Wyze Cam V2 Evaluation | PCMag

After we reviewed the Wyze Cam closing 12 months, its efficiency, options, and really inexpensive value earned it our Editors’ Selection award. With its newest iteration, the Wyze Cam V2, the parents at Wyze Labs made some enhancements, together with movement monitoring, enhanced audio functions, and a extra robust CMOS sensor. It is nonetheless the smallest house safety digital camera we have examined and an improbable cut price at $19.99, in addition to our best select for inexpensive house safety cameras.

Design and Options

The tiny, cube-shaped Wyze Cam V2 appears to be like nearly similar to its predecessor, simplest this time across the end is matte white slightly than shiny white. It has the similar measurements (2.2 by way of 1.9 by way of 1.9 inches, HWD) and makes use of the similar versatile hinge and swivel base that offers you slightly greater than an inch of top adjustability, and allows you to attitude the digital camera in any route. You’ll be able to use the magnetic base to connect the digital camera to any steel floor, or use the integrated steel disc and adhesive strip to connect it to non-metal surfaces.

The V2 makes use of an upgraded CMOS sensor that delivers 1080p video at 15fps slightly than the 10fps price we noticed with the unique digital camera. A microphone and speaker supply two-way audio, which additionally will get a spice up courtesy of an enhanced audio amplifier. The digital camera has a 110-degree viewing attitude and an 8x virtual zoom, and it makes use of 4 infrared LEDs to supply as much as 30 toes of black-and-white night time imaginative and prescient. Additionally new to this model is a characteristic dubbed Movement Tagging. It makes use of movement monitoring very similar to that utilized by cameras such because the iSmartAlarm iCamera Stay Professional to attract a field round no matter or whoever has precipitated recording.

There is a microSD card slot beneath the bottom, in conjunction with a Setup button used for pairing the digital camera with the app. Round again are an influence enter, a standing mild, and a USB port that lets you energy two cameras with a unmarried energy adapter. Below the hood is an 802.11n (2.4GHz) Wi-Fi radio used to attach the V2 to your own home community. The V2 makes use of movement and sound sensors to ship push notifications for your telephone and to begin a 12-second video recording of every tournament. It additionally is aware of to pay attention for the sound of a smoke or CO alarm and can ship a push alert when detected.

You get loose cloud garage for the closing 14 days of recorded video (older clips can be overwritten), or you’ll be able to provide your personal microSD Card (as much as 32GB) to retailer video in the neighborhood whilst playing steady recording (the digital camera will routinely overwrite older video when the cardboard turns into complete). As with the sooner type, the V2 does no longer paintings immediately with third-party sensible house units, nor does it make stronger integrations the usage of IFTTT applets. It’s been up to date to paintings with Amazon Alexa, then again. As soon as you have related it for your account, you’ll be able to ask Alexa to turn the digital camera feed and it’s going to seem in your screen-equipped Echo tool or Hearth TV.

The Wyze Cam V2 makes use of the similar intuitive cell app for Android and iOS units as the sooner digital camera. It opens to a Gadgets display screen that presentations all put in Wyze cameras by way of identify and a snapshot in their newest process. To view a are living circulation, faucet any digital camera symbol. To view it in full-screen mode, flip your telephone sideways. On the backside of the are living view display screen are Sound (mute), File (video), Discuss (two-way audio), and Take Photograph (snapshot) buttons. There is additionally a Extra button that takes you to a display screen the place you’ll be able to permit/disable Movement Tagging, create and think about Time-Lapse video (a microSD card is needed for this), and get entry to an album of manually recorded video clips and snapshots, and a View Playback button for steady video saved at the microSD card.

To get entry to the Digital camera Settings display screen, faucet the equipment icon within the higher proper nook. Right here you’ll be able to permit/disable movement and sound detection and smoke and CO detection, arrange an Alert Time table for when you wish to have to obtain push signals, and create customized movement detection zones. Within the Complicated Settings display screen you’ll be able to permit/disable night time imaginative and prescient, flip the digital camera standing mild off and on, rotate the picture, and permit time stamps for recorded video. Right here you’ll be able to additionally permit native recording to the microSD card and layout the media.

Again on the Gadgets display screen are buttons for Notifications, My Account, and Gadgets. Use the Notifications button to view video clips saved within the cloud, proportion them, or delete them. In My Account you’ll be able to trade your e mail deal with and password and get entry to the web-based Lend a hand database, and the Gadgets button takes you again to the Gadgets display screen. So as to add a brand new tool, faucet the plus button within the higher proper nook of the display screen.

Set up and Efficiency

The Wyze Cam V2 installs in mins. I already had the cell app and an account from my evaluate of the unique type, but when that is your first Wyze Labs tool, you will have to obtain the app and create an account. I opened the app, tapped Upload New Tool, and adopted the directions to plug within the digital camera and press the Setup button when the yellow LED begins flashing. A automatic voice instructed me that the digital camera used to be able to attach, and I decided on my Wi-Fi community and entered my password. I used to be steered to carry the digital camera give inches from my telephone, which used to be showing a QR code, and waited a couple of seconds for the digital camera to inform me that the QR code used to be scanned. After 20 seconds or so the digital camera used to be attached. I gave the digital camera a reputation and waited some other 20 seconds for a firmware improve to finish and the set up used to be completed.

The Wyze Cam V2 is a forged performer. Its daylight 1080p video presentations excellent symbol element and well saturated colours, and its night time imaginative and prescient video seems sharp and well-lit out to twenty-five toes. There is a contact of barrel distortion across the edges, however it is infrequently noticeable.

Movement monitoring labored properly in checking out, as did movement and sound detection. Push notifications arrived in an instant when probably the most sensors used to be precipitated, and recorded video seemed simply as excellent because the are living circulation. Two-way audio used to be very blank, and the Time-Lapse recording characteristic labored like a appeal.

Conclusions

Regardless of its diminutive measurement and cut price value, the Wyze Cam V2 provides a wealth of options together with movement monitoring, two-way audio, loose cloud garage, and a microSD Card slot for storing your video in the neighborhood and enabling steady recording. Day and night time 1080p video is sharp, with minimum distortion, and two-way audio communique is blank and adequately loud. You aren’t getting interoperability with different sensible units or make stronger for IFTTT, however making an allowance for the digital camera’s $20 value, it is exhausting to bitch. As such, the Wyze Cam V2 is our new Editors’ Selection for budget-friendly house safety cameras.