Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Sets up shortly and simply, integrates properly with the SimpliSafe ecosystem.
- Petite, enticing {hardware}.
Cons
- Camera has no actual expertise upgrades over older gen {hardware}.
- AGOP drops video high quality right down to a grainy 720p.
- Monitoring service is extraordinarily expensive and will not be as efficient as desired.
Our Verdict
SimpliSafe’s new outside digicam permits its new lively response system, but it surely supplies actually no different cause to improve from the earlier digicam.
Price When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Best Pricing Today
Price When Reviewed
$199.99
Best Prices Today: SimpliSafe Outdoor Security Camera Series 2
$86.99
SimpliSafe is likely one of the most venerable good house safety firms, and whereas it usually refreshes its {hardware}, it does so machine by machine, moderately than upgrading all the system directly. Makes sense, as a result of it has no less than 16 totally different elements you may combine and match along with your current SimpliSafe base station or add on to considered one of its {hardware} bundles.
The newest improve to the SimpliSafe household is a brand new model of the SimpliSafe Wireless Outdoor Security Camera, which was launched in 2021. The SimpliSafe Outdoor Security Camera 2 retains the general feel and appear of the unique, whereas making a number of adjustments that supply some compelling upgrades.
Features and design
Quite a number of issues stay the identical: It’s nonetheless—surprisingly—a 1080p digicam with IP65 weatherproofing (that means it’s dust-proof and proof against water jets sprayed from any course) and a 140-degree area of view. Infrared evening imaginative and prescient is included, together with a small highlight, built-in two-way audio, and a 90 dB siren, whereas a magnetic base permits for simple repositioning. The digicam might be powered both by its inner battery (SimpliSafe says it would final for as much as 3 months), a microUSB energy cable, or an optionally available photo voltaic panel ($80).
If you don’t need or want SimpliSafe’s lively response service, there’s actually no cause to improve from the older, cheaper outside digicam.
Again, none of digicam’s core options provide any main adjustments, and had been it not for the sizeable ridge that now juts out beneath the lens housing, you may not discover any distinction in any respect between the SimpliSafe Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 2 and its predecessor.
The new SimpliSafe Outdoor Camera 2 appears to be like and works virtually precisely the identical because the earlier model.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Setup
If you have already got a SimpliSafe system, organising the digicam is a straightforward affair that ought to take just a few minutes of onboarding. I arrange a brand new hub from scratch for this assessment. Including all of the unboxing, setup, tutorials, and upgrades, getting ready a small system of hub, keypad, two sensors, and two cameras took about 45 minutes, with just one hiccup requiring an indoor digicam to be reset.
The digicam nonetheless works together with most different SimpliSafe gear, which implies it would robotically document if the system is armed and one of many sensors is triggered. (SimpliSafe final up to date its movement and entry sensors in 2023.) My solely actual criticism is that, bizarrely, SimpliSafe cameras nonetheless use dated microUSB connectors and cables for energy as an alternative of extra fashionable (and symmetrical) USB-C.
AI-powered menace detection
The greatest improve to the digicam is its help for SimpliSafe’s Active Guard Outdoor Protection (AGOP), a brand new service that makes use of AI to detect potential threats on video, then alerts reside (human) brokers to view the digicam feed and take motion.
Agents can converse to trespassers, sound the siren, or activate the highlight—or all three—and dispatch police if the state of affairs warrants it.
Of course, to benefit from this new function, you will have considered one of SimpliSafe’s upper-tier monitoring plans. The Core plan ($32/month) doesn’t embrace AGOP. The Pro plan ($50/month) consists of the AGOP service however solely from 8pm to 6am native time every day. You’ll want the Pro Plus plan ($80/month, gulp) in order for you 24/7 monitoring.
Other than that, all of the plans are about the identical, together with limitless cloud storage for as much as 10 cameras, agent intervention on indoor cameras, and emergency dispatch providers.
Performance
I examined AGOP on the brand new Outdoor Camera 2 by arming the system and strolling by means of the digicam’s body a number of occasions, in addition to having my spouse achieve this.
What’s supposed to occur, per SimpliSafe, is {that a} SimpliSafe agent ought to connect with the digicam’s speaker and let the intruder know they’re being monitored and recorded, then ask, “How can I help you?” What did occur throughout my testing is none of that: Not as soon as did a voice come over the speaker in any respect.
SimpliSafe’s Active Guard Outdoor Protection (AGOP) service makes use of AI to detect potential threats on video, then alerts reside (human) brokers to view the digicam feed and take motion.
Christopher Null/Foundry
The movies had been, nonetheless, efficiently monitored by SimpliSafe, because the app’s Timeline signifies when a clip is considered by the corporate’s brokers. Nearly all of those had been categorized inside a couple of minutes as “Common activity” and apparently dismissed as innocent. It wasn’t till I placed on a baseball cap and ran by means of the body—as suspiciously as I may—that the clip was categorized as “Person on property,” after which I acquired an e-mail from SimpliSafe to that impact, together with a nonetheless from the video. The vetting course of takes a couple of minutes to finish for every incidence.
The outcomes may need been totally different had I run by means of the body wielding a machete or repositioned the digicam so it may spot me choosing the lock. But SimpliSafe formally advises in opposition to simulating such prison situations, as their brokers can decide to name police immediately within the occasion of significant emergencies. (Besides, there are limits to what I’m keen to do for PCWorld.) The backside line is that whereas testing AGOP to its fullest extent will not be wholly potential, it clearly doesn’t fairly work the way in which it’s marketed.
AGOP additionally comes with some caveats. It solely works with outside cameras (because the title implies) and it makes some necessary adjustments to the digicam’s settings within the course of, notably dropping video high quality right down to 720 by 1280 pixels (720p), turning on IR evening imaginative and prescient, and activating the standing gentle. Medium movement sensitivity and people-only movement detection are additionally necessary. As properly, cameras with AGOP enabled should even be linked to wall energy and may’t be operating on battery energy or have a photo voltaic connection. The solely digicam function that the person has any actual management over is the exercise zone setting, so you may block out areas you don’t need monitored.
Of these constraints, the decision drop is probably the most notable: 720p video is grainy and pixilated, and at a distance it’s troublesome to make out faces with any stage of reliability. Night imaginative and prescient is equally washed out and murky.
Should you purchase the SimpliSafe Outdoor Security Camera 2?
The $200 asking worth for the digicam (a lot much less in case you store round) is after all deceptive, as you’ll spend a minimal of no less than $600 extra every year on monitoring.
If you don’t need or want the AGOP service–and it’s robust to say whether or not it’s value that outlay–there’s actually no cause to improve from the older, cheaper outside digicam, which can be had for as little as $73 at this writing.
This assessment is a part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best security cameras.