Home security has never been so affordable and easy to set up, and it’s one of those things where you either install it and you may never need it, or wait until you do need it, but by that time, it’s too late. That’s where Eufy come in with their S3 Pro cameras.
Unboxing the package for the first time, you’ll find everything you need. The bundle includes two S3 pro cameras, the homebase S380, associated cables, power supplies, mounting brackets and a separate solar panel too. Now with my bundle, I also got a 1tb hard drive aswell but there is an option to get a bundle without one, so if you wanted to buy your own or had an old hard drive you wanted to use, you could.
The S3 Pro is a very sleek, bullet-shaped camera. I’d say it’s mid-sized, you can get smaller cameras, bigger too and given this has the solar panel feature, any smaller and it probably wouldn’t work. Camera, sensors and spotlight to the front, solar section to the top, USB port, sync button and speaker to the underside and then a thread to the rear to screw into the wall mount bracket. Overall, a very modern, tidy and well-designed camera which I like alot and more so than the S230.
Watch the video to see recording samples and more:
The homebase is cute, I imagined it being bigger because it needs space for a hard drive and a circuitboard etc,, a bit like a NAS drive but it’s alot smaller, alot more discrete and quieter too. It is somewhat like a NAS drive for storing your footage, but it does a few other bits too. It allows upto 16 devices, or 34 sensors, so we’re talking other security devices, not just cameras. It does have 16gb internal storage, or you can slide in your own hard drive (upto 16tb) into the cradle and plug into the SATA port, which I have done. When compared to the Homebase that came before, there have been upgrades in CPU power, allowing back up storage, features like facial recognition and so forth. It also includes a built in siren, which can be configured to be set off under various circumstances, which is nice to have. No monthly fees, buy the base, get the hard drive and that’s it. Your data is also dual-layer encrypted for peace of mind.
Set up is pretty straightforward, connect the homebase to your network and pair the cameras to your homebase. This needs to be done via the app on your smart device and it’s a matter of following the on-screen instructions and placing the camera next to the base. Once that’s done, you can go and position the camera where you see fit. For me, I removed the S230 I had installed, covering the front garden and replaced that with one of the S3 pros, then installed the second one on my garage, covering the drive. The S230 was then repositioned to cover the rear garden. You can live view the camera during install, to check the position works before screwing the bracket in. Don’t forget, try and find a position with direct sunlight if you want to take advantage of the self-charging. If not, don’t forget there is that standalone solar panel that you can install nearby and plug into one of the cameras, if it needs to go in a shady position. You’ll see the camera on my garage, which is underneath the roof slightly, and while it does get a bit of sunlight, it’s not enough to cover battery usage for day-to-day recording and it needs the solar panel to help.
Once you’re cameras are in place, it’s time to get to grips with the app, and checking out some of the features on offer.
So the cameras include a max resolution of 4K, a CMOS sensor, the lens has an aperture of F1.0 and a wide field of view of 135 degrees. Digital zoom, frame rate upto 15 fps. infrared sensors, and spotlights for nighttime. Speaking of nighttime, these include something Eufy are calling MaxColour Vision, which to me is one of it’s best features. Essentially, it delivers day-like footage, in low light conditions without spotlights. There are two options for this setting, standard or daylike, with standard offering slightly better clarity, while daylike offers more exposure. It’s great, I’d come home late at night and it records a colour image of what’s going on and it’s far better than the usual black and white footage you get with other cameras, including the S230. The Max colour view is fantastic but if that isn’t enough, or not your cup of tea, you can turn the spotlight on from the camera, to somewhat illuminate the area, or use the infrared image instead. Eufy are calling that spotlight adaptive, which means when it turns on, via motion detection,n if set up that way, the light will automatically adjust it’s brightness to provide the optimum image.
Motion detection, is done in two ways, via radar and traditional passive infrared or PIR, which allows the system to detect humans and cars, which helps reduce false alerts. For example, if you’re covering your front door and only want to know when a human is nearby, this helps out big time and any false alerts, trees moving, cars passing by, wont trigger an alert.
There is also something called vision guard and AI learning, whereby you take a photo of yourself, and or family members, and then the system can alert you when said person is detected. It does work but its not great unfortunately. Detecting a person is fine, faultless but most of the time it would just say someone has been detected, and not Nick has been detected, even though I’m pretty much standing just in front of the camera. I don’t think this is a deal breaker, I’m more worried about the triggers working correctly and the footage being recorded, which it does.
There are loads of options and settings you can go through on the app, to fine-tune your set up to how you want it. You can adjust motion sensitivity, select humans, cars, pet detection, set up a heat map, manage power, set spotlight settings such as motion detection. You can also adjust video and audio quality, recording footage in 4k, 2k or 1080p and so on. Loads of customisation so you can achieve exactly what you want out of the system.
The built in solar panel works very well with the camera, although I do feel the S230 works better. Whether that’s because the solar panel is slightly larger, or that the S3 Pros power demand is greater, because they’re higher spec and doing more. Regardless, the S3 Pro out the front receives very good sunlight for most of the day and based on the time it’s been installed, I don’t think I’ll ever have to take it down and manually charge it. The garage, as mentioned before, is in the shade, but it’s the perfect spot for coverage, so that does require the use of the external solar panel to keep charged.
The system is Apple Home, Alexa and Google Assistant compatible too, if you have any of those setups in your home. Stream footage, get alerts, it could be quite nice to have a say an Echo Show device in the kitchen, streaming the footage while you cook.
After having this system set up for some time now, I’m hugely impressed. The video quality of the S3 Pros is very good, it’s clear, the zoom works well and you can identify faces and number plates easily if not too far away. The MaxColour vision mode for night is fantastic, the best I’ve seen from a camera yet and sometimes nightime is the most important time to capture. The solar panels work well, it will certainly save me time in not having to take them down and charge them. The Homebase is great, it brings it all together and there are no monthly fees, none whatsoever, which I love and it’s honestly got me thinking about ditching my Ring subscription and getting a new doorbell. Audio quality is ok, it’s nothing too fancy but it’s clear, you can pick up conversations going on if close enough and you can talk back if you want too. The face detection is ok but as mentioned before, doesnt work that well just yet.
This bundle retails for around £500, which is somewhat of an investment but in my mind, well worth it and hopefully, one that will pay back over time. You’d like to think you’ll never really need to go back to the footage and catch someone breaking into your car or home, but then with a system like this, if that did happen, it could go a long way to identifying the bad guys.
Visit the official Eufy S3 Pro webpage to find out more.
