When buying an outside security camera for your home, you need to check a few things prior to purchasing one. First, you need to decide if you want a battery or wired powered camera. Next, do you want a security camera with wide field of view (FOV) or a pan and tilt camera which allows you to survey a large area outside your home. And lastly, is the Wi-Fi connection outside your strong? You need a strong wireless signal for the camera to work properly. For this review, we are going to show Ezviz’s C8PF Dual Lens, Pan and Tilt Wi-Fi Outdoor Camera for smart homes.
Ezviz C8PF Outdoor Smart Home Security Camera unboxedGearBrain
What is Ezviz C8PF Dual-Lens, Weatherproof Pan & Tilt Wi-Fi Camera?
This new security camera from Ezviz is a pan and tile security camera with dual-lens technology that can provide a full view of the outside of your house. It also comes with 1920 x1080 max resolution a 340-degree panoramic coverage with 80-degree tilt, which you control from the Ezviz app. It works on a Wi-Fi connection (2.4GHz only) and has two-way communication, AI-powered human shape protection, and IR Night vision up to 98ft or 30 meters. The camera is weatherproof (IP65 rating) and can support a MicroSD card (up to 512GB).
The Ezviz app is where you control your C8PF pan and tilt camera. It’s available for both iOS and Android devices. The homepage of the app will provide you with two views: the overview and the picture-in-picture display. You can video both playback and live videos in each window as well as tap the large display to zoom in on objects or people.
Regarding zoom-in capabilities, Ezviz C8PF has a unique and powerful 8-time mixed zoom ability. What is this? This new technology allows users to zoom in on an image without distorting or compromising the image quality or clarity. Ezviz’s dual technology uses a 12mm telephoto lens with a 2.8mm wide angle lens to work together and keep images and objects clear. And for nighttime, this technology works with infrared lights to provide night vision up to 30 meters or 98 feet away in the dark.
Using Ezviz app, you can move the camera and talk to vistior using touch controls.GearBrain
Like all smart security cameras, the C*PF camera has an alert notification feature; however, it uses advanced AI technology to help reduce false alerts or alarms by being able to detect if the shape is from a pet, car, person or object, like a swinging branch from a tree. Users can customize this feature in the app as well as set schedules when they want to activate notifications and alerts.
So how do you store videos? The Ezviz C8PF pan and tilt camera offers cloud or local storage using a MicroSD card. All you need is a MicroSD Card (up to 512 GB) for local storage and insert it into the camera. All videos and photos will be stored and available through the MicroSD card.
For cloud storage, the company uses an AES 128-bit encryption technology, TLS encryption protocol, and multi-step authentication steps to help keep your videos and data safe. There is a cost for this service. Ezviz offers three CloudPlay plans: Free trial, standard, and premium. The Free trial plan provides 30 days of free 7-day event-based history and unlimited cloud storage. It’s free with every EZVIZ camera purchase. After 30 days, you must select either a standard or premium plan to continue receiving cloud storage.
The Standard plans consist of 3, 7-day and 30-day event-based video history for one camera and unlimited cloud storage. The 3-day plan costs $3.99 per camera per month ($39.99 per year). The 7-day plan costs $5.99 per camera per month ($59.99 per year). And the 30-day plan comes in at $10.99 per month ($109.99 per year) per camera.
For Premium plans, EZVIZ offers only 7-day and 30-day plans for up to 4 cameras. This is the plan users would use if you had multiple EZVIZ cameras around your home and you wanted unlimited cloud storage for each camera. A 7-Day premium plan costs $8.99 a month ($89.99 per year), and a 30-day plan are $15.99 per month ($159.99 per year) for up to 4 cameras.
Ezviz app provides information on CloudPlay subscriptions. Note you do get 30 free trial so take advantage of it and see if this is what you need.GearBrain
Smart Home Integrations
The Ezviz C8PF Pan and Tilt Camera does work with Amazon Alexa-enabled devices and If This Than That (IFTTT) applets. If you are a smart home builder who likes to create applets on IFTTT, you will like this camera. IFTTT has close to 100 applets you can use to help keep your home safe and get alerts. You can even use applets with Amazon Alexa smart speakers and displays.
How to install
The setup process is easy for the Ezviz C8PF Pan and Tilt camera. After unboxing the device, you should download the Ezviz app and follow the setup instructions. We would also recommend you check the Wi-Fi connection at the location you plan to install the Ezviz camera. You need to have a strong Wi-Fi signal for this camera to work properly. Remember you are streaming video over a wireless connection. Also, make sure you have power nearby for your camera. Ezviz C8PF is a wired power camera and needs to be plugged into an outlet.
We would also recommend you first pair your C8PF camera to your home Wi-Fi network inside your home, then take the camera outside and install the mounting bracket. This will make the pairing process go faster, and it assures your camera is on the right Wi-Fi network.
The setup takes only a few minutes if you have power nearby and a strong Wi-Fi signal for your camera. If not, getting your camera working properly might take longer.
Ezviz app provides instructions for you to customize the detection zones or areas for C8PF camera to monitor.GearBrain
How much does the Ezviz C8PF Smart Security Camera cost?
The cost of the Ezviz C8PF Pan and Tilt Camera is $169.99 and is available on Amazon.
How did the C8PF smart home camera perform?
After testing this camera for several months, here is what we found. Installation was simple. We started by pairing the camera inside the house before taking it outside, which assured us the camera was on our home Wi-Fi Network.
Once installed outside, the camera provides exceptional daytime vision, but nighttime vision is a little spotty. What we mean by this is the IR LEDs produced a glare on the shed, which was about 10 feet away from the camera. As you can see from the images below, this produced a bright glare on the shed but the surrounding areas, especially to the side of the shed, were crystal clear in the dark. Our recommendation when using your C8PF camera be careful to not to point the camera at objects that are close or try to avoid them during night surveillance. Or be conscious of the glare you will see from the IR nightlights on a close object in the camera’s line of site.
The glare from IR LEDs on Ezviz camera produce a glare if the object is too close. but you can see exceptional distances when you pan the camera and there is no glare.GearBrain
Another issue we found with the C8PF was the plug. The outdoor camera provides two types of connections: AC power via a 1.5-meter power adapter or PoE connection (using ethernet cable). The power adapter supplied by Ezviz is not suitable for outside use. Also, depending on where you are positioning the camera outside, you need to be careful with plugging in a security camera outside. If the outlet is reachable, unwanted guests access will be able to disable your camera’s power. A solution to this problem would be to drill a hole through the outside wall, feed a power cord inside your house, and use an inside outlet for power. This requires a lot of work and mostly a trained electrician—something to think about.
As with all good outdoor security cameras, you need to make sure you have a good Wi-Fi signal. If you don’t, the camera will have performance issues. For the C8PF security camera, we had a good Wi-Fi signal. Occasionally, the Wi-Fi signal was weak, and our camera went offline. Not sure if this was because of the camera or our network. But for the most part of our testing, we had no wireless connectivity issues.
The other features of this camera, such as two-way communication, pan and tilt functions, and the alarm, worked as advertised. The alarm was loud, the pan and tilt had a slight delay from when we chose a command, and it actually moved the camera. And the two-way communication was clear and loud enough for users to hear outside.
The best feature for us was the crisp, clear nighttime vision. Yes, we had an issue with glare off a shed that was close to the camera. However, when we panned the camera, we could see clearly in our backyard all the way to the street, which was over 60 feet away. We haven’t seen many outdoor security cameras with a clear view for this long distance.
Daytime vision is good and
Summary
After testing many outdoor security cameras this year, we understand what to look for in a security camera. We also have a good idea of what features are critical to having a powerful, reliable Wi-Fi security camera. For Ezviz C8PF smart security camera, it has a lot of good features. It has incredible night vision, AI-powered detection technology to help prevent false alarms, and clear and easy-to-understand two-way talk. The quality of the video is good, and the picture in a picture is a new feature we haven’t seen in many other security cameras that allows users to zoom in on images or objects without distorting the image quality.
Areas we would like to see improved would be the power cord. The C8PF is a wired power smart home outdoor security camera. It would be nice if Ezviz provided customers with a better power adapter or offered users to buy PoE (Power of Ethernet) plugs and ethernet cables to help power the camera. But users must remember if plugging the camera in outside, an outlet in reaching distance to intruders does create security issues.
Another area is with the controls of the camera in the Ezviz app. They are a slight delay from when you pan the camera to when the camera moves. This is due to the commands going from the app to the cloud and back down to the camera. We have seen this delay often with many Wi-Fi security cameras. If Ezviz could help reduce the delay, that would be good.
Overall, many might find the Ezviz C8PF pan and tilt smart home security camera is priced towards the high side of the market for pan and tilt Wi-Fi outdoor security cameras. But when we started testing all their features, we thought it was a good bargain. You can have incredible zoom-in capabilities, clear night vision up to almost 100 feet in the day, and AI-Powered detection, which can help prevent false alerts by mistaking a branch for a human. And you don’t have to buy cloud storage to store your videos. Ezviz C8PF allows you to store videos locally to cut down on monthly costs. All of these are admirable features and make Ezviz C8PF a good deal for smart homeowners.
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