ReportWire

Tag: security camera

  • Google’s Super Smart New Nest Cameras Raise the Bar—and the Price

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    The new Nest Cam Indoor and Nest Cam Outdoor boast the easiest setup experience I’ve encountered. Simply plug them in (the Nest Cam Indoor comes with a 10-foot USB-C cable, the Nest Cam Outdoor has an 18-foot weatherproof cable), scan the QR code sticker on the front of each camera with the Google Home app, connect to Wi-Fi, and you’re up and running in no time (both support 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands). The elegant magnetic mount for the Nest Cam Outdoor needs a couple of screws, while my Nest Cam Indoor is perched neatly on a shelf.

    While Google has lagged behind competitors for years with its 1080p cameras, support for HDR and a high frame rate helped keep the last-gen Nest cams relevant. That said, the jump to a 2560 x 1400 resolution with a wider 152-degree diagonal field of view is a clear and immediate upgrade. This resolution bump also enables 6X digital zoom, so the Nest Cams can serve up notifications that zoom in on the subject of each animated alert. These notifications show a few frames of each event, making it far easier to decide whether you need to tap through and watch the full video. You can also zoom in on the live feed and crop the view to stay focused on a specific area, like a garden gate or path.

    Google Home via Simon Hill

    Google Nest Cam Indoor and Outdoor 2K Review Slick Smart and Secure

    Google Home via Simon Hill

    Both cameras detect more activity and alert more accurately and swiftly than their predecessors. The range seems to be better, too. For example, my indoor camera faces a side door, and it can pick up people across the street and zoom in on them as they walk by. I don’t necessarily want it to do that, but the reach is impressive. It’s more successful with the outdoor camera, as only the newer model picks up on me entering the back door of the distant garage compared to the prior generation. The outdoor camera is also far faster to alert and upload accessible video than the old battery-powered model (this is generally true for wired cameras).

    The cameras get six hours of cloud video history at no extra cost (up from three for the previous generation), but that’s your allotment without an expensive subscription. On that note, Google has killed off Nest Aware in favor of the two-tier Google Home Premium: Standard is $10 per month or $100 per year, and Advanced is $20 per month or $200 per year.

    Google’s Home Premium subscriptions include everything you got with Nest Aware (30 days of video history, Familiar Faces, and garage door, package, smoke and CO alarm detection) and Nest Aware Plus (60 days of video history or 10 days of 24/7), but Standard also includes Gemini Live on compatible smart speakers and displays, and the option to create automations by typing what you want in the Home app. This last feature works well if you have a bunch of smart home devices set up in Google Home, and you can tell it to do things like “turn on the lights at sunset” or “have the side door camera trigger the outside lights.” It’s far easier than using the old script editor.

    Advanced AI

    The cream of the AI goodies requires the Advanced subscription. This adds descriptive notifications, so instead of “person detected,” you get messages like “person walks up stairs” or “cat is on the table” instead of “animal detected.” The searchable video history using the Ask Home search bar is genuinely handy; you can ask questions like “who opened the back door last night?” or “Did FedEx deliver a package today?” and jump straight to the event. You also get daily summaries with Home Brief, giving you an often weirdly comical digest of highlights from the day.

    Screenshot

    ScreenshotGoogle Home via Julian Chokkattu

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    Simon Hill

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  • Gear News of the Week: There’s Yet Another New AI Browser, and Fujifilm Debuts the X-T30 III

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    An increasingly popular solution is the inclusion of a solar panel to keep that battery topped up, enabling you to install and potentially never touch the camera again. Both Wyze and TP-Link just revealed interesting solar-powered cameras this week. Let’s talk about Wyze first.

    The Wyze Solar Cam Pan ($80) is a 2K outdoor security camera that can pan 360 degrees and tilt 70 degrees. It is IP65-rated, easy to mount, and sports a small solar panel that Wyze reckons can keep the camera running on just one hour of sunlight a day (we shall see as I test through the gray depths of a Scottish winter). The Solar Cam Pan also features AI-powered person tracking, two-way audio, color night vision, a spotlight, and a siren, though you need a subscription, starting from $3 per month, to unlock smart features and get cloud video storage.

    Wyze also announced a new, impressively affordable Battery Video Doorbell ($66). We started testing Wyze cameras again recently after it beefed up its security policies, but the repeated security breaches, exposing thousands of camera feeds to other customers, may still give you pause.

    Meanwhile, TP-Link is the first manufacturer to combine solar power with floodlight capability in its new Tapo C615F Kit. The similar-looking but larger Tapo C615F is another 2K camera, but it pans 360 degrees, tilts 130 degrees, and, most importantly, has an adjustable 800-lumen floodlight.

    TP-Link says its solar panel only needs 45 minutes of sun a day to keep the camera ticking, and it comes with a handy 13-foot cable, so you can install the solar panel in the best spot to catch those rays. The Tapo C615F ($100) is available now, and you can use the promo code 10TAPOFLDCAM to get $10 off if you’re quick. —Simon Hill

    Fujifilm Updates Its X-T30 Line

    Courtesy of Fujifilm

    Fujifilm has released the X-T30 III, an update to the company’s entry-level, SLR-shaped mirrorless X-T30 line. The third iteration of the X-T30 pairs Fujifilm’s familiar 26-MP X-Trans APS-C sensor with the latest Fujifilm processor, the X-Processor 5. The latter means that the X-T30 III is now roughly the same as the X-M5 and X-T50 in terms of internal features. All of Fujifilm’s film simulations are available, as are the subject-recognition AF modes. Video specs also see a bump up to 6.2K 30 fps open gate, and 4K 60 fps with a 1.18X crop.

    The body is nearly identical to the previous model; the size, weight, and button/dial layout are the same as on the X-T30 II. The one change is that the control dial is now a film simulation dial, with three options for custom film recipes. The X-T30 III goes on sale in November at $999 for the body, or $1,150 for the body and a new 13- to 33-mm F3.5-6.3 zoom lens (20 mm- to 50 mm-equivalent). —Scott Gilbertson

    Intel’s AI Experience Stores

    In time for the peak shopping season, Intel is launching a variety of “AI Experience Stores” at a few key locations around the world. We don’t know exactly what they’ll be like, but Intel says these pop-ups will include an “AI-powered shopping experience” of some kind and are based on the initial launch of the trial run store in London last year.

    If it keeps that same design ethos intact, these stores will be fairly immersive experiences. There will be lots of AI-driven demos on devices from the wider Windows laptop ecosystem, presumably to help drive interest and curiosity in what PCs can do. Interestingly, it comes on the back of a significant marketing push by Microsoft with its new Windows 11 AI experiences, trying to convince buyers to upgrade and explain some of the new AI features.

    Here are the dates and locations below for when Intel’s stores will be open. —Luke Larsen

    • New York City: 1251 6th Avenue (10/29 to 11/30)
    • London: 95 Oxford Street (10/30 to 11/30)
    • Munich: Viktualienmarkt 6 (10/30 to 12/9)
    • Paris: 14 Boulevard Poissonniere (11/4 to 11/30)
    • Seoul: OPUS 407, 1318-1 Seocho-dong (10/31 to 11/30)

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Dog owner suspicious after window blinds fall—Then checks security camera

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    A woman returning home from jury duty who left her dog home alone nearly blamed her pooch for fallen window blinds, but then she remembered, “innocent until proven guilty.”

    Dog owner Jax works from home, which means rarely leaving her dog, Grim, the black Australian shepherd mix, alone. But because of jury duty, Grim stayed home alone for several hours. She told Newsweek she left at 8 a.m. and returned home around 3 p.m. to find her home a bit messier than usual. The window blinds fell off and landed on Grim’s doggy bed.

    Some dogs, when left home alone, become disruptive or destructive. They might bark or howl uncontrollably, chew items, dig, urinate or escape, all of which could be signs of distress and separation anxiety.

    Jax knew her dog couldn’t have been the culprit. He usually sleeps when at home by himself. This type of behavior would have been “out of character.” Plus, she said, her blinds had never fallen in six years.

    But Grim started acting suspiciously toward Jax after she returned home, running over to the window and sniffing at the blinds on the ground. That’s when she decided to check the security camera for the truth, which she posted to the dog’s Instagram account @grimtheozzy on October 7. The video revealed Grim nowhere near the window blinds. Instead, he was sleeping on Jax’s bed, as she expected.

    “He got terrified and started barking for the next ten minutes,” she said.

    In the clip, Grim cautiously walked closer to the blinds to investigate. He sniffed for a few moments before backtracking to the bed for more warning barks not to mess with him.

    Jax feels relieved not only that Jax remained a perfect good boy, but also because the blinds did not fall on him and hurt him. His bed is right under the window, but he wisely chose to sleep on hers instead.

    Viewer Reactions

    The Instagram video reached over 260,000 views, 36,900 likes and 57 comments as of Thursday. People felt horribly for how scared he must’ve been, but glad the camera proved his innocence.

    “Plssss, him investigating, much concern what a good boy,” wrote a viewer.

    Another added: “I’m glad you had video footage and confirmed first. I would feel so bad blaming him for something he didn’t do.”

    A third user said: “He showed those blinds who’s boss.”

    Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.

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  • Gemini in Google Home Keeps Mistaking My Dog for a Cat

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    A cat jumped up on my couch. Wait a minute. I don’t have a cat.

    The alert about the leaping feline is something my Google Home app sent me when I was out at a party. Turns out it was my dog. This notification came through a day after I turned on Google’s Gemini for Home capability in the Google Home app. It brings the power of large language models to the smart home ecosystem, and one of the most useful features is more descriptive alerts from my Nest security cameras. So, instead of “Person seen,” it can tell me FedEx came by and dropped off two packages.

    In the two weeks since I allowed Gemini to power my Google Home, I’ve enjoyed its ability to detect delivery drivers the most. At the end of the day, I can ask in the Google Home app, “How many packages came today” and get an accurate answer. It’s nice to know that it’s FedEx at the door, per my Nest Doorbell, and not a salesperson offering to replace my windows. Yet for all its smarts, Gemini refuses to understand that I do not have a cat in my house.

    Person Seen

    ScreenshotGoogle Home via Julian Chokkattu

    Google isn’t the only company souping up its smart-home ecosystem with AI. Amazon recently announced a feature on its Ring cameras called Search Party that will use a neighborhood’s worth of outdoor Ring cameras to help someone find their lost dog. (I don’t need to stretch to imagine something like this being used for nefarious purposes.)

    In early October, Google updated the voice assistant on its smart-home devices—some of which have been around for a decade—by replacing Google Assistant with Gemini. For the most part, the assistant is better. It can understand multiple commands in a spoken sentence or two, and you can very easily ask it to automate something in your home without fussing with the Routines tab in the Google Home app. And when I ask it a simple question, it generally gives me some kind of a reliable answer without punting me to a Google Search page.

    Smarter camera alerts are indeed more helpful at a glance. Most of the time, I dismissed Person Seen notifications because they’re often just people walking by my house. Now the alerts actually say “Person walks by,” which gives me greater confidence to dismiss those. Some alerts accurately say “Two people opened the gate,” though sometimes it will hallucinate: “Person walks up stairs,” when no one actually did. (They just walked on the sidewalk.) It has fairly accurately noted when UPS, FedEx, or USPS are at the door, which is nice to know when I’m busy or out and about, so I can make sure to check for a package when I get home—no need to hunt through alerts.

    But with my indoor security cameras, Gemini routinely says I have a cat wandering the house. It’s my dog. Even in my Home Brief—recaps at the end of the day from Gemini about what happened around the home—Gemini says, “In the early morning, a white cat was active, walking into the living room and sitting on the couch.” It’s amusing, especially considering my dog hates cats.

    CatDog

    Screenshot

    ScreenshotGoogle Home via Julian Chokkattu

    You would think then that I would be able to just tell this smarter assistant, “Hey, I don’t have a cat. I have a dog,” and it would adjust its models and fix the error. Well, I did exactly that. In the Ask Home feature, you can talk to Gemini and ask it anything about the home. This is where you can ask it to set up automations, for example. I asked it to turn on the living room lights when the cameras detect my wife or I arriving home, and it understood the action. It even guessed that I wanted the lights to come on only when arriving at night, despite me forgetting to mention that.

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Gear News of the Week: Adobe Premiere Lands on iPhone, and Nothing Lets You Design Your Own Widgets

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    Adobe has had a busy year designing and redesigning a number of its most popular apps for mobile, and Premiere for iPhone is the latest—a mobile-first video editing workflow that adapts most of the tools from the desktop version of Premiere to a mobile user interface. You can trim, layer, edit, and even auto-generate captions, alongside all the basic editing features you’d expect, like color and exposure adjustments.

    The automatic resizing feature is particularly nice, adapting videos to both horizontal and landscape platforms, making sure your subject is centered for both cuts. As with anything Adobe releases these days, there are plenty of AI-powered features, including the ability to generate backgrounds from a prompt and create sound effects from your voice.

    Premiere for iPhone is free, though if you want to use the AI features, you’ll have to buy credits within the app. According to Adobe, the Android version is still under development. —Scott Gilbertson

    Nothing Reveals an AI ‘Operating System’

    No, Nothing isn’t switching from Android to a custom AI-powered OS. However, the phone brand announced a new platform called Essential, which will lay the groundwork for a future in which users generate their own apps and user interface. We’ve heard these ideas before, often called generative user interfaces, and it’s still early days for the technology.

    Nothing’s plan starts with two apps: Essential Apps and Playground. The former lets you create “apps” with natural language, though these are really designed in the form of widgets. Just describe what you need—capture all the receipts in my camera roll and export a PDF every Friday—and this will be generated as a widget you can interact with on the home screen. The Nothing Phone (3) supports up to six of these Essential apps, but older Nothing devices are limited to two.

    Playground is a place where you can publish not just your Essential Apps but also other Nothing oddities, like Glyph Toys from the Phone (3), camera presets, and EQ profiles. You can download what the community has made and even “remix” them into your own. Eventually, these features will turn into what Nothing is calling Essential OS, which it expects to debut in 2028. (Remember the Essential Phone from 2017? Nothing bought the company’s assets in 2021, and it seems like it was for the name.)

    Nothing debuted some of these AI features with the “Essential” branding earlier this year. Essential Space is a new app that debuted on the Phone (3a), triggered by a dedicated button; tap it to capture your screen and have AI pull insights and summarize the contents. Now, there’s Essential Memory, which the company says “brings everything together by learning your habits, and surfacing forgotten details when you need them most.” It’s coming soon, so we’ll have to wait and see to learn more.

    Whoop Now Lets You Order Blood Work

    Courtesy of Whoop

    Hot on the heels of Ultrahuman and Oura announcing that you will be able to schedule and take blood labs with their services, Whoop debuted Whoop Advanced Labs. Not only can you add your preexisting blood work to the Whoop app, but you can also book blood testing through the app (like Oura, Whoop has partnered with Quest Diagnostics). Whoop’s offering is a bit more expensive, at $199 per test, $349 for two tests per year, or $599 for four tests per year, as compared to Oura’s $99 per test. Both purport to combine blood work results with long-term continuous monitoring with their respective trackers.

    Labs are routine medical tests that let doctors screen things such as high cholesterol, high blood glucose, and diabetes, or hormone or ferritin tests to check if your thyroid is working or you’re eating enough iron. They can be expensive, inconvenient to schedule and take, and fairly arcane to interpret, so it makes sense that startups are starting to offer them as part of their subscription services.

    Still, it’s a sad statement on the current accessibility of health care that routine medical services are now being funneled into revenue streams for private companies. As much as I like the Oura Ring and the Whoop band, they’re not doctors; they still can’t actually treat you for a heart attack or colon cancer. —Adrienne So

    Arlo Refreshes Its Security Cameras

    Gear News of the Week Adobe Premiere Lands on iPhone and Nothing Lets You Design Your Own Widgets

    Courtesy of Arlo

    Arlo’s new Essential 3 range rounds off a busy week for security cameras, with Google showing off new Nest cameras and Amazon releasing a fresh batch of Ring and Blink cameras. Arlo’s Essential 3 lineup includes indoor and outdoor pan/tilt cameras (a first for the company), alongside a new generation of regular outdoor and indoor cameras.

    The Essential Pan Tilt ($60) and Essential Pan Tilt Indoor ($50) offer 2K footage, 360-degree pan, 180-degree tilt, and automatic subject tracking, and there are HD versions for a bit less. The 3rd-gen Essential Outdoor Battery ($70), Essential XL Outdoor Battery ($80), Essential Security Camera Plug-in ($50), and Essential Indoor Camera Plug-in ($40) all offer 2K footage, and again, there are slightly cheaper HD versions of each.

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Two Blink Mini 2 cameras are on sale for $35 in this Prime Day deal

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    October Prime Day is right around the corner, but you can grab some good deals today. Blink security cameras are almost always on sale during Amazon’s shopping events, and this time is no different. One of the best deals at the moment is on a duo of Blink Mini 2 cameras, which you can get for only $35. That’s half off and a record-low price, not to mention less than what you’d typically pay for one full price. It’s also Engadget’s pick for the best budget security camera.

    This is the newest (2024) model of Blink’s budget wired model. The camera is well-suited for nighttime video: It has a built-in LED spotlight, color night vision and a low-light sensor. Day or night, it records in sharp 1080p resolution. It also has a wider field of view than its predecessor.

    Blink

    The Blink Mini 2 is primarily designed for indoor use. But you can use it outdoors, too. You’ll just need to fork over $10 for a weather-resistant adapter. Wherever you use the camera, it works with Alexa and supports two-way audio. (“Hello, doggy, I’ll be home soon.”)

    It also supports person detection. (That’s a neat feature that differentiates between people and other types of movement.) However, the feature requires a Blink Subscription Plan. They start at $3 per month or $30 per year for one device.

    The camera is available in black or white. Both colors are available for the $35 Prime Day deal, but they can’t be mixed unless you buy each separately. It’s worth noting that this deal is open to anyone — no Prime subscription necessary. You can also save on a bunch of other Blink (and Ring) security gear. The Blink Outdoor 4 cameras are some of our favorites, and most configurations are on sale for Prime Day, including bundles like this three-camera system that’s 61 percent off.

    Image for the mini product module

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    Will Shanklin

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  • Eufy’s latest security camera has three lenses and a detachable solar panel

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    Eufy just introduced its latest outdoor security camera at IFA in Germany. The EufyCam S4 monitors your home using a fixed 4K wide-angle camera and a pair of 2K sensors that activate when a possible intruder is spotted and track them. Capable of auto-framing its subject, the main camera can pan, tilt and zoom in on a person as far as 164 feet away. It can also intelligently zoom out to ensure groups are kept in view.

    The EufyCam S4’s stationary bullet camera has a 130-degree field of view, while the pan, tilt and zoom camera provides 360-degree tracking. With the three lenses working in unison, it’s going to be pretty difficult for anyone to evade their gaze. The camera also has a dual motion detection system, combining radar and passive infrared (PIR) tech to distinguish between moving humans and vehicles. This way you should get fewer false alarms from the app.

    If the camera detects an intruder, red and blue warning lights are activated and a siren will trigger to warn them off. The camera can also be paired with Eufy’s (sold separately), a smart security hub that uses the company’s BionicMind AI tech for what it says is 99.9 percent accurate facial recognition. It also increases local storage to a sizable 16TB.

    The EufyCam S4 ships with a built-in 5.5 watt panel that can fully charge the camera with an hour of direct sunlight. The panel is detachable, so can easily be moved to an area where it’ll drink up more rays, and you also get a rechargeable battery included so you’re not exclusively relying on the sun.

    On its own, the costs $300 and will be available later this year. Bundles of multiple cameras and a HomeBase S380 will also be available.

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    Matt Tate

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  • Our Favorite Outdoor Security Cams for Your Home or Business

    Our Favorite Outdoor Security Cams for Your Home or Business

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    We have tested several other outdoor security cameras. These are the ones we like that just missed out on a place above.

    Safemo Set P1 (2-Pack) for $350: I love the idea of a simple kit like this, where you just plug the hub in, connect it to your router, and install the pre-paired cameras. Each has an optional solar panel to keep the battery charged. The Safemo app is well-designed, video goes up to 4K, and this entirely local system boasts 32 GB of storage (expandable up to 4 TB). It even has locally processed person, vehicle, pet, and package detection. The person detection was mostly accurate (it occasionally flagged my cat), and the vehicle detection flagged my robot lawnmower (close enough) and an inflatable donut that blew across the backyard, but false positives were rare. What prevents me from wholeheartedly recommending this impressive debut is the lack of 2FA (Safemo says it is coming) and connectivity issues where one of the cameras would occasionally disconnect from the hub and be inaccessible in the app. This always righted itself without me moving anything, but worryingly, it happened a few times. If you plan to up the resolution to 4K from the default SD, you will need fast internet, especially to view the live feed, which I found was choppy and pixelated at 4K, though recorded videos were sharp and detailed.

    X-Sense Smart Security Camera for $50: This affordable camera comes with a solar panel to keep the battery topped off, a slot for a microSD card (up to 128 GB), and records 1080p video. There is also a spotlight and two-way audio, but, as the price suggests, the quality is limited. The 60-day cloud storage, AI recognition, smart notifications, and activity zones require a subscription starting from $5 per month. The live feed was quick to load, but some alerts were slow to come through, and it occasionally missed motion that other cameras picked up. That said, for this price and in the right spot, this camera could be worth a look.

    Imilab EC6 Dual 2K WiFi Plug-in Spotlight Camera for $180: With dual 2K lenses, this security camera can cover a fixed spot and simultaneously track a subject. The bottom camera offers pan/tilt controls. It works via the Xiaomi Home app, making it an easier sell if you already have a Xiaomi phone or other gadgets from the Chinese brand. You can insert a microSD card for local storage or subscribe for cloud storage. The person detection and tracking worked well in my tests. The video was mostly crisp, but movement was sometimes a bit jerky, and fast-moving subjects can get blurry. It does have WDR but could use HDR to prevent bright areas from blowing out.

    Arlo Essential Wireless Security Camera for $70: This is the most affordable way to try Arlo’s wares, and it’s a solid security camera. Setup is a breeze, the 1080p footage is clear, and the rich notifications are the best, but you need an Arlo Secure subscription ($8 per month for one camera, $13 for unlimited). Compared to our top pick, the Essential has a narrower field of view and lacks HDR, so it loses details in bright and dark areas. I also tried the Essential XL ($100), which is the same camera with a much larger battery (4x longer lasting).

    AlfredCam Plus for $50: The AlfredCamera app allows you to turn your old smartphones into security cameras, but the company also has its own line of budget cameras. The AlfredCam Plus has an IP65 rating, can record video at up to 2K, and comes with a 64-GB microSD card. You get a 9.8-foot cable with it, but you will need a power adapter. The ad-supported free version offers seven days of cloud storage for video clips. Sadly, you need a subscription at $6 a month or $30 a year to unlock 14-day cloud storage, smart features (including person detection, scheduling, and zones), and better quality video for the live feed and recordings.

    Ezviz H3C for $60: I had issues setting this wired camera up because it can only connect to 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi, but once up and running, it proved a decent performer. The Ezviz app has 2FA and allows fingerprint unlock, which is handy. There’s also onboard AI for person detection, a spotlight, black-and-white night vision, and two-way audio, though it’s laggy and poor quality. The video quality is decent at up to 2K, and the live feed is fast to load. All in all, it’s not bad for the money. I also tested the Ezviz EB8 4G (£299), which is quite similar to the H8 Pro we recommend above, except it can connect to 4G mobile networks—this means it doesn’t require Wi-Fi, though you will need a SIM card and cell service plan.

    Imou Knight Spotlight Camera for $180: A smart design and solid feature set make this an attractive security camera for the right spot. It can record at up to 4K with HDR, has a 600-lumen spotlight around the lens, and can take microSD cards up to 256 GB (sold separately) to record locally. The app offers a wide range of features, including detection zones, cross-line alerts, and human or pet detection, though the AI sometimes gets it wrong. Sadly, the low frame rate (15 fps) too often results in blurry footage, but this came close to snagging a spot above.

    Reolink Go PT Ultra for $220: If you need a wireless security camera that can connect to cellular 3G or 4G LTE networks, you could do worse than this offering from Reolink. It’s a pan-and-tilt camera that can record up to 4K video on a local microSD card (sold separately), or you can subscribe for cloud storage. It has a wee spotlight and decent color night vision, and it comes with a solar panel to keep the battery topped up. The detection is reliable but doesn’t always categorize subjects correctly. Loading time and lag will depend on the strength of the signal. Just make sure you check carrier compatibility and get a SIM card before you buy.

    Swann AllSecure650 4 Camera Kit for $700: This kit includes four wireless, battery-powered cameras and a network video recorder (NVR) that can plug into a TV or monitor via HDMI. The cameras can record up to 2K, and footage is crisp and detailed enough to zoom in on, though there is a mild fish-eye effect. The night vision is reasonably good, but the two-way audio lags and sounds distorted. I like the option to view all camera feeds simultaneously, the backup battery in the NVR makes it a cinch to swap batteries when a camera is running low, and everything is local with no need for a subscription. Unfortunately, the mobile app is poor, camera feeds sometimes take several seconds to load, and there doesn’t seem to be any 2FA. The NVR interface is also clunky to navigate with the provided mouse.

    Arlo Pro 4 for $140: This camera was our top pick, and it is still an excellent buy that is widely available. Its successor, the Pro 5, has slightly better battery life and enhanced color night vision, but there isn’t a huge difference. This camera provides crisp, clear footage; responds swiftly; and has an excellent detection and notification system, but you must also factor in the cost of an Arlo subscription starting from $8 per month for a single camera.

    Reolink Argus 3 Pro for $70: There’s a lot to like with this security camera, not least the affordable price. It offers 2K video, local or cloud storage, two-way audio, a siren, and person recognition. The live feed loads fast, and it’s cheap to buy a solar panel accessory for power. The app is a little confusing, but Reolink recently added 2FA. I also tested the Reolink Argus PT with solar panel ($104), which is a solid pan-and-tilt camera with an otherwise similar feature set. Both Reolink cameras also support dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz).

    Eve Outdoor Cam for $242: This stylish floodlight camera must be wired in, and installation is tricky (you may want an electrician). It can replace an outdoor light to give you motion-activated light (up to 1,500 lumens), 1080p video (157-degree field of view), and two-way audio. But as a HomeKit camera, you will need an Apple HomeKit hub (Apple TV, HomePod, or iPad) and an iCloud+ storage plan. Sadly, the video and sound quality are average; it only works on 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi, and there’s no Android support.

    Toucan Wireless Outdoor Camera for $100: Toucan’s wireless camera resembles our top pick from Arlo with a smart magnetic mount and easy installation. The 1080p video is good in ideal conditions but struggles with mixed lighting (no HDR). The two-way audio is passable. The app works well and loads the live feed quite quickly, but this is cloud-only, which means you need to subscribe (from $3 per month) if you want tagged events, more than the last 24 hours recorded, or to download more than five videos per month.

    Toucan Security Light Camera for $120: You can simply plug this camera into an outlet, and it comes with an 8-meter waterproof cable. It has a motion-activated light (1,200 lumens), records 1080p video, and supports two-way audio. I found the footage quite detailed, but it struggled with direct sunlight. You can record locally on a microSD card (sold separately), and you get 24 hours of free cloud storage, but it has limitations. Plans start from $3 per month. Even with motion detection set to the lowest sensitivity, this camera triggered too often during testing, and there’s no way to filter for people, so I got frequent false positives (blowing leaves, moths, and birds all triggered alerts).

    Blurams Outdoor Lite 3 for $50: This is a feature-packed security camera for the price, with support for pan, tilt, and zoom functionality; spotlights; siren; motion tracking; continuous recording; and two-way audio. You can store footage locally on a microSD card (sold separately) or subscribe to a cloud plan. Video quality is reasonable, but the app is very glitchy and loading the live feed was inconsistent (sometimes it just buffered indefinitely).

    SimpliSafe Wireless Outdoor Security Camera for $150: A solid set of features, crisp 1080p video, and support for HDR sounds tempting, but you need a Simplisafe security system (9/10, WIRED recommends) and monitoring plan to make this camera worthwhile, making it too expensive for what you get. (The Arlo Pro 4 offers better-quality video and more features.) It may be a useful add-on for existing SimpliSafe customers, though.

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    Simon Hill, Adrienne So

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  • Light Bulb Security Camera – Wicked Gadgetry

    Light Bulb Security Camera – Wicked Gadgetry

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    Keep an eye on every square inch of your property with this light bulb security camera. Not only is it conveniently hidden inside a light bulb, it’s a 1080p camera that provides high-resolution 360-degree coverage of your property and comes with two-way audio, motion detection, night vision and even remote viewing.

    Wickedgadgetry.com is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate program that allows sites to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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    Kyle

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  • Budget doorbell camera manufacturer fixes security issues that left users vulnerable to spying

    Budget doorbell camera manufacturer fixes security issues that left users vulnerable to spying

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    Eken Group has reportedly issued a firmware update to resolve major security issues with its cheap doorbell cameras that were uncovered by a Consumer Reports investigation earlier this year. The cameras in question pair with the Aiwit app and are sold under a slew of brand names, including Eken, Tuck, Fishbot, Rakeblue, Andoe, Gemee and Luckwolf. During its tests, the watchdog found that the unencrypted cameras could expose sensitive information like home IP addresses and Wi-Fi networks, and allow outside parties to access images from a camera’s feed using its serial number. Now, Consumer Reports says the issues have been fixed — just make sure you update your devices.

    Devices from those brands should now reflect a firmware version of 2.4.1 or higher, which would indicate they’ve received the update. Consumer Reports says its own samples got the update automatically, but it can’t hurt to double check in your settings considering the risks (that is, if you haven’t tossed the cameras out already). The publication says it’s confirmed that the update fixes the security problems. Eken also told Consumer Reports that the two doorbell cams it had rated with the “Don’t Buy” label — the Eken Smart Video Doorbell and Tuck Sharkpop Doorbell Camera — have been discontinued.

    These doorbell cameras, which were sold on popular ecommerce platforms including Amazon, Walmart and Temu but since appear to have been pulled, also lacked the proper labeling required by the FCC. The company told Consumer Reports it will add these IDs to new products moving forward. Following its tests of the update, Consumer Reports has removed the warning labels from its scorecards.

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    Cheyenne MacDonald

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  • The Best Security Cameras for Inside Your Home

    The Best Security Cameras for Inside Your Home

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    Not quite ready to deck out your house with window, door, and motion sensors and hire an on-call monitoring service? Don’t fret! You can still keep your home secure without messing with your wiring by going with an indoor security camera or two. Knowing you can check in when you are away from home offers peace of mind, but these cameras aren’t perfect. There’s an obvious security benefit, but you expose yourself to privacy risks. These are our favorite security cameras after rigorous testing, and we’ve also got details on what to look for when shopping for one.

    Be sure to check out our many other guides, including the Best Outdoor Security Cameras, Best Pet Cameras, and Best Password Managers. If you want more smart home products, we have guides on smart plugs and light bulbs, too.

    Updated April 2024: We added cameras from TP-Link, Arlo, Blink, AlfredCam, and Botslab, a new slide for cameras we don’t recommend, and updated prices throughout.

    Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

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    Simon Hill, Medea Giordano

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