Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Compact and versatile, with a protracted energy twine
- Easy-to-navigate app
- Solid motion-detection expertise, together with face recognition
Cons
- 1080p video decision
- Some stability points
- Useless with no subscription
- A excessive worth for what’s delivered
Our Verdict
The myQ Outdoor Camera’s lengthy cable makes for versatile set up choices, however its low video decision is displaying off some dated tech, and also you’ll have to pay for a subscription to save lots of video in any respect.
Price When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Best Pricing Today
Price When Reviewed
$79.99
Best Prices Today: myQ Smart Outdoor Wired Camera (mannequin MYQ-C43AXXW)
$60.11
$79.99
myQ continues to step additional and farther from its garage door controller roots with one other digicam—its third—this one designed for out of doors use.
The Chamberlain Group-owned operation appears intent to not reinvent the wheel right here. Aside from a lightweight beauty change to the bottom, that is very a lot the identical digicam because the myQ Indoor Camera and the Garage Camera.
This overview is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the best home security cameras in addition to the best smart garage door controllers.
Specifications
The swiveling ball-and-socket base is the primary departure from the design of myQ’s prior fashions, and the design change implies that the myQ Outdoor Camera have to be put in on a wall, although theoretically it may additionally work on a ceiling in a pinch. Fortunately, bodily set up is straightforward: A small mounting plate attaches with two screws (included) to the wall, and the digicam locks into the plate with a twisting movement.
We thought we’d seen the final of Micro-USB connections.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Instead of being hardwired, just like the indoor digicam, a 25-foot-long USB energy cable is included, although as additional proof of the digicam’s lack of ahead momentum, it makes use of a Micro-USB interface as an alternative of the extra fashionable—and much more handy—USB-C. On the plus aspect, the cable has a rubber gasket across the plug to assist forestall water intrusion into the digicam. The unit carries an IP65 climate resistance score. According to our IP code decoder, meaning it must be dustproof and capable of stand up to a blast of water from a jet nozzle.
Setup is a straightforward course of, utilizing a painless Bluetooth connection to bridge to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi community inside the myQ cell app.
Otherwise, its specs are indistinguishable from the indoor digicam: decision of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a 130-degree subject of view, two-way audio, and normal infrared evening imaginative and prescient are all included. As with myQ’s different cameras, whereas stay video is all the time accessible on demand, the unit is designed solely to document on movement detection—and solely to myQ’s cloud service (extra on this later).
Installation and setup
The myQ Outdoor Camera is designed to mount on a vertical floor, however you could possibly grasp it from an eave in a pinch.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Setup is a straightforward course of, utilizing a painless Bluetooth connection to bridge to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi community inside the myQ cell app (5GHz networks are usually not supported). If you’ve got different myQ gadgets, the digicam reveals up inside the app as one other choice within the app’s vertical assortment of gadgets (and beneath a big advert you may’t eliminate).
Managing the digicam is an equally easy matter of tapping the preview display, which in flip takes you to a fundamental stay view, the place you may seize a snapshot (although not a recording), flip the microphone on for two-way communication, or enter the settings menu. It’s a bare-bones interface, so customers in search of extra superior recording options ought to in all probability choose a special product.
Performance
I’ve all the time discovered myQ cameras to have moderately good video regardless of their low decision, and the Outdoor Camera is not any exception. Video is simply slightly bulbous because of the fish-eye lens, however colours look good throughout the day and nighttime video is surprisingly crisp—higher than I’ve seen on different myQ gear. myQ doesn’t state how lengthy recordings are restricted to, however solely one of many recordings in my a number of days of testing exceeded 30 seconds. (It was nonetheless lower than a minute lengthy.)
You’ll discover all of the anticipated detection and recording choices you’d count on to see in a contemporary safety digicam, however you may’t document any clips with no paid subscription.
Christopher Null/Foundry
The myQ Outdoor Camera’s movement detection was additionally strong in my testing, and even at low sensitivity it was capable of choose up distant figures transferring. It was even capable of determine my face from greater than 40 toes away, utilizing its new AI-powered face-detection characteristic. Thanks to firmware updates, the digicam (and all others within the myQ line) can now be configured to detect animals, automobiles, and other people along with faces you register with the app. It all works fairly effectively—and detection zones are supported if you wish to block out sure elements of the picture from recording (to guard your neighbor’s privateness, as an example).
On the opposite hand, the myQ ecosystem’s stability remained one thing of an issue in my testing. Live video and recorded clips have been usually sluggish to load, and the app or digicam crashed on two events fully, throwing out a cryptic error I used to be unable to bypass and requiring the digicam to be energy cycled earlier than it might work once more. That is usually a massive drawback in the event you mount the digicam excessive on a wall.
the myQ Outdoor Camera’s brilliant inexperienced LED can’t be overriden.
Christopher Null/Foundry
I additionally don’t love the very brilliant inexperienced LED that seems entrance and middle above the digicam lens. This mild is all the time on and may’t be turned off; I discovered it so annoying that I ended up placing a chunk {of electrical} tape over it.
Recorded clips are getting simpler to flip by means of; myQ’s “History” tab places all video exercise from all of your myQ gadgets in chronological order on one display, and you may filter out sure gadgets or forms of occasions as desired with a faucet. Some minor upgrades to the myQ app in latest months appear to have made this course of slightly extra intuitive than it was prior to now.
Should you purchase a myQ Outdoor Camera?
The dangerous information is that just about none of it will work with no subscription: A plan is required if you wish to save video, interval. Those plans haven’t modified since our most up-to-date myQ digicam overview, with two plans nonetheless supplied: $4/month or $40/12 months for seven days of storage on a single digicam; or $10/month or $100/12 months for 30 days of storage on a number of cameras (no gadget restrict specified). A 30-day trial of the single-device plan is included with buy.
But there’s one other spot of worse information for you: While the myQ Indoor Camera runs simply $38, the Outdoor Camera is priced at a whopping $80. I’m undecided {that a} lengthy USB cable deserves double the outlay over the earlier iteration of the digicam, however in the event you’re already proud of the myQ ecosystem and are in search of one thing with extra of a everlasting mounting possibility, the improve might not be seen as outrageous.
That mentioned, I’d solely suggest it for customers who’re already invested within the myQ ecosystem. Those who aren’t already wed to myQ will get a greater deal on an outside digicam elsewhere.