Once they're paired, it’s time to go outside and mount the cameras. We mounted ours onto the roof of our house - which took a bit of finagling - but theoretically it could mount to most surfaces if you’re handy enough with a power drill. HomeBase acts as a Wi-Fi repeater which boosts signal to the cameras, extending the coverage area of your Wi-Fi network. To start off, it’s worth clarifying that the Eufycam 2 is a wireless outdoor camera. It’s IP67 rated to survive below-freezing temperatures and constant deluges of wet and winter weather. It’s an elongated, all-white camera that’s a seriously tough piece of equipment. That being said, a key component of its wireless-ness is the included HomeBase that comes in the box. The HomeBase looks like an all-white wireless router – it’s fairly plain but still a bit bulky. That’s ironic, of course, because you’ll need to connect it to a router and will find all the wires to do so inside the box. That is a massive advantage to other systems that try to squeeze you for a monthly subscription just to see the footage your camera has recorded.

The Arlo Pro 2's free 7-day rolling-cloud storage and its deep app make it quite appealing. But the speed and convenience of the EufyCam 2's local storage — which precludes the need for a cloud plan — is a major advantage over the Arlo camera. What's more, unlike the Arlo, all of Eufy's features are available without buying a subscription. Still, in my tests, I had some issues with Eufy's audio. The Eufy's daylight videos weren't quite as detailed as the Arlo Pro 2's. And both have the same weakness: blurry, pixelated night-vision videos. The mobile app (Android 5.0+ and iOS 10.2+) is well-organized and easy to manage, though not as feature-deep as the Arlo app. The one major problem I have with the EufyCam app is the division of motion-detection controls into two separate sections of the app. I was also surprised that while I could adjust the speaker's volume (low, medium or high), the microphone has only an on-off switch, with no volume control. Over our three-week testing period in Northern California, we recorded well over 80 events from a single camera that were about 10 seconds each and the camera is still holding strong at around 95% battery life with the optimal surveillance option selected. (Eufy gives you three options - Optimal Battery Life, Optimal Surveillance and Custom - in regards to how often you want events recorded and how long the camera should record in each event.)Only receive the alerts which matter. Customize the area in which detection takes place to suit your home. Extrapolating our test data, we’re looking at over a year’s worth of battery life from a single charge, supporting Eufy’s claim. That said, it’s obviously a your-mileage-may-vary situation so don’t take our numbers – or Eufy’s – as the absolute, definitive battery life, but this should be able to help you set some expectations. Get a clearer, brighter view of the people in-shot. Built-in AI technology identifies and focuses in on the human in the image. The resolution is a bit of a double-edged sword here. Because it’s only 1080p, the HomeBase can store more footage of the Eufycam 2 than it can of the Eufy Video Doorbell that has a 2K resolution. The downside, of course, is that there’s slightly less detail in the 1080p footage. It’s not enough to blur essential details, but it does make it slightly harder to identify faces at longer distances. Speaking of clips, they’re all stored directly on the HomeBase - which is actually a good thing in case someone were to ever come along and take the camera. The HomeBase has 16GB of internal storage for clips, which should last you around a month before it needs to start erasing old footage, but keep in mind that it will all be in 1080p resolution.

If you’re looking for a simple and cheap way to keep an eye on your rental property that you only visit once every few months, the Eufycam 2 is a great solution thanks to its all-weather durability. It sports a 365-day battery that should be able to run for months without being charged. Who’s it not for… Thanks to its pretty stellar feature set, the performance of the Eufycam 2 is surprisingly solid... as long as it’s within 60 to 100 feet of the HomeBase.

The Eufy web portal (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE9 and Edge) is next to useless. Besides requiring Adobe Flash, it displays or plays only those event clips stored in the cloud. You can't access videos from the HomeBase. The web portal's only functions are monitoring the Live View, managing your cloud subscriptions and viewing cloud-stored videos – all of which are well-handled by the mobile app. The portal has none of the app's other functions or settings. Smart-home integration The EufyCam 2's 1/2.8-inch 2-megapixel Sony sensor and glass lens capture nice-quality 1080p daylight videos, but I was disappointed in the night videos. According to Eufy, the Eufycam 2 lasts 365 days on a single charge. After doing some research on that number, the company says in its forums that it achieved that by only having 10 events in a day and recording 30-second clips for each event with the benefit of fairly nice weather most of the year. But depending on where your cameras are located and where you live geographically, your number could vary. If you’re like us, you might hate the idea of giving up a precious port on your router for the eufy hub, but it really is the brains of the operation. It securely stores all the footage – which means, if your camera is ever stolen, all of the video is still safely stored inside. Even better, Eufy uses a proprietary communication technology that’s more power-efficient than standard Wi-Fi, allowing the wireless camera to work for months without recharging. Without cords or wires of any kind, eufyCam S221 (eufyCam 2 Pro) installs indoors and out with ease to surveil your home for 365 days on a single charge.