Ecobee builds our absolute favorite smart thermostat, and its new SmartCamera with voice-control safety digicam is simply as modern. But it is a super-competitive house, and Ecobee doesn’t deliver fairly sufficient to the desk to justify this digicam’s $179 price ticket (and not-so-optional subscription).
This digicam also can act because the hub of a broader residence safety system, nevertheless, so we’ll publish a separate assessment of that total ecosystem quickly. This story focuses on the SmartCamera’s skills as a house safety digicam and an Alexa good speaker.
This assessment is a part of TechHive’s protection of the best home security cameras, the place you’ll discover evaluations of competing merchandise, plus a purchaser’s information to the options you need to contemplate when buying.
The Ecobee SmartCamera isn’t the one safety digicam to combine Alexa. The Honeywell Home Smart Security Camera from Resideo does the identical trick, and that system has been available on the market since late 2018 (we reviewed it as part of Resideo’s home security bundle). Ecobee’s digicam is significantly better than Resideo’s, but it surely additionally prices virtually $100 greater than Resideo’s digicam by itself.
The Ecobee SmartCamera is each a safety digicam and an Alexa-powered good speaker.
Another worthwhile train is to check Ecobee’s digicam to the Arlo Pro 3. While that indoor/outside digicam have to be bought as a two-camera starter pack with a base station for $399, extra cameras go for $199 every—simply $20 greater than Ecobee’s.
And the place Ecobee’s strictly indoor, AC-powered system is restricted to 1080p video, Arlo’s battery-powered digicam boasts 2K decision. On the opposite hand, none of Arlo’s merchandise incorporate a digital assistant, they usually can’t be included right into a broader residence safety system.
The Ecobee SmartCamera has a dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter onboard, plus a Bluetooth 5.0 radio for making the preliminary connection to your cell system (there are apps for Android and iOS). The digicam was very straightforward to arrange. There’s an 8-core CPU onboard working at 2GHz, 1GB of LDDR4 RAM, and 4GB of flash reminiscence (none of which is used for onboard video storage. More on that in a bit.) The digicam could be tilted ahead or again on its weighted, one-inch-high conical stand for placement on a flat floor, or you may mount the stand and digicam to the wall.
Recording video prices additional
If you don’t pay for Ecobee’s Haven good residence service, which prices $5 per 30 days ($10 per 30 days in order for you it for multiple digicam), the Ecobee SmartCamera is strictly a live-view system. It gained’t file video in any respect, it has no native storage, and also you gained’t obtain motion-detection alerts with no subscription.
In that sense, as is the case with Ring’s video doorbells and safety cameras, a Haven subscription isn’t actually all that non-compulsory. Ring’s $10-per-month service plan, alternatively, contains twice as a lot storage (30 days versus 14 from Ecobee), and also you get skilled monitoring in case you additionally buy its Ring Alarm product. I’ll examine Ecobee’s full residence safety providing, and distinction it with Ring’s, in a separate assessment.
Without the Haven service, you may view a stay stream from the digicam, however you may’t file that video or take a snapshot of it (except you employ different software program to take a screengrab of the app), and there’s no historical past of occasions that you would be able to look again to. Despite all that, the digicam is just not with out its charms, particularly when considered from a privateness angle.
Michael Brown / IDGThe Ecobee SmartCamera’s conical mount has a keyhole within the again so you may mount the digicam on a wall in case you choose.
Privacy options
Two-factor identification is obligatory from the get-go, for instance, and whenever you activate the digicam’s Autopilot function, Ecobee’s app will use your telephone’s bodily location to routinely flip the digicam on whenever you go away your house and off whenever you return. This geofencing function works greatest when everybody within the family has a smartphone with the Ecobee app put in: Autopilot gained’t activate till everybody leaves. That method, you by no means want to fret about doing one thing embarrassing in entrance of the digicam. You also can activate the digicam manually, whether or not you’re residence or not, and it’ll keep on till you flip it off or Autopilot detects that you just’ve left the house and are available again once more.
Ecobee says its digicam is HomePackage suitable, however that doesn’t presently lengthen to Apple’s HomePackage Secure Video, which processes digicam video on native community gadgets (e.g., an AppleTV, iPad, or HomePod) and shops encrypted video recordings to your iCloud account. Ecobee says HomePackage Secure Video help is coming quickly.
Performance
Michael Brown / IDGThe Ecobee SmartCamera will give attention to and monitor an individual who enters it area of view.
The Ecobee SmartCamera’s 1080p video could be very crisp, and it has a slick monitoring function that routinely zooms in on any one who enters its broad area of view: 180 levels diagonal, 170 levels horizontal, and 115 levels vertical. The digicam will then monitor that individual as they transfer across the room. There isn’t any pan/tilt motor onboard, so that is completed digitally and contained in the digicam (not within the cloud). You can equally pan, tilt, and zoom the digicam’s focus whereas viewing a stay stream by tapping a directional pad within the app.
Night imaginative and prescient is enabled by a trio of 850nm infrared LEDs. These could be disabled within the app in order that they don’t mirror off a window do you have to resolve to place the digicam there to observe an outside house (it isn’t weatherized and can’t be put in outdoor). The digicam’s evening imaginative and prescient pictures are crisp and clear.
Audio is streamed together with video, and two-way audio is supported so you may have a dialog with the individual in entrance of the digicam (or yell at them if it’s an intruder). Speaking of intruders, the digicam has an onboard siren, however it will possibly solely be activated manually by urgent a button within the app, and it’s in no way loud—simply 76dB.
Michael Brown / IDGTools atop the Ecobee SmartCamera’s stay view let you file, seize a snapshot, digitally pan and zoom, activate the digicam’s two-way audio function, and set off its siren.
The siren can be rather more helpful as a deterrent if it might be set to go off whenever you’re out of the home and the digicam’s movement sensor is triggered. This shortcoming turns into much more obtrusive when you think about the broader home-security potentialities obtainable inside the Ecobee ecosystem.
As a sensible speaker, the Ecobee SmartCamera is nearly as efficient as an Echo Dot: It dutifully responds to its wake phrase (there are additionally touch-sensitive buttons on high for summoning the digital assistant and muting the digicam’s mics), and it will possibly execute practically all the abilities of some other Alexa system. I used to be in a position to make use of it to regulate all features of my Vivint Smart Home system (turning lights on and off, opening and shutting motorized shades, arming its safety function, and so forth).
Saying “Alexa, I’m hot” resulted within the Ecobee good thermostat decreasing its goal temperature by two levels, so the air conditioner fired up. You also can get information and climate updates, have the digicam play music from linked companies (from Amazon Music, no less than; the digicam gained’t play music on Spotify), and extra. It’s comparatively weak as an music speaker—bass response is almost nonexistent—however nobody buys a safety digicam for its sonic charms.
Bottom line
It bears repeating: Ecobee makes a wicked-good good thermostat—one which doesn’t require an “optional” subscription to get probably the most profit. The Ecobee SmartCamera has some actually nice options, too, however a safety digicam that may’t protect forensic proof of against the law—except you’re keen to pay a month-to-month payment—simply isn’t a great residence safety worth. A safety digicam with a built-in siren is a good thought, too, but it surely gained’t be very efficient at deterring an intruder if it solely operates whenever you push a button in your smartphone.
Ecobee does get a thumbs-up for its privateness concerns: The Autopilot function that turns the digicam off whenever you’re residence, and on whenever you go away, is a wonderful function. Integrating an Alexa-powered good speaker was a great determination, too. But there are such a lot of safety cameras which can be higher than this one, even when they aren’t additionally good audio system.