Aqara’s Indoor Safety Digicam E1 is the little sibling to their wonderful Digicam Hub G3, geared toward those that don’t fairly want all of the bells and whistles or the upper worth. However don’t let that idiot you! The pan and tilt E1 is a sturdy indoor safety digital camera with an excellent characteristic set and stable video efficiency in each daylight and nighttime situations. I’ve just one minor grievance. We’ll contact on that shortly.
Aqara Digicam E1: Value and availability
The Aqara Indoor Safety Digicam E1 is at present obtainable solely by Amazon.com for $59.99. Though worth drops on this unit don’t occur usually, it was $44.99 in December 2023. On the time of this writing, Amazon is providing a ten% off voucher within the US.
Aqara Digicam E1: Specs and options
Aqara’s Digicam Hub G3 is considered one of their greatest indoor cameras, however should you’re invested within the Apple ecosystem, an Aqara hub is probably not what you’re after. That’s the place the Indoor Safety Digicam E1 is available in. For $50 much less, you get a lot of what the G3 presents and a few up to date options in a smaller 4-inch tall bundle.
The E1 helps Wi-Fi 6, whereas the Digicam Hub G3 is Wi-Fi 5. The E1 ups the G3’s strong privateness options by including masking zones. You possibly can add a black block to your video feed, so these areas are actually blacked out. That’s along with an automatic privateness mode, which lets you set particular occasions when the digital camera will pan and level towards a wall or different privacy-focused space. The privateness choices are an excellent characteristic as a result of you will note every thing fairly clearly with this 2K, f/2.0 digital camera, which appears nice in good lighting and low-light circumstances.
Related to Apple HomeKit, the E1 has Safe Video assist for storing incident movies within the cloud. Nonetheless, you too can file regionally as a result of it has a microSD slot for as much as 512GB of native video storage. That is particularly helpful should you activate the digital camera’s 24-hour recording with timelapse mode. Accessing that slot is straightforward; simply slide the digital camera’s tilt lens up, revealing a microSD slot on the backside of it.
One of many options I cherished taking part in with is the 2-way telecom system. There is a speaker and microphone constructed into the E1 so you should utilize it as a telecom to speak to whoever’s on the opposite facet of the picture. Your children, your vital different, your pet, discuss to everybody!
Aqara Digicam E1: Construct and appears
The Digicam E1 feels well-built, despite the fact that it’s primarily plastic. It’s tiny, measuring 4 inches tall by 2.68 inches huge, so it ought to simply match on a bookcase shelf or most different places. It might even be mounted to the ceiling, after which you possibly can go into the Aqara Residence app and reorient the video.
The digital camera stays out of the way in which with an infrared backlight, which you received’t discover throughout lights out if that is in a bed room. The motor is whisper quiet, so that you’ll doubtless by no means hear it panning.
Aqara Digicam E1: Ease of use
Establishing the Digicam E1 is straightforward, because the Aqara and Apple Residence apps accomplish that with a QR code. You probably have every thing needed, you’ll be up and operating in only a few minutes. On this case, having every thing needed would imply you personal an influence adapter as a result of the E1 doesn’t include the brick within the field, simply the USB-C cable.
Establishing the privateness options within the Aqara Residence app is a breeze, and although there’s a little bit of a delay, the handbook pan and tilt options work effectively. You need to know that after you bind the digital camera to HomeKit, or should you select to forgo Aqara Residence and solely use HK, you lose entry to many privateness options, in addition to handbook pan and tilt management. It would nonetheless observe people and detect movement, however you received’t have the ability to set these privateness positions and also you lose the power to set as much as three occlusion zones. For the privateness options, you’ll must set these up in Aqara Residence as scenes first, that are then uncovered to Apple Residence. Then, you possibly can set off them utilizing automation in Apple Residence with no need the Aqara Residence app.
One vital facet of the privateness options is that they’re processed regionally. The E1 has a built-in neural processing unit that permits particular person and sound detection on the machine.
As I alluded to earlier within the piece, my solely gripe with Aqara’s Indoor Safety Digicam E1 is that the human-tracking automated pan and tilt is finicky. I’ve discovered that placement impacts its capacity to trace, similar to the Digicam Hub G3. When the digital camera is positioned round hip top (I’m 6’ tall), I’ve discovered it a bit sluggish to pan with shifting objects, particularly me. Place the digital camera larger the place its AI can choose up faces, and your human monitoring improves.
Aqara Digicam E1: Competitors
Pan and tilt choices that assist HomeKit Safe Video are few, however there are two different cameras price testing. We reviewed and appreciated Eufy’s Pan 2K which is now the 2K Indoor Cam E220 and proper now its worth can’t be beat at solely $35.99 on Eufy’s web site and Amazon.
VOCOlinc Opto HomeKit Indoor Digicam can be an choice at a decrease value, obtainable on their web site for $49.99. It additionally has pan and tilt performance however is barely operating 1080P video which is okay due to the HKSV limitations when binding 2K cameras just like the E1. HomeKit knocks 2K video right down to 1080P in Apple Residence and for video recorded to the cloud.
Aqara Digicam E1: Must you purchase it?
You can purchase this if…
- You need pan and tilt at an excellent worth
- The privateness options are important to your use case
- You don’t want the entire Digicam Hub G3 options
You should not purchase this if…
- It’s good to mount it on a vertical floor like a wall
Aqara Digicam E1: Verdict
With the Aqara Indoor Safety Digicam E1, you get fairly a little bit of digital camera for an excellent worth. Onboard particular person and sound detection and strong privateness options make this an excellent choice to be used circumstances the place what’s on digital camera at sure occasions is a priority. Wi-Fi 6 means you have got extra dependable stay video feed entry in properties with dozens of different Wi-Fi devices, and 360-degree rotation means you possibly can see nearly every thing.
There aren’t many pan and tilts at this worth level with this characteristic set, so the Digicam E1 must be in your shortlist should you’re after PT performance. Even should you don’t want the hub however PT is important, take into account trying on the Digicam Hub G3, which has extra dependable monitoring, built-in facial recognition, and an alarm uncovered in HomeKit.
Aqara 2K Indoor Safety Digicam E1
Robust act to comply with, but it surely follows you!
You do not have dozens of pan and tilt cameras which assist HomeKit Safe Video, however of those who do, the Digicam E1 is among the greatest.
