With a longtime fame for high quality sensible lighting, albeit at a hefty price, Philips Hue is a well-known brand. A transfer into the saturated safety market could appear incongruous, however there are causes to purchase a Philips Hue Safe digicam. Belief, reliability, and seamless syncing with Hue lights will tempt some, however distinctly common specs, the necessity for a subscription, and the dearth of HomeKit help make it a troublesome promote for others.
Closing in on a month with the brand new Philips Hue Safe wired digicam, I’m impressed by the efficiency and the tight integration into the present Hue app. However the want for a Hue Bridge and a subscription to unlock the very best options is off-putting, and there are a lot of extra reasonably priced choices in our best indoor and outdoor security camera guides.
Strong Design
{Photograph}: Philips
The Philips Hue Safe digicam is available in black or white with a magnetic mount and a 3-meter (round 10-foot) energy cable that slots into the underside of the digicam and is completely hooked up to the ability adapter on the different finish. It appears to be like like an oversize Google Nest Cam. It feels sturdy and scores an IP65 ranking, which suggests you should utilize it outdoors, although the big energy adapter received’t match some outside sockets. There’s a larger, battery-powered, wireless Hue camera that’s higher suited to the outside, although it prices an additional $50 and now we have not examined it but.
I put in the Philips Hue Safe digicam in my workplace and opted for the model with the desktop stand, which price an additional $30. The robust magnetic mount makes it straightforward to regulate to your most well-liked angle and it slots into the weighted desk stand securely. There’s additionally cable administration on the underside, however I’m nonetheless not satisfied the stand is definitely worth the extra outlay.
A easy QR code scan had my digicam up and operating inside a couple of minutes. It is a 1080p digicam with a 141.2-degree area of view that allows you to preserve tabs on a large space, although there’s some fish-eye distortion. The footage was crisp and clear, and I discovered the digicam coped fairly effectively with combined lighting and motion. There’s additionally stable evening imaginative and prescient in black and white. Connectivity-wise, the digicam helps Zigbee and each 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz Wi-Fi. I discovered it was comparatively swift to load the livestream and there was just about no lag.
Movement notifications have been dependable and got here via swiftly to my Pixel telephone and iPhone 14 Professional. A useful nonetheless body from every video provides you an thought of what the alert is about, so you may resolve whether or not it is advisable overview it. You’ll be able to livestream and set blackout zones, and all video is end-to-end encrypted, so solely you could have entry. When you’ve got a Hue Bridge ($60) and Hue lights, you may set the digicam to set off them. For instance, you might need an intruder set off flashing crimson lights.
I had the digicam in my workplace set off the Hue lights within the room and was capable of set them to completely different ranges based mostly on the time of day. It’s neat and works barely higher than a movement sensor, turning the lights off extra swiftly if you depart. The Take Motion button reveals choices to swiftly name an emergency contact or 911, activate brilliant lights to see higher, and a slider to set off the siren and flash your Hue lights. You too can faucet the Speak button for two-way audio, which provides first rate sound high quality and just about no lag, making it straightforward to hold on a dialog.
Slick Integration
To get the very best from this digicam you want the Hue Bridge and lights, and a subscription. You’ll be able to both pay $4 a month or $40 a 12 months for a fundamental plan that covers one digicam, or you may pay $10 a month or $100 a 12 months for as much as 10 cameras. Each plans unlock video clip recording to the cloud (there’s no native storage possibility), exercise zones, and AI-powered detection able to figuring out folks, animals, packages, and automobiles. The Fundamental plan provides you 30 days of cloud storage and the Plus plan ups that to 60 days.
