eufyCam 2 Wireless Home Security Camera System - $314.99

Is there an option for continuous recording If I let them always plugged?

Ludwig187 wrote: ↑ Is there an option for continuous recording If I let them always plugged?

You'll pretty much never find that feature on wireless cameras. These wireless cameras typically are in a deep sleep/hibernate 99% of the time and use something like a PIR sensor to detect movement, which then wakes the camera and does the snapshot/recording function; or they're woken up when someone connects via the app to view them. Continuous recording would probably kill the battery in under a day. Better to just grab a proper wired camera if you want continuous recording (and also to not be stuck changing batteries in the dead of winter when they inevitably die too)

mindabsence wrote: ↑ You'll pretty much never find that feature on wireless cameras. These wireless cameras typically are in a deep sleep/hibernate 99% of the time and use something like a PIR sensor to detect movement, which then wakes the camera and does the snapshot/recording function; or they're woken up when someone connects via the app to view them. Continuous recording would probably kill the battery in under a day. Better to just grab a proper wired camera if you want continuous recording (and also to not be stuck changing batteries in the dead of winter when they inevitably die too)

Thank you very much for the information.

I recognize it is a different price point but how does this compare to Ring (specifically I’m eyeing the floodlight cams)?

Neezy99 wrote: ↑ I recognize it is a different price point but how does this compare to Ring (specifically I’m eyeing the floodlight cams)?

They’re garbage. If you want a notifier that someone is outside, sure, they’ll alert you to it, but the footage is crap and Wi-Fi cameras for outdoor and low light use are universally garbage.

Either save your money and spend it on home insurance, or spend the $700-1000 on an actual hardwired camera system. Lorex has good 4 camera POE systems from $650, 6 cameras from $800 and up, and the new Nocturnal line as well. Make sure you get POE (Power over Ethernet) so you get way better compression and way simpler, single wire setup with far better upgrade ability.

is this a good price? Never use this before

In have been doing a lot of research at my end and wanted to point few things out for you. The advertised msrp of $529 is BS, as the 2k version of these retails for $429, that means they are not 40% discounted.

From my research, these are one of the better ones in terms of features compared to other wireless ones. I myself have been debating on wireless vs wired but waiting for the eufycam 2 to go on sale.

nomorepenniestopinch wrote: ↑ They’re garbage. If you want a notifier that someone is outside, sure, they’ll alert you to it, but the footage is crap and Wi-Fi cameras for outdoor and low light use are universally garbage.

Either save your money and spend it on home insurance, or spend the $700-1000 on an actual hardwired camera system. Lorex has good 4 camera POE systems from $650, 6 cameras from $800 and up, and the new Nocturnal line as well. Make sure you get POE (Power over Ethernet) so you get way better compression and way simpler, single wire setup with far better upgrade ability.

^ this

We bought a Eufy 2C system back on BF and am glad we did though I might not have made the decision knowing what I know now. For getting notifications of someone at the front door, hanging around our driveway, and going into the backyard, it is good. Does just what we wanted it for. I did not want to go through the time or expense of running cable thru and along the outside walls to support a PoE camera plus dealing with WAF. The wife though, does enjoy knowing when junior has come home and is sitting in the driveway before coming inside.

It seems to miss triggering if people are moving fast and sometime the "human" detection just doesn't happen. I've been fiddling with camera positions to avoid false alerts and get them more reliable in their detection. Cars or the shadows from their headlights have been a problem at night especially on wet days which is more or less the entire winter here. Where the field of view takes in the street can be problematic especially as there is a sidewalk right in front of our house which gets a fair bit of traffic from dog walkers and kids going to and from school. I've placed black electrical tape over portions of the PIR sensor to block its' detection area because the "Activity Zones" don't work at night. This trick and moving the camera a few feet solved the issue with cars at night on the street.

I do wish we had a camera that was full time streaming to my NAS as I'd love to review the feed to see which neighbors have been letting their dog crap in the yard and which throw their dog bags into our planted garden. I can always temporarily move a camera into a location and set notifications to silent for a week or two to see who it is.

.

nomorepenniestopinch wrote: ↑ They’re garbage. If you want a notifier that someone is outside, sure, they’ll alert you to it, but the footage is crap and Wi-Fi cameras for outdoor and low light use are universally garbage.

Either save your money and spend it on home insurance, or spend the $700-1000 on an actual hardwired camera system. Lorex has good 4 camera POE systems from $650, 6 cameras from $800 and up, and the new Nocturnal line as well. Make sure you get POE (Power over Ethernet) so you get way better compression and way simpler, single wire setup with far better upgrade ability.

But the price point is significantly higher for a solid system when you take into account installation and running wires (which I’m not capable of doing myself). I was quoted $3500 for a 6-camera Hikvision 4K system that does well in low light and has a dedicated 6TB hard drive. All of the guys that came in to quote said it would be a complicated install.

I figured with Ring I can just install three flood cams where I have existing fixtures myself for under $1000. At the end of the day aren’t these things just deterrents at best anyway?

I have this set, been using it since the Black Friday sale at $300. It does what it needs to do for the price point, but I'll upgrade to the 2K for the front when the price gets better. It's expandable up to 20 cameras (i think), so more than enough. The biggest selling point to me was local storage.

Crazy how just in the few months, it's captured over 700 events just all around the house. The camera can use improvements, but it's been great. Looking getting other wireless components for the network.

I also have the EufyCams (bought in on the OG Kickstarter). This system does exactly what it purports to do, and does it very well. Take note how those who have it comment positively, and the negative "it's garbage" comments all come from those who say you need a $1000+ system.

It's wireless, so it's easy to install (i did have a challenge finding the drill bit they recommended, but otherwise simple process). The batteries do indeed last the 365 days promised; I think I may have charged the cameras once or maybe twice since installing them! The HomeBase provides free local storage of clips, which was the second big selling feature for me. Ring (and others) have monthly subscription fees for cloud-based storage. I don't like that. The app is fast and notifications are pretty consistent. I do get some false notifications when a rabbit or racoon triggers the motion detection at night, but 99% of the time I'm satisfied.

This is not the most robust security system out there. If you're seriously concerned for your security, and/or want 24-hour surveillance, you would be much better served with a professionally installed wired system. Of course, there is a considerable price difference there. You get what you pay for. If, however, you just want something to give peace of mind to your wife, then the EufyCam is great.

Neezy99 wrote: ↑ But the price point is significantly higher for a solid system when you take into account installation and running wires (which I’m not capable of doing myself). I was quoted $3500 for a 6-camera Hikvision 4K system that does well in low light and has a dedicated 6TB hard drive. All of the guys that came in to quote said it would be a complicated install.

I figured with Ring I can just install three flood cams where I have existing fixtures myself for under $1000. At the end of the day aren’t these things just deterrents at best anyway?

The cost doesn't have to be much higher if you can get a friend who is handy to help with running the wires vs a pro. I've talked to a couple friends who do cabling for a living and they don't like doing residential work unless it's still under construction. The problem is that an owner expects it to be really cheap but they also want a dozen cables running in different directions to different sides or floors of the house. Whereas if they're doing commercial cabling, typically the job is bigger, has drop ceiling with cable trays going to a communication closet, etc. and could even bring in a guy or two to help and still make more money. It's simply not worth it to spend more time and make less money so usually they refuse the work. A business would pay $500+ per cable drop but most homeowners wouldn't.

With home systems you have to balance the pros and cons. If you want an entry level system it can be really cheap, if you want enterprise level then a lot more expensive.

I've used a couple of systems and here's what I think.

Wyze
Pro - Cheap, good quality recording, continuous recording to local, motion clips in the cloud, wifi, only requires power
Cons - Power might not be close by, if your camera is stolen, the footage is on the SD card

Nest
Pro - Good quality recording, continuous recording, great video scrubbing, cloud recording so if your house burns down or they're stolen you still have the footage, integration into Google Home
Cons - Subscription required to make it useful, cost varies depending on which subscription you have which adds up, expensive cameras, uses a lot of bandwidth especially with a lot of cameras, useless without wifi, cloud storage only (a con if you don't want it stored there)

Ubiquiti Protect
Pro - Wide range of cameras for indoor/outdoor at different price points and video quality and form factor, local storage, nothing stored in the cloud, great video scrubbing, 24/7 or motion only recording, not reliant on wifi or internet connection, once POE ethernet is run you can easily upgrade cameras over time as better models come out or go down in price, RTSP for setting up your own command center screen
Con - Possibly more complicated install as most cameras require cabling (they do have a couple wifi models), requires their NVR so you can record to your own NAS so a cost there

I haven't used Ring but I assume it's is similar to Nest. Personally, I would go with something like Wyze for cheap and easy, or Eufy if you can't get power to the cameras (although charging the battery would be annoying, and they're not replaceable so you'd eventually have to replace the whole camera). For me, I'd go the Ubiquiti route for a more solid camera system for critical areas (front door, back/side doors, driveway and garage) and supplement the system with something cheaper like Wyze for less critical areas that you still want to be able to view.

All cameras are just a deterrent since anyone who really wants to break into your house will. They can just cut your internet line from outside, knock the cameras down, spray paint them, etc. Most likely a thief would just see the camera and move on to another house that's an easier target. If it prevents even one break in, a system is worth it in my opinion. Even motion floodlights on their own are great to have on all sides of the house as a basic deterrent. Other factors such as where you live also matter as my house is easily visible to many neighbours and near a busy walking path but someone with a lot of trees blocking sightlines, somewhere more secluded or darker might be an easier target.

I bought the EufyCam 2 system on Blackfriday, and had issues with the camera having horizontal static lines across the images. I worked it out with Eufy, who have great customer support, and swapped it for a EufyCam 2 Pro system. I've noticed much better picture quality, but also the signal strength of each camera is better. I'm not sure if the transceiver got an upgrade or the previous cameras I had were lemons, but this has improved the stream substantially for picture quality. I would recommend waiting for the EufyCam 2 Pro to go on sale.

Eufy just released a solar panel that is compatible with this system, but it's not yet available on Amazon Canada. It's available in the US: https://www.amazon.com/eufy-Certified-C ... B08L3NN3W2

Majokito wrote: ↑ The cost doesn't have to be much higher if you can get a friend who is handy to help with running the wires vs a pro. I've talked to a couple friends who do cabling for a living and they don't like doing residential work unless it's still under construction. The problem is that an owner expects it to be really cheap but they also want a dozen cables running in different directions to different sides or floors of the house. Whereas if they're doing commercial cabling, typically the job is bigger, has drop ceiling with cable trays going to a communication closet, etc. and could even bring in a guy or two to help and still make more money. It's simply not worth it to spend more time and make less money so usually they refuse the work. A business would pay $500+ per cable drop but most homeowners wouldn't.

First of all, thank you for the thoughtful and comprehensive response - really helpful!

What you say above is so true. Perhaps that's why it has been extremely difficult even getting these guys to call me back to come back and do the install. One guy even quoted me $8000, probably because he does not want the job.

I just installed the Ring doorbell last week and was impressed by it overall. Our house is pre-wired for alarm (with sensors), so I was thinking of using Ring alarm (they have a Retrofit kit). There are huge cost efficiencies there, because for $10/month, you get a) monitored alarm and b) cloud storage and the useful features for as many cameras as you want. Normal alarm monitoring with cell access costs like $30 per month.

I will say this whole process has been a huge PITA and I've reached a point of analysis paralysis. Perhaps the silver lining of the pandemic is that we're home and I can afford to put off this decision.

I got one guy to install 4 lines for me, all through outside (1 driveway, 1 backyard, 1 sideway, 1 entrance). But my system was cheap and brought from Amazon. The wires are PoEs, so in the future if i want to upgrade to better system I can still reuse those wires. I think the cost is around $600 - $800 in total (exclude the system).

Majokito wrote: ↑For me, I'd go the Ubiquiti route for a more solid camera system for critical areas (front door, back/side doors, driveway and garage) and supplement the system with something cheaper like Wyze for less critical areas that you still want to be able to view.

Agreed, this is basically my setup. I have cable run to the easier areas and am installing eufy cams in the areas where I don't wan't to run cable, but going with the 2k cams as they are worlds better than the wyze cams we have. I have a 2c pro now that I just got and am curious to see how it does.

Ludwig187 wrote: ↑ Is there an option for continuous recording If I let them always plugged?

Wyze Cam's do this for much less money. Just add a $20.00 microsd card and select continuous recording.

k1ll4hb33 wrote: ↑ Agreed, this is basically my setup. I have cable run to the easier areas and am installing eufy cams in the areas where I don't wan't to run cable, but going with the 2k cams as they are worlds better than the wyze cams we have. I have a 2c pro now that I just got and am curious to see how it does.

Might be worth checking out the Wyze v3 if you can get a hold of one. They look really good.

Neezy99 wrote: ↑ First of all, thank you for the thoughtful and comprehensive response - really helpful!

What you say above is so true. Perhaps that's why it has been extremely difficult even getting these guys to call me back to come back and do the install. One guy even quoted me $8000, probably because he does not want the job.

I just installed the Ring doorbell last week and was impressed by it overall. Our house is pre-wired for alarm (with sensors), so I was thinking of using Ring alarm (they have a Retrofit kit). There are huge cost efficiencies there, because for $10/month, you get a) monitored alarm and b) cloud storage and the useful features for as many cameras as you want. Normal alarm monitoring with cell access costs like $30 per month.

I will say this whole process has been a huge PITA and I've reached a point of analysis paralysis. Perhaps the silver lining of the pandemic is that we're home and I can afford to put off this decision.

Yeah, many will quote high because they don't really want the job, but if they accept it, then at least it's worth their while, but a lot won't even bother and will just tell you straight up.

At least with doorbells, most people have existing wiring there so it's not a big deal to swap it out unless you want to relocate it. For example the Ubiquiti G4 Doorbell is wifi, so it's just a matter of unplugging the old one and putting in the new one. One thing with smart doorbells is to make sure you have the proper transformer. In many cases you'll need to swap it out although it's not a big deal, but an added hidden cost.

I know what you mean. I've had or still have parts of 4 different camera systems. Also have a Logi Circle that I didn't mention above. I'm not an Apple user, but I think it works well with Homekit Secure Video if that's something you're interested in.