A well-rounded security camera for the everyman

Gone are the days of paying a security company tons of money to come to your house and equip it with sensors and cameras. It’s 2022 and consumers are able to piece together a setup that meets their needs and/or budget.

Thanks to brands like EZVIZ, it’s easy to build an affordable system of cameras for both the inside and outside of the home. If you want to blanket your entire property in security cameras, you can do that. Or, if you’d prefer, you can string together something over time that starts in a particular room and then expands.

The EZVIZ C8W Pro 2K is a terrific unit for someone who may be looking to outfit their home with the proverbial “eye in the sky”. Priced just $150, it’s a waterproof (IP65) orb of a device that can be mounted outdoors.

The bottom half of the camera rotates almost completely around, picking up a total 340 degrees field of view. That is to say, it sees everything but the wall it’s mounted on. Additionally, it pans and tilts 80 degrees so it can capture quite a bit of your front yard or driveway.

Tested to handle temperatures up to 140 degrees, the EZVIZ C8W Pro 2K can also withstand a little bit of cold, too. Indeed, it’s rated up to -22 degrees Fahrenheit.

Noteworthy features include automatic tracking, event-triggered capture, detection for humans and vehicles, two-way talk, and local storage of clips. These aren’t necessarily ground-breaking, and definitely aren’t exclusive, but it’s a solid mix of options for the price.

Auto-tracking and detection worked quite well for us in our testing, locking onto moving objects and keeping them in a red outline of a box. It’s not as if you can’t make it out on your own, but we appreciate it showing us how it sees things.

Alerts are relatively quick, notifying us on our device. And while we do like the settings in the app, we’d love to toggle more than one option for notifications. As it is, you can only have it ping you for humans or vehicles, not “either or”. This isn’t much of a factor outside of the driveway but we’d like it nonetheless.

With a 2K resolution, the EZVIZ C8W Pro 2K captures more detail than standard HD (1080p) cameras and thanks to its built-in light, it can produce color night vision.

Fans of automation will be pleased with what’s on offer. You can connect the camera to Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or IFTTT for creating interesting alerts and processes.

When it comes to storing your files, you can save things locally or through the cloud via EZVIZ CloudPlay. Opt for the former and you’ll need to buy a microSD card for a one-time purchase. Go for the latter and you could be looking at the following prices.

• 3-day event-based video history Monthly: €2.99 (~$3 USD) Yearly: €29.99 (~$30 USD)
• 7-day event-based video history Monthly: €4.99 (~$5 USD) Yearly: €49.99 (~$50 USD)
• 30-day event-based video history Monthly: €9.99 (~$10USD) Yearly: €99.99 (~$100 USD)

Learn more about the C8W Pro 2K and other models in the EZVIZ portfolio at the manufacturer’s website. There’s quite a selection for both indoor and outdoor needs and prices for all budgets.