Last week, I looked at the state of HomeKit Secure Video. While I agree that it will take a lot of work to meet users’ needs in 2024, I also agree that it’s still the best way for privacy-focused people to use smart home cameras. The Eve Cam is one of the best cameras on the market for HomeKit Secure video.
HomeKit Weekly is a series focused on smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything to do with Apple’s smart home framework.
Why do we love the Eve Cam?
Explaining the why for a review, I believe, is the most critical aspect of a review. For HomeKit Secure Video cameras, I think that it’s critical to be able to say this company doesn’t operate its own cloud service. Do you want to pay Eve instead of Apple for storing footage? Sorry, they don’t offer that service. Eve is all in on Apple for smart home camera footage, and I love them for it.
The TL;DR of this article is that the Eve Cam is the standard for indoor-only HomeKit cameras. If you stop reading here, that’s enough to know. Is it the cheapest indoor HomeKit camera? No, but Eve is a vendor as close to Apple releasing first-party HomeKit products as will come.
Unboxing the camera will take just a minute, but there are a few pieces you’ll need to assemble. The camera is separate, so you must pick your country-specific AC adaptor and connect the included USB cord. Having the USB cord detached from the camera is a convenient feature because you can swap it out in the future to use a longer (or shorter) cord or replace it if the end becomes damaged. The major downside to this product is that you’ll have to get power. Depending on how your home is laid out, this might require an additional outlet to be installed or wires to be fished back into your home. On a positive note, you’ll never have to worry about charging a battery. Unfortunately, we can’t get the convenience of battery with the convenience of wired (maybe someday?!?).
Like other Eve products, it’s purpose-built for HomeKit, so you don’t need another app when setting the camera up. You’ll only need to download the Eve app if you want to upgrade the firmware. The only step you need to take to configure the camera is to scan the included QR code inside the Home app, add it to a room, and then set your recording preferences. All cameras with HomeKit Secure Video support have recording options to meet all desired security levels. When you are home or away, they can be set to:
- Completely off
- Sensor only (for HomeKit automations)
- Stream Only
- Stream and Record
I am putting this camera on my covered porch, so I will set it to stream and record at all times when motion is detected (cmon 2/47 recording!). The Eve cam includes a magnetic base, so you can easily stack it on something metal and hold itself in place. A few years back, Eve updated the Eve app to allow for flipped orientation that will also reverse it inside the Home app. This feature is helpful if you want to mount the camera under a shelf or on a ceiling.
HomeKit Secure Video
With Apple’s basic 50 GB iCloud+ plan, you can use one HomeKit Secure Video camera. Bump up to the 200 GB package, and you’re good for up to five cameras. Go all out with the 2 TB plan, and you’re looking at unlimited HomeKit cameras at no extra cost on top of your regular iCloud plan. HomeKit Secure Video keeps a 10-day event history, so you can rewind and check if needed. One benefit of how Apple structures the service is that the recording sizes don’t take up your iCloud storage; Apple is just using the storage tiers to limit how many cameras you can have at once. If you’re on the free iCloud plan, you can’t record, but you can still stream live and get motion alerts in real-time.
Learn more about HomeKit Secure Video.
Wrap up
Would I like to see a 2024 version of the Eve camera? You bet I would. I would love to see Eve come back with an upgraded model with high-quality video, a better microphone, Thread, and maybe even a battery-powered option, but this camera still rocks. It was one of the first cameras I bought that supported HomeKit Secure Video, and it’s still one I recommend for indoor usage. Eve, is HomeKit, and HomeKit is Eve. This camera should be in all HomeKit homes. Any frustrations I have with the Eve Cam are actually frustrations with HomeKit Secure Video.
You can buy the Eve Cam on Amazon and directly from the Eve store.
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