Yi Home Camera is a great security device for your home with a frustrating Windows app

Yi (the consumer brand proper name of the less punchy and harder to pronounce Xiaoyi) is a Chinese company that makes a number of connected camera products. Alongside the M1 mirrorless and range of activeness cameras, Yi has a few different home cameras, and it's the entry level i I recently picked up in Amazon's vacation sales.

Normally it costs $28.99, which makes it astonishing value. The range is likewise uniform with Windows, though to go the most you'll still need a companion iPhone or Android device.

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Easy setup, but use a telephone

To use the Yi Dwelling house Photographic camera y'all need an account, which yous can either create from scratch or use a Facebook login. The Yi Dwelling house products come with an optional cloud storage subscription service, just needing an account for a connected production is inappreciably new. I used Facebook login and was ready to go in seconds.

Setting up the camera is really like shooting fish in a barrel. However, using the Windows desktop app earlier I'd added whatever cameras to my account didn't seem to provide any option to do this on my PC. So it was over to an Android phone.

And honestly, unless you're all the same clinging to a Windows phone, yous'll desire to take the mobile app installed anyhow. More on that later, merely you won't get total functionality without it.

Setup takes simply a couple of minutes and involves choosing the Wi-Fi network for your camera and pointing it at a QR code that is displayed on the screen. Audible messages come from the camera to tell y'all when each stride has been achieved.

Solid hardware and design

The Yi Dwelling Photographic camera is a decent looking piffling thing, fairly understated in pattern and will easily disappear into the background in any room. Information technology's designed to sit down upright, but will fold basically flat in both directions, so you could mount it to a wall or window. At that place'south nothing in the box to do this with, but something simple like 3M record would probably suffice.

Power is delivered over microUSB and there's an included power adapter. On the side y'all go a microSD bill of fare slot for local recordings, round dorsum a speaker and somewhere there's a microphone, too.

Sound quality is decent considering how cheap the camera is, and whether yous're listening in from the companion app or you're talking to someone through the camera, audio is perfectly clear plenty then in that location are no miscommunications.

The camera itself is only 720p for video, though Yi does take an upgraded (and more expensive) model with 1080p. The lens has a 111-degree field of view, which isn't as wide as something like Ring's external cameras, but in my business firm I've plant information technology aplenty to cover most rooms.

Despite merely being 720p and a adequately budget camera, video quality is decent. It shows faces perfectly well, colors are OK and even with kids running effectually, the images have always been perfectly legible.

The only issue yous may encounter is a little network lag. The camera only connects to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and if it's a long way from the router y'all may go some lag. I've a mesh network at habitation then it'due south been fairly solid in any room, simply fifty-fifty and then, the initial connections sometimes accept a little time to institute. Once y'all're watching though, it seems solid and the feed on screen is maybe a second or then behind real fourth dimension.

Only overall it'due south a very impressive little thing.

A skilful, but ultimately frustrating Windows experience

The Yi Dwelling app for Windows PCs is adept and bad in equal measures. The practiced is that information technology looks pretty decent, is piece of cake to utilize and, seemingly once y'all've added a photographic camera through a phone, you can add more cameras through the Windows app.

It gives you bones interaction with cloud videos or those on an SD bill of fare on the camera, likewise as the ability to view ane or multiple cameras live in SD or HD. Y'all'll also be able to see move alert notifications and view the clips likewise as download them to your PC. Sadly the notifications won't announced in the Windows 10 notification area.

And then, fifty-fifty without the cloud subscription, the Yi Home Camera is pretty useful. If you're in a position to monitor and react quickly to move alerts, you get a lot from it. With a microSD card in the camera, you'll also get local recordings, too.

Great for catching sneaky people breaking into your office.

Where the Windows PC app is truly appalling is that it seems to log yous out every time yous close it. Without fail during the few days I've spent with this camera, I've had to log back in with my Facebook account every single time I've opened the app having previously closed it. That'southward simply bad.

Y'all too lose a lot of functionality if you lot're relying on the Windows PC app. It's bully to use if you're in front of a PC all day and desire to cheque on the house or run into what the kids are up to in some other room, merely y'all can't set up whatever of the avant-garde features.

Movement alerts are the big one. You tin can't utilise these at all without going through a mobile app. You tin't update the firmware of the photographic camera, either, nor tin can yous even do something equally simple as turn off the condition low-cal.

Hopefully, this volition all change over fourth dimension. But right now, Windows compatibility is an added bonus to having an Android telephone or an iPhone in your pocket.

The bottom line

The Yi Home Camera is the start connected dwelling security camera I've tried, and I'1000 pleasantly surprised. My expectations were pretty low, but they've easily been exceeded. Information technology's a nice looking little thing, is packed with features and at the price, I've no complaints about the hardware.

720p video is perfectly fine (to me at least) for a picayune device such equally this, but in that location'due south always the upgraded model if you lot need or desire college res video. I also appreciate that there'due south a ton of functionality without the need to fork out for the cloud subscription service.

The but achilles heel is the Windows PC app. What it does, information technology does well, just information technology doesn't do virtually enough. Regardless of whether you need to use a phone initially, there'due south no existent alibi not to be able to manage settings the aforementioned every bit the mobile app. If you lot're using this remotely (and why wouldn't you) on a PC, why shouldn't you be able to adapt your motion detection settings?

Hopefully, Yi will continue to build that out, too as fixing the horrible issues that logs you out every time you close information technology. But niggles with the Windows app aside, information technology's a bang-up little home camera for non much money.

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