With a longtime status for high quality sensible lighting, albeit at a hefty price, Philips Hue is a well known model. A transfer into the saturated safety market could seem 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 shortage 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 prevailing Hue app. However the want for a Hue Bridge and a subscription to unlock the perfect options is off-putting, and there are various extra reasonably priced choices in our greatest indoor and outside safety digicam guides.
Stable 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 connected to the ability adapter on the different finish. It seems like an oversize Google Nest Cam. It feels sturdy and scores an IP65 ranking, which implies you should use it outdoors, although the massive energy adapter gained’t match some outside sockets. There’s a larger, battery-powered, wi-fi Hue digicam 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 Safe digicam in my workplace and opted for the model with the desktop stand, which price 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’s additionally cable administration on the underside, however I’m nonetheless not satisfied the stand is well worth the extra outlay.
A easy QR code scan had my digicam up and working inside a couple of minutes. It is a 1080p digicam with a 141.2-degree discipline of view that permits you to maintain 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 night time 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 nearly no lag.
Movement notifications had been dependable and got here by swiftly to my Pixel telephone and iPhone 14 Professional. A helpful nonetheless body from every video provides you an thought of what the alert is about, so you may determine whether or not that you must overview it. You may livestream and set blackout zones, and all video is end-to-end encrypted, so solely you could have entry. If in case you have a Hue Bridge ($60) and Hue lights, you may set the digicam to set off them. For instance, you may 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 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 if you depart. The Take Motion button reveals choices to swiftly name an emergency contact or 911, activate vivid lights to see higher, and a slider to set off the siren and flash your Hue lights. You may also faucet the Discuss button for two-way audio, which gives first rate sound high quality and nearly no lag, making it simple to hold on a dialog.
Slick Integration
To get the perfect from this digicam you want the Hue Bridge and lights, and a subscription. You may both pay $4 a month or $40 a 12 months for a primary 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 choice), exercise zones, and AI-powered detection able to figuring out individuals, animals, packages, and autos. The Primary plan provides you 30 days of cloud storage and the Plus plan ups that to 60 days.