worked. This is one of the reasons why I continue to use HKSV because I can at least count on Apples Geofencing to work and so far, it hasn't failed me.

 

[haralds]

I went with a range of Eufy cameras across the property linked to their Home Base. The latest versions do not support HomeKit. Their app and the cameras "just work." I never looked back.
It's easy to turn off notifications when home. Facial recognition AI does not always work to prevent nags.
I have a different CAM used for puppy monitoring and fish cam using Homekit.

 

[Madmic23]

I went with a range of Eufy cameras across the property linked to their Home Base. The latest versions do not support HomeKit. Their app and the cameras "just work." I never looked back.
It's easy to turn off notifications when home. Facial recognition AI does not always work to prevent nags.
I have a different CAM used for puppy monitoring and fish cam using Homekit.

I just picked up a pair of Eufy Cams over the holidays but haven’t set them up yet. I went with the Home Base 2 models as they still integrate with HomeKit. The Home Base 3 models do look more feature packed, but I wanted to at least have the option to use HKSV just in case it ever improves.

 

[parseckadet]

I'm in the process of switching away from Nest cameras to Eufy and I'm happy so far. HKSV is a non-starter for me because it is STILL limited to 1080p video. That's potato quality these days. Every other similar service supports at least 2k if not 4k. The other non-starter is that HKSV doesn't support 24/7 recording. Most wired Eufy cameras do either through an internal SD card, or by using the Home Base. You don't need to rely on event detection if you have 24/7 recording.

When it comes to security cameras, they need to record video that is high enough quality that someone can be identified beyond a reasonable doubt for it to really be useful to police. 1080p doesn't do that unless someone is quite close to the camera, which is particularly a problem in outdoor applications where cameras need to be placed up high, to avoid tampering, and often need to see longer distances.

 

[jedimasterkyle]

The other non-starter is that HKSV doesn't support 24/7 recording. Most wired Eufy cameras do either through an internal SD card, or by using the Home Base. You don't need to rely on event detection if you have 24/7 recording.

I setup my front door Eufy camera to do the equivalent of 24/7 recording in HKSV. It's not a perfect 1:1 but it does the job.

 

[parseckadet]

Not at all the same, since you're relying on HKSV to detect motion for a clip to be saved. Yes you can view the stream any time, but if you scrub through the history there will be gaps. I've had plenty of issues in the past where there was absolutely motion in the video, but not enough for HKSV to detect it, so the clip was not saved. Or the motion was not constant. For example, a deer walked onto my driveway, stopped and looked around for a solid minute and a half, then walked away. The deer was standing still while still moving its head. HKSV only saved clips from when it was actually walking. Now apply that to someone messing around with your door. They walk up to your door, hunch over the lock while they try to pick it, then either leave or get in the door. You want HKSV to save that entire event. I don't have confidence that it would.