EufyCam 2 Pro Review: Long Battery Life, And Not Much More
"Long battery life means you can place the EufyCam 2 Pro without having to worry about cables."
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365 days of battery life
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Loud siren
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Anti-theft device
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The faces are not clear at night
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Camera could be better
The eufyCam 2 Pro The wireless home security camera system had the potential to shake up the flood of intelligent surveillance cameras on the market. It asserts itself, but is not noticeable.
Alina Bradford / Digital Trends
installation
The EufyCam 2 Pro is supplied as a single camera ($ 150) or as a double pack with two cameras and the Eufy HomeBase 2 ($ 350). I would recommend accessing the package with HomeBase 2 if you don't already have one. You cannot use the EufyCam 2 Pro without HomeBase, so you still need it. HomeBase 2 is a hub that connects cameras, stores footage, and acts as a Wi-Fi repeater to improve your Wi-Fi so your cameras get a strong signal.
This is very helpful if your signal is not the best or you have a large distance between your router and your cameras. On the other hand, the HomeBase occupies an additional Ethernet connection on your router and an additional socket that you probably cannot save.
Alina Bradford / Digital Trends
The installation of this camera is super easy. The EufyCam 2 Pro is magnetic so you can stick it to a veranda railing or almost any other metal surface. If you don't have anything to stick on, you can attach a mounting bracket with a few screws and then rotate the camera onto the bracket. All in all, it took about 10 minutes to mount the camera and another five minutes to set it up with the app and Eufy HomeBase 2. However, direct sunlight can blind the camera. Take this into account when thinking about a place to put it.
Video
The video from the EufyCam 2 Pro is comparable to most other high-end surveillance cameras such as the Arlo Pro 3. It can be switched between HD 1080p or 2K HD with a large field of view of 140 degrees. If you place the camera 7 to 10 feet high, it can see a range of up to 30 feet, so a camera can cover a large area of your garden. The video clarity is pretty good, with realistic colors, very little distortion and good contrast. I wish Eufy had climbed up to 4K resolution like the Arlo Ultra Smart Cam.
Eufy tackled the problem by adding Smart Image Enhancement.
A problem with some cameras is that the further a person is away, the more grainy the image of the person. The faces are clear and rich in contrast within a few meters. At about 10 feet, faces are much more difficult to see; You can get the general shape, but it is difficult for you to recognize the characteristics of a stranger. Eufy tackled the problem by adding Smart Image Enhancement. When a face is recognized by A.I., pixels in the image are lightened and deleted to make the faces clearer.
Night vision is in black and white, but the lack of color doesn't bother me. The video is clear in very poor lighting conditions. Despite the smart image enhancement, the camera has problems with faces at night. The camera washed out almost all the facial features of my fair-skinned test subjects, even if they were only a few meters away.
Other cameras, such as those from Ring and Arlo, charge a subscription fee for video storage packages. I hate that. I have enough subscriptions in my life. One of my favorite features of the EufyCam 2 Pro is that you don't have to pay to save videos. Video material is stored locally in HomeBase 2 instead of in the cloud. It has 16 GB of storage, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it does the job as long as you delete unnecessary videos. Old videos are automatically deleted, but it's probably better to remove and sort them out yourself so that what you want to keep is not deleted.
Additional functions
In addition to the clarity and storage of the video, the EufyCam 2 Pro offers some notable features that are useful. A surprising option is the ability to put any camera and HomeBase 2 in anti-theft mode. This means that when someone moves the camera or HomeBase, an alarm sounds. It would be nice if Eufy also offered to replace stolen cameras like Ring does, but I still find the alarm function cool.
Many newer surveillance cameras have a microphone and a speaker, so you can use the app on your phone to talk to anyone who is near the camera. The EufyCam 2 Pro also offers this option. The two-way audio is fine and you can adjust the volume in the app. I wish it had noise cancellation to make voices clearer like the Ring Stick Up Cam. You can also mute the microphone and speaker independently.
It is difficult to say how true the claim of a one-year battery life is in everyday household life.
The company says the EufyCam 2 Pro can last 365 days on a single charge if the camera records about 300 seconds of footage a day. If that were true, it would certainly make it stand out from other cameras. Six months are usually the max. Unfortunately, after just one day with the cameras, the battery indicator found that the performance had dropped by 1%. It is therefore difficult to say how true the claim of a one-year battery life is in everyday household use.
The app has a power manager option for each camera that can extend the life of the battery. You can set the camera to the optimal battery life mode, which limits video clips to 20 seconds to prevent the battery from draining. In an optimal surveillance mode, clips can be up to 60 seconds long, and in a custom capture mode you can choose how long clips should last.
Alina Bradford / Digital Trends
To save even more battery life (and reduce the number of notifications), you can choose when your camera records by adding it to a schedule or choosing a specific mode. You can also control how many warnings you get by turning off motion detection, adjusting motion sensitivity, selecting detection areas, or recording only when the camera detects someone.
Like any good smart surveillance camera, it can connect to your home assistant. The EufyCam 2 Pro connects to the three big ones: Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
The EufyCam 2 Pro also has a 100 dB siren that is loud enough to scare someone. If you really want to make an explanation, you should opt for the Ring Floodlight Cam, which has a 110 dB siren. This extra 10 dB makes a big difference.
Our opinion
The EufyCam 2 Pro is $ 350 cheaper than the Arlo Pro 3 ($ 400), which also has two cameras and a base hub. However, it is still more expensive than other comparable wireless security video cameras and has no real features to make it stand out. It also misses a big chance if you don't drive 4K.
Overall, I was simply not enthusiastic about this intelligent surveillance camera. It's a good choice, but if you void the claim that the battery lasts for a year, there are better cameras on the market. Check out our summary of the best outdoor security cameras for 2020 to find some alternative options.
Is there a better alternative?
Yes. If you are looking for excellent video quality, the Arlo Ultra Smart Cam is hard to beat. It has 4K resolution and an incredible 180 degree field of view. However, my personal favorite is the Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight. Not only does it have excellent resolution, it also has a 160-degree field of view and floodlights that illuminate most of your garden. In this scorecard you can see how surveillance cameras fit head to head outdoors.
Will it take?
The cameras are made of thick hard plastic and are weatherproof according to IP67, so they are designed for a long service life. There is also a one-year limited warranty. You would think sticking the cameras to things would affect their longevity, but the magnets are super strong and once the cameras are stuck you need to use some force to remove them.
Should you buy it
No. There are simply too many other cameras on the market that offer better functions.
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