Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is my first foray into security cameras, and overall, I'm mildly pleased with the 2C. I did a lot of research before purchasing, and the no subscriptions and local storage aspects of Eufy's system really appealed to me. That said, there are LOTS of little (and not so little) caveats that may make you reconsider before purchasing the system. First of all, EVERYTHING is controlled through the app, iOS in my case. I wasn't expecting a desktop client. But I was expecting a web client. The app itself is pretty good. But it's frustrating to be limited to this interface. That also means there's no interface, or access, to the Homebase. So in addition to every setting being controlled through the app, any videos you want to download and keep must also be done through the app. So saving a video to a desktop is a three step process: select video in Eufy's app, save that video to iOS' Photos, sync (e.g. AirDrop) that video to your desktop. Secondly, though it is true that all videos are saved locally to the Homebase, they are transferred over the internet when you view them remotely (off WiFi) though the app. That in itself is not a bad thing. But the mechanism of that transfer is not obvious. Presumably it's over an encrypted connection. But there's nothing that specifies this or that allows you to monitor this transfer. I’m hoping the video isn’t first cached, or otherwise stored, on one of Eufy’s servers. Ideally, it would be a straight and secure transfer directly to my iPhone. But I haven’t been able to verify this. This brings us to the connections the Homebase makes - it’s a VERY chatty device. Many times a day it’s talking to remote servers. So far as I’ve investigated, they’re all AWS servers. Seeing as how Eufy is marketing these cams as privacy oriented, it’d be truly informative if they could tell us what the Homebase is doing. When I get more time, I’m going to block these connections and see what adverse effects, if any, it has on the cameras and monitoring. So far as I can tell, all updates to the Homebase and cameras are FORCED. There’s no way to opt in, or out, or even delay. I cannot find any way to sign up, or even get information on, Eufy’s cloud storage. Supposedly, they have optional paid cloud service. But there’s no mention of it on their site that I can find. I have yet to explore Homekit integration. I’m not convinced that the activity zones actually do anything. I’ve been adjusting the zones and sensitivity in hopes of finding a “good enough” balance for monitoring. But no matter what I do the cameras detect passing cars at night. I have the cameras set to only detect human movement and the street is definitely outside the activity zone, but I still get an alert. It really sucks being woken up at night because a car drove by. And the nighttime alerts are one of the BIGGEST problems with this system. To be fair, this could be more Apple’s fault than Eufy’s. Like every other sane person, my iPhone is set to Do Not Disturb at night. Eufy’s app has no way of bypassing DND. To get an alert at night you MUST turn off DND. So it’s either get bothered by every other alert during the night, or don’t get an alert when somebody is roaming in your backyard. This is a MAJOR flaw for a security system. I’ve seen other reviews that complain about the range of the system. I’ve had no issues. One camera is only eight feet away from the Homebase. The other camera is roughly fifty feet away and the signal must pass through a couple of interior walls and one external wall. It functions fine. The video quality is lacking. I’m not expecting fantastic quality from such a small camera, but it produces HEAVILY compressed H.264 videos. Likely, this is done to save on bandwidth and storage space. But there’s no option to reduce compression. A quality slider would be a great option to have. Additionally, the camera struggles to find the correct white balance for the first second of every video. So each second or two of video is always blown out. This has the potential to be a nearly perfect security system. And it’s my understanding that Eufy’s been making gradual improvements though updates. But, as of now (April 2020), I can’t really recommend it. The first thing Eufy must do is somehow bypass DND so you can actually receive alerts at night. They also need to disclose why the Homebase is constantly talking to external servers. It would also be informative if they explained how the videos are transferred when you’re off LAN. Something needs to be done about the AI and activity zones - their performance at night doesn’t work. Owners should be able to adjust the quality of the videos with the understanding they can store fewer recordings. Lastly, it would be truly helpful if there were a comprehensive web interface to the Homebase. With the above improvements, Eufy would truly have a privacy oriented security camera system worth recommending. UPDATE: After constantly fiddling with this camera system for a couple of weeks, I'm a little more satisfied. I also appreciate Eufy's response to the review. I'm especially appreciative that they addressed why the Homebase is constantly talking to external servers. And I'm glad they acknowledge that they're working on the DND issue. That said, I'm still not quite recommending it. The human motion detection just does not work reliably. Often times it simply doesn't detect people walking by. I've seen people walk down my sidewalk, 12 feet away from the camera, and the Eufy not activate. I've adjusted the sensitivity. I've drawn endless combination of zones. I've adjusted the camera angle. If I had to make a guess, I'd say 75% of the time it detects a person. As a work around, I've set it to detect ALL motions. This does seem to work reliably. And it's entertaining to see foxes and raccoons scurry across my lawn. It's also very draining on the battery. So I rigged the camera to draw power from my front porch light. Running PoE cameras would have been VERY difficult with my house. But plugging a 2C to a light socket was fairly easy. I'll update my review every so often. This Eufy camera system is a really great concept that I want to succeed. Hopefully they can improve the AI and find away around DND. With those two things, and if they'd allow us to adjust (i.e. reduce compression & take up more storage) the video quality, I think they'd have a real winner. Another update: 2.5 years later one of cameras, the one that saw the most events, is officially dead - the battery no longer holds any sort of charge. I'm not sure how I feel about this product. It never really worked as intended. The zones are still worthless as was the detection of people. Consequently, it was never able to alert me at night. Waking me up for every raccoon or passing car is a worthless feature. That said, during the day it was great for deliveries and packages. I'm surprised that the battery gave out after 2.5 years. I had the camera set to "solar" even though it was actually plugged into a socket. So I feel like the battery shouldn't have ever been stressed. The battery appears to be thoroughly serviceable, but I hate to just throw it out. I've contacted eufy in hopes I can send it in for repair. We'll see what they say.