At a look
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Battery energy and a magnetic mount present numerous placement flexibility
- 2K decision, double that of earlier myQ cameras
- Powerful onboard LED highlight
Cons
- Lacks infrared evening imaginative and prescient
- Nighttime movement prompts the highlight, and you’ll’t disable that conduct
- Can’t report video with no subscription
Our Verdict
Chamberlain provides this battery-powered myQ digital camera a protracted overdue enhance to decision, together with a shiny highlight to thrust back the darkish. Unfortunately, you may’t forestall its movement detector from turning these LEDs on at evening.
Price When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Best Pricing Today
Price When Reviewed
$99.99
Best Prices Today: myQ Outdoor Battery Camera
$89
Just a couple of months in the past, Chamberlain’s myQ model prolonged its house safety digital camera lineup with its first outside mannequin. Now the model is again with one other iteration, this time one with a built-in battery.
The industrial design maintains the long-running overturned-coffee-cup look used for each myQ digital camera up to now. The fundamental departure for the battery-powered mannequin reviewed here’s a new base that permits the digital camera to affix magnetically to its swivel mount. (It can even affix to a different metallic floor, although you received’t have the ability to goal it simply.)
Battery energy makes setup extra handy, however the boosted decision is a extra compelling purpose to spend slightly extra on this new mannequin.
Specifications
Chamberlain doesn’t specify the dimensions of the battery—it isn’t removeable nor replaceable—however suggests it would run for 4 to 6 months earlier than needing a recharge. Charging takes place through a recessed USB-C port on the underside of the system. You can even go away it plugged in 24/7 for those who don’t wish to benefit from the battery function (or for those who’re afraid you’ll neglect to take it down for charging, doubtlessly lacking an important occasion).
Chamberlain Group
In addition to the battery, the digital camera provides one other improve over the wired myQ Outdoor Camera: elevated decision of 2560 x 1440 pixels—a big enchancment over the 1080p picture sensor within the older digital camera. An built-in highlight is one other new function; it’s activated when movement is detected at evening or on demand. Note that this highlight is in lieu of infrared evening imaginative and prescient: In the darkish, the digital camera can’t see something with out the highlight on; the picture goes absolutely black.
A 130-degree subject of view and two-way audio stay customary. Chamberlain makes no weatherization claims—or no less than it doesn’t publish an IP code for the digital camera—however its USB-C port and its reset button are lined by thick rubber flaps, suggesting an inexpensive degree of weatherproofing.
Setup isn’t advanced, requiring you to press and maintain the reset button on the underside of the digital camera whereas onboarding it to the app. The location of this button is difficult to succeed in with no pen or different implement, however as soon as that’s resolved, it’s a easy course of to attach the digital camera to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi community.
Performance
The myQ Outdoor Battery Camera app has all of the settings you’d anticipate finding in the sort of system, however it doesn’t supply a way of stopping nighttime movement detection from activating its shiny highlight.
Chamberlain Group
Functionally, the digital camera is equivalent to each different myQ digital camera: A dwell video feed is accessible on demand, and recordings are made solely when movement is detected. These are saved on myQ’s cloud service solely (there is no such thing as a onboard or different technique of storage). Video appears good—even higher now, due to the decision improve—both by day or beneath the surprisingly sturdy highlight, which has a big vary of no less than 50 ft.
Clips are initiated when movement is detected; as with different myQ gear, there’s no strategy to manually report video clips or to report 24/7. Clips are restricted in size, starting from a minimal of 10 seconds to an unknown most size, although the longest I achieved was 43 seconds throughout my testing over a number of days.
The digital camera categorizes clips primarily based on the kind of movement, together with particular person, animal, bundle, and car. Faces can be registered, which helps you to tag clips with the names of members of the family and frequent guests. Each of those AI-powered modes could be turned off, however there doesn’t appear to be any sturdy purpose to take action.
Motion-sensing vary could be adjusted (particularly as a battery-saving measure) and as much as three detection zones are supported if you wish to display screen out elements of the picture, for the sake of neighbor privateness for instance.
Most of those options work effectively, though the digital camera usually failed at recognizing my cat and barely assigned an “animal” designation to these clips—this regardless of her strolling immediately by way of the body. Motion detection was in any other case on level. Skimming by way of clips is straightforward within the monolithic archive of recordings, and a filtering system permits you to simply drill down for those who’re on the lookout for a sure kind of exercise.
This digital camera’s 2K decision is a big step up from earlier cameras within the myQ vary, however its onboard AI persistently refused to determine my cat as an animal, regardless of what number of instances I corrected it.
Chamberlain Group
Because myQ cameras retailer all their video on-line, playback could be a bit gradual, although issues appeared improved in my testing this time round in comparison with my expertise with the wired outside digital camera. I didn’t encounter any crashes or different operational bugs, besides that I couldn’t disable the highlight. You can flip it off after movement detection has turned it on, and you’ll flip it off after manually turning it on, however there’s no technique of stopping movement detection from turning it on.
The settings within the myQ app’s Night Vision menu didn’t do something: the Automatic, Always, and Never choices all made the digital camera behave the identical means, activating the highlight at evening when movement was detected. I think about there’s a robust risk that this conduct isn’t what myQ supposed and that will probably be mounted or revamped down the street.
As with all different myQ gadgets, you’ll completely have to subscribe to myQ’s video storage service if you need something past a dwell stream. Pricing hasn’t modified of late: It’s $4/month or $40/yr for seven days of storage on a single digital camera; or $10/month or $100/yr for 30 days of storage on a number of cameras. A 30-day trial of the single-device, seven-day plan is included with buy and robotically prompts upon set up.
Should you purchase the myQ Outdoor Battery Camera?
Chamberlain has put a steered retail worth of $100 on this digital camera, and on the time of this evaluation, its road worth was round $89. Compare these costs to the wired myQ Outdoor Camera, with its $80 MSRP and present road worth of $75. The addition of battery energy makes setup extra handy, however the enhance in decision is an much more compelling purpose to spend an additional $15 or $20 to choose up this newer mannequin.
If you’re already within the myQ digital camera ecosystem and are paying for a subscription, including this mannequin makes wonderful sense, since there can be no further value so as to add cameras on the multi-device plan.
That mentioned, the absence of infrared evening imaginative and prescient and the lack to forestall movement detection from turning on this digital camera’s highlight are vital drawbacks. If both of these limitations is even remotely essential to you, contemplate this digital camera a move.