Hi there! Eufy sent me this S220 SoloCam and I managed to install it in under 10 minutes. Yes, that’s right, Let me show you what this Eufy S220 SoloCam can do and how easy it is to install this camera!
You can buy the Eufy S220 Solocam at Amazon: https://bit.ly/46FPeFO
You can buy the Eufy S220 Solocam at the Eufy website: https://bit.ly/3NL4OHo
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Security cameras seem to be popular devices that manufacturers want to send to influencers. This time Eufy sent me this security camera to test and to give my opinion. What struck me the most is that you don’t have to connect any cables at all. I mean, how???
Unboxing the Eufy S220 SoloCam
Let’s first see what’s in the box. When we open the box, we’ll find the camera itself. It is not a large camera, despite the fact that it contains a large battery. On top of the camera, you’ll find an integrated solar panel that will keep the camera battery powered. There’s also a quick start guide in the package in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch Portugese and Arabic. The guide is really simple and contains just 5 pages of information. Next to this, there’s only a wall mount with some screws and a USB-C cable to charge the camera in the box.
The wall mount can easily be screwed on the camera and is pretty sturdy for such a small wall mount. The front of the camera contains a Photosensitive sensor, a microphone, the camera lens, a LED indicator and a motion sensor. On the bottom of the camera you’ll find the SYNC button to sync the camera with the app and a connector to connect the USB-C cable if you want to charge the camera using a cable. Next to that there’s a speaker for two-way audio.
The product dimensions are 96.5×81×57.5mm and the weight of the camera is 320 grams.
The Specifications of the Eufy S220 SoloCam
The S220 SoloCam records in 2K quality which is 2304 by 1296 pixels at a framerate of 15 frames per second. The diagonal field of view is 135 degrees.
It has a build-in chargeable battery of 6500 milliamp Hour capacity and that battery should last 3 Months without having to be recharged. If you install the camera so that it gets 3 hours of sunlight per day, then it will be powered forever. So, you do not have to detect it from the wall to recharge it.
You do not need to use an SD card to store the footage of the camera because this camera has a built in storage of 8GB. The footage will be stored when motion is detected.
The camera does not have the possibility to connect using a network cable, but you can connect it directly using a 2.4 GHz WiFi connection. Next to that, you can also connect this camera to EUFY’s HomeBase 3 so that you can record to that instead of recording to the internal storage. This way, you do not need a paid plan to record to the cloud, although there is a paid plan to record to the cloud if you wish.
This camera has AI person detection, and if you hook it up to HomeBase 3, it also has enhanced AI facial recognition and it is weatherproof with an IP67 Rating.
The operating temperature is between minus 20 degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius. The camera has two-way audio so that you can talk to someone who is in front of this camera.
Setting up the camera
To set the camera up, you’ll need the Eufy app. After you’ve started the app, it asks you to log in or create an account. Choose to sign up first if you do not have an account. Log in when you’ve created an account. Make sure you turn on two-factor authentication to prevent hackers to log in to your camera. You can also activate FaceID so that you can log into the app using FaceID.
Adding the device
Now click Add Device to add the Eufy S220 SoloCam. Select Battery Camera and then select the SoloCam S220. Select your home and click Next. Now you can select if you want to connect the SoloCam to a router or to HomeBase. I do not own a Home Base myself, so I select Connect to Router and allow the location. Then, you have to select your 2.4 GHz WiFi network and fill in the WiFi password.
In the next step, you need to press the SYNC button on the camera for 2 seconds until you hear a beep, and the LED on the camera flashes blue.
The app will now generate a QR code which you have to scan with the camera itself. You will hear two beeps as soon as the camera scanned the QR code correctly and the Eufy SoloCam will connect to your WiFi network. When everything went well, the camera is connected to your WiFi and added successfully to the app. You can now give the camera a name. In my case it’s Backyard.
The camera will ask you for some settings next. The first setting is selecting the working mode. You can choose Optimal Battery Life, Optimal Surveillance, or Customize Recording. I choose Optimal Battery Life. Then, you can select the notification mode for the camera. I choose for Most efficient which will only send a text notification., but you can also choose to get a notification including a thumbnail. Make sure you fully charge the battery before you mount it to the wall.
Mounting the camera
When you mount the camera to the wall, make sure that the solar panel is fully exposed to direct sunlight for at least two hours for consistent charging. The app will guide you to help find a perfect spot to position your camera. Now check if the WiFi signal for the camera is perfect at the spot where you want to place it. Mount the camera at that spot if all looks good.
The app will check if a firmware update is needed and you can choose to update the firmware if you like. Your SoloCam is up and running after the firmware update is successful. Installing and mounting the Eufy SoloCam took me less than 10 minutes which I found was really impressive!
The options of the Eufy S220 SoloCam
The Eufy S220 SoloCam has a lot of options. First, we can check if there were any motion events recorded. You can also manually trigger a siren and go to the settings menu. In the settings menu you can set motion detection on or off and set the Activity Zone for motion detection. You can also set the detection sensitivity and Detection Type which I leave to Human Only.
When you click on Dashboard, you will see the Battery Percentage trend and Solar charging energy values.
Video Settings Menu
In the video settings menu, you can toggle the watermark and set the streaming quality. Next to the streaming quality, you can set the Recording Quality as well. I set the recording quality to 2K HD. You can choose to set the camera to Auto Night Vision and you can create privacy zones so that part of the image will not be recorded.
Audio Settings Menu
In the audio settings menu, you can toggle the microphone, audio recording, and the speaker. Furthermore, you can set the Speaker Volume to Low, Medium, or High.
Notification menu
In the notification settings menu, you can set how you want to receive notifications, just like you did when you set up the camera for the first time.
General Settings Menu
In the General Settings menu, you can change the name of the camera, toggle the status LED, and change the WiFi connection. Next to that, you can set up power management. The storage option shows the status of your local storage.
Share Device
In the Share device menu option, you can invite other users in your family.
Main menu
In the main menu, you can record the stream that you are watching and you can take a snapshot of the camera image. These recording will be saved to your phone album. When you press the Hold and Speak button, you can talk to a person that is in front of the camera. Next to local storage, you can also choose paid cloud storage. Eufy has a couple of storage plans that you can choose from. There’s a basic plan for 2.99 per month and a Plus plan that covers 10 devices for 9.99 per month.
Web Portal
The Eufy S220 Solocam can be accessed through a web portal by going to mysecurity.eufylife.com. Eufy added an extra security layer so that you have to enable access to the camera for 1, 8, 12 or 24 hours first. If you activate web portal access, the app will provide you with a safety pin code that you have to enter in the web portal. Very clever!
Furthermore, the camera has some advanced settings like setting the video encryption, and enabling privacy mode.
Actual Footage
The image of the SoloCam is very good. Here are some examples of footage that I recorded with this camera: <show footage>
Price
The price of this camera is currently $129.99, or €129.99, or £109.99, and can be ordered from various shops. I’ve added links in the description below where you can buy this camera.
Integration with Home Assistant
And now, the downside of this camera… Being a Home Assistant enthusiast, I wanted to connect this camera to Home Assistant. I tried a couple of methods, like RTSP, MQTT, and even the custom integration for Eufy, but I failed to connect it to Home Assistant.
I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t connect it to Home Assistant, but at the same time, I don’t think it is feasible to connect it to Home Assistant, because it is battery-powered and I think the battery would drain fast if I constantly stream video to Home Assistant. It would be nice to get a screenshot of the latest motion event in Home Assistant though. Maybe someday there will be a possibility to connect this camera to Home Assistant, but for now, it doesn’t seem to be possible.
Conclusion
So, what do I think of the Eufy S220 SoloCam? I really like it. The fact that you can place it anywhere outside and that it has a built-in solar panel so that it will have constant power is really nice. You don’t need to hook up any cables and it’s installed in less than 10 minutes.
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Bye Bye
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