eufy Security eufyCam S3 Pro 4-Cam Kit, Solar Camera Outdoor Wireless, MaxColor Night Vision, 4K Security Camera with Solar Panel, Face Recognition AI, Expandable Local Storage, No Monthly Fee

Wow! Great cameras
I installed 2 of these over the weekend. Installation was quick and easy. I used the “Standard” night vision setting which is phenomenal! I have 1 lamp post in the front yard with a standard LED bulb that dims a few hours after it turns on. The picture these cameras produce is amazing at night (and daytime too). There is no need for me to use IR (which is available) or the spotlight. The standard setting is incredible!I’ve tried the motion detection settings (human, vehicle, and pet) and they all work flawlessly. No more false alarms from leaves or shadows.The kit comes with an auxiliary solar panel that I may need to install. One of the cameras is about 70% blocked by the rain gutter and I suspect it will not charge efficiently in that spot. It is still at over 90% charge after 3 days of use, so it may be getting some charge. I do wish there was a way in the app to determine if the battery is charging or if the camera is getting sufficient solar power. The other camera is probably 20% blocked from the sun but is appears to be charging very well.Overall I would definitely recommend these cameras to anyone on the fence about purchasing. The price is a little steep, but this is definitely one of those items that you get what you pay for. I’m hoping these last as I’m no longer paying for a subscription to access my clips. It is local storage, but the clips are stored in the home base and not the camera which provides a little more security. I think Eufy offers a cloud service with subscription pricing, but I don’t think there is a need for it.Overall, I am very impressed and pleased with this system.

Excellent as Standalone; Marginal Homekit implementation
I went for this newer system for Homekit compatibility. While the overall system is very good the response time for viewing a camera that has been associated with Homekit is very slow. This is not an Apple issue as I have other cameras (Aqara, Logitec) that connect inside the Home app within 1-2 seconds. The two Eufy cameras that I have associated with Homekit take nearly 10 seconds and often fail to connect. I am pretty sure this is something in the Eufy Homekit implementation as the cameras connect within seconds inside the Eufy app.On the plus side the Eufy app’s Power Manager dashboard is excellent and unmatched by any other homekit cameras I have tried. I have one camera that will have limited solar time during the winter and it is performing well mostly on battery.I will update this review if Eufy pushes a firmware update that fixes this apparent Homekit problem otherwise beware if you are interested in this unit for Homekit Secure Video.

After much research I purchased several Eufy products, including this kit, in hopes of upgrading my present security system which requires a subscription to enable the majority of features. It was four fold in terms of cost so yes, I am expecting a better more consistent experience. Although it’s early in the game thus far, I am not seeing a huge improvement in terms of that experience being anywhere near 4x better. The phone app (Android & iOS) feels somewhat unpolished, and the Web Portal Access is kinda meh as things are slow to load, and there’s no ability to view more than one live view at a time. Maybe I’m expecting a bit much here I dunno, anyways…Upon unpackaging everything felt quite decent in terms of build quality especially the S3 Pro cameras, top notch packaging as well. Besides providing a device (phone, tablet, etc), and downloading the eufy Security app (for iOS or Android), everything else is included to get things up and running… The HomeBase S380 can be used to fully charge the batteries via USB on the cameras prior to mounting so it is not necessary to purchase a separate USB wall charger.The first thing I did prior to setup was to upgrade the storage on the HomeBase 3 (S380) as I felt the provided internal 16GB was a bit on the low side for the system components I was intending to install. Performing the upgrade was super easy as the base instantly recognised the SSD upon setting up the homebase. Even though there’s the ability to connect the homebase via WiFi I went the Ethernet route. Setup is a pretty straight forward process with voice prompts guiding along the way.Setting up the S3 Pro cameras was super easy as well, once done we just needed to find an area to mount them using the included mounts. The cameras definitely have some heft yet IMO it’s reasonable. Don’t forget to remove the film protecting the camera lens area, and solar panel. If camera placement means sunlight is going to be at a premium one may want to consider using eufy’s aux solar panel (one included in the kit). When it comes to image quality, it’s amazing and even more impressive how well it does at night. We haven’t had an ounce of sunshine where I live since mounting my cameras 2-weeks ago, yet they’ve been maintaining a battery percentage in the 91-93% range. That’s pretty darn good in my opinion.As I already alluded to, IMO the app kinda taints the overall experience. No, it is not consistently off but enough so to be noticeable. And from what I can figure out there’s no live view(s) when initially opening the app, or Web Portal. Or, multi-cam “live views” in either scenario. I hear it may be possible w/Apple’s Home Kit but I am not vested in such a system so it does me no good. Guess we’ll be keeping our old, and very cheap, security camera setup active for now since these options ARE possible with them.