EufyCam 3 Review: Best Subscription-Free Security Camera

The EufyCam 3 is by far the most accomplished camera system from Eufy yet, with a combination of features that will catapult it to the top of many wish lists. Anker’s smart home security brand has always offered local storage and a subscription-free model, but this is its first security camera that can reliably recognize faces and do so without connecting to the cloud. Subscription-averse folks with privacy concerns, this might be the camera you have been waiting for.

The EufyCam 3 delivers crisp and detailed 4K footage, has onboard AI capable of accurately identifying subjects and even faces, and boasts built-in solar panels to keep it fully charged. The Homebase 3 hub allows for local storage, with 16 GB inside and the option to expand up to 16 TB by adding a hard drive. But all this comes at a hefty price. The two-camera kit is $550, while the three-camera kit will cost you a whopping $680.

Stranger Danger

Eufy via Simon Hill

The headline feature here is facw recognition, so let’s deal with that first. Eufy’s machine-learning AI (called BionicMind) spots and flags faces, and you can tag them in the app. When it recognizes a face, the name pops up in the alert on your phone; when it doesn’t recognize a face, it says a stranger has been detected. You can also add familiar faces manually and help train the system using a photo from your phone’s gallery or by taking a new shot (these need to be passport-style).

With BionicMind, you can quickly distinguish between one of your kids coming home and an unknown visitor. I only bothered to check videos when a stranger was flagged, which really cuts down on false positives and wasted time. But the system takes a while to learn what people look like, and it requires a clear look at their faces to identify them.

If someone is wearing a hat, has their hood up, or passes the camera quickly without looking directly at it, BionicMind often fails to recognize them. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the EufyCam 3 is not the quickest camera to trigger. I often found recordings started with someone halfway through the frame. That said, I’ve only been testing for around a month, and it has grown noticeably more accurate. Now that it…