EZVIZ H8 Pro 3K review: No blind spots

Best Prices Today: EZVIZ H8 Pro 3K

$149.99

Choosing a security camera to monitor a large property often requires sacrificing image quality for coverage – the wider the lens, the more clarity and detail you typically lose in the market. The EZVIZ H8 Pro 3K requires no such compromise. Its 360-degree pan-and-tilt design and 3K resolution provide the flexibility to monitor large areas without blind spots or blurry images.

The camera uses a dome design similar to other EZVIZ pan-and-tilt cameras, like the C8W Pro 3K, which should be mounted on the exterior wall or eave of your home. A cable extending from the rear of the camera splits into a pigtail with ports for the power adapter and an Ethernet connection, the latter to use if your Wi-Fi signal isn’t strong enough outside. ‘outside. Curiously, EZVIZ doesn’t give an IP rating for the camera, only saying it has a “weatherproof design.”

With a diagonal viewing angle of 104 degrees and the ability to pan 340 degrees horizontally and tilt 80 degrees vertically, the camera dramatically reduces blind spots and is ideal for monitoring yards, driveways, parking lots and other large areas. You can set up to 12 waypoints, allowing the camera to “patroll” the areas around your home that are of most concern to you when you tap on each of these preset locations in the EZVIZ app.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The camera includes color night vision up to 20 meters via a pair of spotlights, as well as black and white night vision up to 30 meters in complete darkness. A “smart night vision” option enabled by default lets you use both, automatically switching from black and white to color when motion is detected.

Outdoor environments are notorious for triggering false motion alerts in security cameras; an activity as harmless as swinging tree branches or a squirrel crossing your fence can trigger a deluge of unwanted notifications. The H8 Pro 3K’s on-board AI algorithms focus on the most important objects for users from a safety perspective: the movement of people and vehicles. It can even notify you when an unknown vehicle parks on your property without permission.

When a human is detected, the camera automatically rotates to follow the person and zooms up to four times for a clearer image. For added protection, you can activate an active defense feature that will also trigger the camera’s built-in siren and flash two of its floodlights to deter the intruder.

Setting up the H8 Pro 3K is simple: scan the QR code on the camera body and follow the instructions in the EZVIZ app to connect to your Wi-Fi network. At the end of the process, you’ll need to decide on a CloudPlay cloud storage plan. The camera can record video locally to a microSD card (with capacities up to 512GB), but there’s always the risk that an intruder could take or break the camera and any accompanying evidence. Cloud storage makes it easier for you to keep and access your captured video clips.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

A CloudPlay Standard plan, which stores event-detected video clips from an EZVIZ camera on a 7-day basis, costs $3.99/£3.99 per month or $39.99/£39.99 per year ; you can upgrade to a 30-day rolling history for $6.99/£6.99 per month or $69.99/£69.99 per year. Premium plans support up to four cameras and cost $5.99/£5.99 per month or $59.99/£59.99 per year for 7 days video history and $10.99/10 £.99 per month or $109.99 / £109.99 per year for 30 day video history. A 30-day free trial of the cheapest CloudPlay is included with the purchase of a camera.

The H8 Pro 3K captured impressively clear video; it was easy to make out details such as facial features and license plate numbers. Both forms of night vision were effective after dark, and the active defense feature worked as advertised in my testing. The camera responds instantly to pan and tilt commands and moves smoothly with almost no motor noise.

The EZVIZ app makes it easy to use the camera and manage its features, with options to calibrate pan and tilt, schedule notifications, and customize motion detection with additional algorithms. The latter includes an image change detection option, which allows the camera to detect any type of movement, and a gesture recognition option, which allows a person in front of the camera to make a video call to the user from monitoring by directly shaking the lens.

Motion detection worked reliably well, with each event causing an instant notification that took me straight to the captured video clip when tapped. The app organizes the clips into thumbnails organized by day and time, starting with the most recent, so you can browse through them to find what you need.

The H8 Pro 3K’s $150/£199 price tag seems reasonable given the camera’s capabilities and its leap in image quality over still-common 1080p security cameras. Also consider that monitoring your large property might otherwise require purchasing multiple fixed-angle cameras to achieve the same monitoring coverage. With that in mind, the H8 Pro 3K seems like very good value for money.