A decent camera was held back by Homkit

Ev Homcomit Accessory is well known in space, which made me very excited to try the floodlight camera of my outdoor cam, brand. However, after spending time with this homcomit-exclusive camera, it left me to want more, and I am not sure it is worth asking.

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Price and availability

Eve outdoor cam is available for $ 249.95 directly from Amazon, Best By, Apple and directly from Eve.

A design of modern homes

Some domestic security cameras have a striking equality for traditional floodlights – Eve outdoor cam is not one of them.

The overall design of the Eve outdoor cam is very contemporary and modern, meaning that you need a specific style of the house to mix well. My house is not one that lends to contemporary beauty, but I don’t think the camera looks out of place. This is definitely a modern “in your face” nature, however, and does not try to mix in its surroundings.

As long as you are modifying the electrical wiring of your home, the installation was very straightforward. I started in the electrical panel, where I locked the breaker in my front verandah and verified that the power was off.

I had to use the adapter plate that included to mount on my junction box with the camera, but the overall install probably took 15 minutes from beginning to end. I had some difficulty in getting the power cord through the housing so that it would remain waterproofing, but I eventually took it there. I did not use the locking key for the wire, but I don’t think I would have any problem with it because it is quite well press-fit.

Once installed, you will have a two-way adjustment where the camera is pointing. This allowed me to target it to the exact location that I wanted, so that I could see if a package was on the porch.

One thing I wanted was that it had more inclination than 15-degrees, allowing me to see more and more land in the present. This is not a deluge, but it’s something I want it was.

Especially for apple ecosystem compatible, better or worse

I am a very big apple fan. My whole house runs with Apple Gear. I have an apple tv 4K, iPad Pro, Macbook Pro, MacBook Air, Apple Watch, and iPhone 15 Pro. Needless to say, all my smart home gears are also homacolls.

However, when I prefer to use Homcomit with all my gear, something should be said about having many options to control your items. My house safety cameras are all integrated in the homkits, but also record my NVR that I run.

The Eve outdoor camera is a native Homcite camera, but it all works with it. In fact, it is not possible to use Eve outdoor cam outside the homkit.

To use all the characteristics of the Eve outdoor cam, you only need more than a homcomid setup, although. You will need a homepod or Apple TV 4K to act as a home hub, as well as an icloud+ scheme with 50 GB or more storage to use anything more than the live stream of the camera.

Camera comes with features such as recording and AI motion detection (only to inform you whether a specific type of speed has been detected), but those tasks are available only to people with icloud+ scheme.

Another warning is that you can record only one camera with an iCloud+ 50GB scheme, and can hit 200GB UPS that is limited to five cameras, while 2TB or higher plans let you record unlimited cameras.

The quality of the video available through the camera is also limited by being limited to the Homcomit safe video. The quality of the video is best. On my porch I have a $ 55 Poe camera that looks far better than the Eve outdoor cam, which is due to the 1080p quality range placed on the partially Homkit safe video.

Do not misunderstand me, Homkit is a good extra for a safe video camera, but I really want some other forms of recording to be available – even locally for a microSD card. As it stands, the only way is that the Eve outdoor cam will record any footage, it is accompanied by an additional membership for iCloud+.

It also came as an issue during this review. I really didn’t find a camera to store a recording to talk in ICloud, even after several attempts, many factory resets and ri-jaws, and many ways to try. While doing some research, this is not the first time when the Homcomit safe video has had trouble recording, although a factory usually fixes the reset problem.

If I had any other way of recording, it was locally internal storage on camera, a microSD card, or even a service that is hosted by the Eve, I would have other options to obtain and receive recording. As it stands, when I was trying I was not able to get a quality recording.

This does not even make me believe that if a person tries in my house, the camera stores a recording – which is the entire point of a safety camera to start with the safety camera. This is necessarily not the fault of the Eve, as it seems to be a homcomit safe video issue. However, this Is Eve’s fault is that no other recording methods are available.

I also ran into a problem, where the camera would be unlikely only within the homcomb. I have other cameras in the Homkit and they all work innocent, but the Eve outdoor cam is very hit-or-mise when it comes to credibility within the homcomit ecosystem.

Another issue is, if you ever want to leave Apple Ecosystem, the Eve outdoor cam will have to go with it, because there is no real way to use camera without Apple products in some way or the other in your home.

This can be seen as a profit for some, but I see this limited factor as a huge drawback for me. Especially when there are other cameras for very little that can do so much – without the need for a membership.

A light that brightens

The built-in 1,500-lumen LED spotlight is quite bright, all things are considered. There are many triggers available in it, and I like that Prakash is also part of Homkit.

I know the homcomit specificity is a defect, but if you are an all-in apple domestic, some very clean functionality is available through light.

When the light turns on and turns off, you can use Homcomit Automation to trigger. If you have a homcomit-competent smart lock on a door, where the Eve outdoor cam is mounted, it can be programmed to turn on the moment that is unlocked the door.

Whenever everyone leaves the house, it can also be programmed to turn on, when just one person leaves the house, or whenever someone comes home after a certain time of the day.

Personally, I programmed my Eve outdoor cam to turn light on sunset and sunrise, because it means that I don’t have during the day, and it does not turn randomly overnight.

I am actually thinking of creating a new automation, where it turns at sunset, whenever I run my good night scene that closes my house, and then only on when the speed is detected for the rest of the night.

Connected

These smart home automation make my life easier

Keep your smart home to work for yourself.

There is a lot that can be done with this bright light in the homkit, including triggering it only on a certain brightness, as the light is also slow.

At night, the light definitely highlights any movement and easily illuminates my front verandah, making it easy to see what is happening within the home app. However, even though the light is not on, IR LED camera gives night vision so that it can see in the dark.

Both methods of viewing at night – 1,500 lumen floodlight and IR LED – is easy to know what is happening in the camera scene. However, if you want to see a few feet away from the camera, you will definitely want to choose to use a floodlight instead of IR LED.

Should you buy Eve outdoor cam?

It is difficult for me to recommend the Eve outdoor cam. There are many other excellent cameras for very little money. The main thing is that I have the price to keep this camera back more than the rating.

At $ 250, you are getting a solidly manufactured outdoor camera with decent video quality and actually bright light. The bad part is that it is especially homkit. For comparison, Arlo Pro 3 fludlight can run on battery (which means that you do not have to wire it yourself) and supports HOMKIT, Alexa, Google Assistant, and more for $ 170 ($ 80 less than Eve outdoor cam).

Ring, vaizal, and ufi, and many other brands are also least at least floodlight cameras, which can be easily brought to the Homcits through a service such as scripted or home assistant.

At the end of the day, I do not think the Eve outdoor cam is great of a value. It works that it is asked to do as outdoor floodlight cameras, but comes with a lot of limits. If the Eve had some other way to record the footage, which did not require monthly membership for the icloud, I would rate this camera at a higher level, and it would be easy to recommend.

As it stands, I think the Eve outdoor should consider on the cam, they are very solid in the apple ecosystem with only an existing icloud+ membership and there is no plan to leave the world of apple anytime soon.

If he does not make a sound like you, I will leave this camera. If she is you, it can be a solid option for your smart home security setup.