YI 2pc Security Home Camera 3 Baby Monitor, 1080p WiFi Smart Indoor Nanny IP Cam with Night Vision, 2-Way Audio, Motion Detection, Phone App, Pet Cat Dog Cam - Works with Google

My first cam was a 1020p and the last is the second gen YI home cam 3. They don't mention it, but the hardware has changed and the new cams have both features, and deficits that are different from prior iterations. First the best thing, all YI cams have good picture quality. They also have good picture quality in night vision IR mode, although there is a noticeable decrease in frame rate. The method of linking cameras to your wifi using a QR code displayed on your phone screen is simple and intuitive. Once linked I have never had a problem with the camera loosing WIFI or any other setting. I do occasionally have occasional issues with loosing connectivity, but I'm 99% that this is an issue with a wifi extender I have in the loop. Even if a cam looses connectivity it is still recording on it's SD card. The android app's interface is very good, much better than the windows app. There are also features that are not implemented in the windows app at all, most notably the intercom feature. Conversely, the ability to see a 4 or 9 cam feed is only available on the windows app. The Home cam 3 all support the ability to play back video at 4x and 8x speed. What is hugely annoying is that the newest home cam 3 firmware does not support high speed playback via the windows app (I'm sure that they will eventually notice and fix this). Another windows app bug is that if the camera has no recorded video for the current day, say you are checking the feed at 12:05 AM, it disables the playback speed controls, so if you click backwards to 11 PM, you can only play video at 1x. Sometimes this bug happens even if there is recorded video.You can take a photo or video directly from the live feed in the windows app, but you can not download previously recorded video from the SD card. If you want to do that, you either need to use the phone app, or pull the sd card out of the camera. All generations have motion detection, which is very very broad. Even at lower settings shadows and wind movement of trees set it off. The home cam 3 has human detection that is hit or miss and the second gen home 3 has some kind of face recognition for human detection. The cams also will detect unusual noises, read as screaming or glass breaking, if you have the microphone enabled, which works reasonably well.Of the 9 cams I have, there have been only two issues; one camera refuses to turn back on after a power failure unless it is power cycled by pulling the plug. Another camera has static on the microphone. Bottom line you can spend a LOT more and get a better system, but the YI provides a very good system for the money. Things you might want to add on: for areas outside that need big IR illumination the Univivi Infrared Illuminator, 850nm 6 LEDs works really well. The YI cams 940 nm IR sensor sees 850nm just fine. The trade off is that the illuminator LEDs have a soft red glow visible to the naked eye from about 20 feet away, but it lights up every bit of a 160 square feet of total blackness like it is daylight. The CMVision IR50-940 IR Illuminator with 46pc IR LED is more of a spot than a flood and is totally invisible to the naked eye but does not throw anything like the lumens of the Univivi. Smays 4-Pack 25ft Security Camera Micro USB Extension Cable helps with getting power up to high places. The new cams have magnetic bases, and stick on well to I-beams, but for ceiling mount on drywall the Aotnex Wall Mount for Yi Home Cameras work well, and allows you to mount the cam and then rotate it around to find the best position.

I wanted a simple camera set up for at home and decided to give Yi a try. Based on some of a reviews I didn't have high expectations, but after 2 weeks I'm fairly surprised and impressed.Granted, for my use, viewing outside a window it is a bit of a challenge to get everything right for acceptable video quality but after some trial and error I'm getting decent results with Yi. Obviously it's nowhere near pro quality and I won't be reading license plates driving by at night, but otherwise its useful surveillance on a budget.Set up was easy, the app is slick, intuitive and responsive. Overall it's a great set up for at home. Alerts are generally spot on...for example the mailman dropping a package off, a car driving by, a cat wondering around. However there will be some false alarms too...be it the trees blowing on a windy day, or just random shadows at night. You do have to play with the settings a bit, change the sensitivity and play with the "activity zone" for the cameras. Overall it does alert you when movement occurs, as it should.Connectivity has been good for the 2 weeks I've had it. I have a fairly new TP Link router about 20 feet away and I haven't had any issues disconnecting yet. Pulling up alerts and viewing live video hasn't been a problem either. Usually it loads fast, however occasionally it does take about 20 seconds to load.The picture quality is excellent given the area is well lit and unobstructed. Day time footage is pretty clear. Night time footage isn't as great and takes some time to get everything right. It's not ideal but you can have them pointed out of a window and still have it viewable at night. Luckily you can turn off the IR light and also the connectivity light, which helps in this case. Also, making sure the room is dark and there is some ambient light outside does improve night footage through a window as well.Overall, it might be only a few weeks with the Yi cameras but so far they are impressive for the price. Connectivity, and ability to record on micro SD is great so far. Sure, there's likely some privacy concerns with video being routed elsewhere, but I doubt there's anything in this price range than can do quite this much.