With a longtime repute for high quality good lighting, albeit at a hefty value, 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 Secure digital camera. Trust, reliability, and seamless syncing with Hue lights will tempt some, however distinctly common specs, the necessity for a subscription, and the shortage of HomeKit assist make it a troublesome promote for others.

Closing in on a month with the brand new Philips Hue Secure wired digital camera, I’m impressed by the efficiency and the tight integration into the prevailing Hue app. But the necessity for a Hue Bridge and a subscription to unlock the perfect options is off-putting, and there are a lot of extra inexpensive choices in our best indoor and outdoor security camera guides.

Solid Design

The Philips Hue Secure digital camera 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 digital camera and is completely hooked up to the facility adapter on the different finish. It seems to be like an oversize Google Nest Cam. It feels sturdy and scores an IP65 ranking, which suggests you should use it outdoors, although the massive energy adapter gained’t match some out of doors sockets. There is an even bigger, battery-powered, wireless Hue camera that’s higher suited to the outside, although it prices an additional $50 and we’ve got not examined it but.

I put in the Philips Hue Secure digital camera in my workplace and opted for the model with the desktop stand, which value an additional $30. The sturdy magnetic mount makes it simple to regulate to your most well-liked angle and it slots into the weighted desk stand securely. There can also be 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 digital camera up and working inside a couple of minutes. This is a 1080p digital camera with a 141.2-degree area of view that allows you to hold tabs on a large space, although there’s some fish-eye distortion. The footage was crisp and clear, and I discovered the digital camera coped fairly effectively with blended lighting and motion. There’s additionally strong night time imaginative and prescient in black and white. Connectivity-wise, the digital camera 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 nearly no lag.

Motion notifications had been dependable and got here by means of swiftly to my Pixel telephone and iPhone 14 Pro. A useful nonetheless body from every video offers you an concept of what the alert is about, so you may resolve whether or not you’ll want to evaluate it. You can livestream and set blackout zones, and all video is end-to-end encrypted, so solely you will have entry. If you will have a Hue Bridge ($60) and Hue lights, you may set the digital camera to set off them. For instance, you might need an intruder set off flashing crimson lights.

I had the digital camera in my workplace set off the Hue lights within the room and was in a position to set them to totally different ranges primarily based on the time of day. It’s neat and works barely higher than a movement sensor, turning the lights off extra swiftly while you depart. The Take Action 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 also can faucet the Talk button for two-way audio, which affords respectable sound high quality and nearly no lag, making it simple to hold on a dialog.

Slick Integration

To get the perfect from this digital camera you want the Hue Bridge and lights, and a subscription. You can both pay $4 a month or $40 a yr for a primary plan that covers one digital camera, or you may pay $10 a month or $100 a yr for as much as 10 cameras. Both plans unlock video clip recording to the cloud (there’s no native storage possibility), exercise zones, and AI-powered detection able to figuring out individuals, animals, packages, and autos. The Basic plan offers you 30 days of cloud storage and the Plus plan ups that to 60 days.