Let’s face it. There are a lot of different brands of Internet Protocol (IP) Cameras out there. Whether you want indoor or outdoor cameras, you have choices nowadays. Recently, a friend showed off a photo of his daughter resisting her nap in the crib while sucking her thumb quietly. What stuck out the most was that he was using a fairly popular brand of indoor IP camera rather than a standard baby monitor. Cute, and just one of the many uses of these cameras nowadays. However, one brand has recently showed up to test the market and bring with it some new twists on this growing market of cameras. EZVIZ cameras have recently arrived at Best Buy and they take a different approach than most of their competitors. Here are a few things you should know about their cameras and why they might work for your home.
Outdoor EZVIZ cameras have a glorious Ingress Protection rating
If you read my blogs, I rave regularly about Ingress Protection (also abbreviated as IP) ratings. Living on the wet west coast, any security camera I hook up will get deluged with rain at around 200 days of the year or more. The majority of outdoor EZVIZ cameras have a ridiculously generous IP66 rating, which is among the highest (if not the highest) ratings I’ve ever seen. Here’s how the rating breaks down:
- The first digit deals with dust ingress. At 6, it has the highest dust protection rating. This means that your camera is dust tight and for it to get this rating, it must be vacuum tested rigorously.
- The second digit deals with water ingress. While this 6 isn’t the highest possible rating, it is about as high as you can expect out of a home camera that isn’t fully immersed in water. For this rating, the camera undergoes a lengthy direct pelting of approximately 100 litres of water per minute.
If you factor both of those together, you’re unlikely to find a climate in Canada that would put this fully to the test and that’s good. The best part is that numerous EZVIZ cameras have this feature, so you’ll have a fair few options to choose from.
EZVIZ Cameras don’t skimp on weather support
When I woke up this morning and drove to work, it was -5 outside. That isn’t questionable for many of you but it may as well be -75 to Vancouverites with our wind chill included. If I had an EZVIZ camera pointing out my front door, it would still be working. Some EZVIZ cameras are rated to work in cold snaps from -40 to the unlikely heat of 60 degrees celsius. Most cold rated cameras begin to fail in the -10 to -15 range. Some EZVIZ cameras will only support down to -5 celsius but full systems like the EZVIZ Wired 8-CH 2TB DVR Security System will go the full way down to -40. That’s cold.
EZVIZ plays well with IFTTT
The nice part about EZVIZ cameras are that they aren’t on their own island. EZVIZ cameras connect with IFTTT to allow you to take on a multitude of different recipes and interact with other popular Home Automation tech, like Philips Hue and Belkin WeMo. The current list of recipes are a bit limited, but as more users adopt EZVIZ and IFTTT together, you should see a bigger list sooner than later.
That’s a general overview of EZVIZ in general. Let’s take a look specifically at some of their cameras and what they do.
EZVIZ Indoor Cameras
If you look at cameras like the EZVIZ Mini Plus Wi-Fi Indoor 1080p IP Camera or EZVIZ Mini O Wi-Fi Indoor 720p IP Camera, you begin to quickly see how much they differ from the competition with what they offer. First, these indoor cameras are a bit more cost affordable than some of their competitors while providing similar features. Both cameras connect wirelessly to your home network to allow for real time access and notification. Like many other IP Cameras out there, there is a cloud storage service. However, what separates this from other cameras are two specific features that you don’t really see on indoor cameras like this. The first is a magnetic mount. While this isn’t really significant in itself, it might save you valuable mounting time and energy if you just have a surface you can stick it to.
Lastly, and I consider this to be a big one, is local storage. Both cameras can support up to 128 GB MicroSD storage (the Mini Plus comes with a 16GB card while the Mini O requires additional purchase) and capture crucial moments for you locally if you choose not to purchase cloud storage. This is a great feature for those who cannot afford an ongoing cloud subscription or just don’t want one.
Outside of that, the cameras come with all of the other standard features, like two-way communication, variable digital zoom, night vision and wide angle viewing.
EZVIZ Outdoor Cameras
Outdoors is where I think EZVIZ cameras are the most fun. I’ve already spoken to the outstanding Ingress rating and to the fact that they’re one of the few home security camera systems that will work in a Baffin Island winter. The other things that really stand out to me are how all-encompassing their systems are as well as how sturdily built they are. Most of the multi-camera outdoor security systems you buy come not only with the cameras, but also with its own storage systems.
Smaller security systems like the EZViz Wired 4-CH 1TB DVR Security System come with a 1TB hard drive for the sake of ongoing storage and can support a couple extra cameras too (which you’ll have to buy separate). Larger scale systems like the EZVIZ Wired 16-CH 3TB NVR Security System can support up to a massive 16 cameras and have a massive 3TB hard drive. While range of vision will range depending on which cameras you choose to go with, all cameras come with very effective and wide-spread night vision coverage, and, because of how they’re built, they are tamper and vandalism resistant once you mount them.
If you’re not really into the “entire systems in a box” approach, EZVIZ also offers options like the EZVIZ Husky Wi-Fi Outdoor 1080p Dome IP Camera and EZVIZ Husky Wi-Fi Outdoor 1080p Bullet Security Camera (both available in multi-packs as well) which feature the same internal MicroSD storage capabilities I mentioned the indoor cameras have. However, you have completely different looking cameras, and by buying singles (or small multi-packs), you can call the shots as to where they go and work with different angled ranges of vision.
A different storage approach
EZVIZ also has a bit of an unorthodox approach to expanded local storage for these types of cameras if you want to buy a larger centralized storage option too. Check out the EZVIZ Vault. It allows up to any 8 EZVIZ cameras to connect to it and stores their footage. The biggest difference between this one and the hard drive you get with the systems in a box is that Vault allows you to mix and match EZVIZ cameras more freely, while the previous drives are fairly linear in what they will support (with preference to the bullet style cameras.)
Overall, EZVIZ brings a rough and rugged approach to the IP Camera market, one that is needed here to brave the cold Canadian winters and warm Canadian summers. They aren’t necessarily a household name, but they’re one worth considering when you go shopping for your next home security system. Check out the full line of EZVIZ cameras and accessories today at BestBuy.ca
