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Eufy is building out its home security line. Now that we’ve tested its latest equipment, we’re paying attention.
Updated April 25, 2024
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I’d been waiting to get my hands on a Eufy home security system for a while. Eufy’s starter kit was cheap, for one, and there were no monthly fees. Always a plus for us DIY home security aficionados. But I was particularly interested in two features Eufy had just launched: its proprietary AI face-recognition software, BionicMind™, and its 3rd-gen 4K cameras that charged in the sun.
The first, if it worked, would cut down dramatically on me being awakened at 3 a.m. by “racoon alerts.” The second goodie, solar charging — which Eufy has dubbed “forever power” — would mean no more cables. Those were the headliners. But after putting some pretty user-friendly security systems like Simplisafe to the test, I was also just curious to see how well Eufy worked on the day to day.
Here’s my complete experience installing Eufy’s home security equipment and testing it for a week. Inside, you’ll also find a full breakdown of what a Eufy system will cost you, plan by plan, compared to some of the other top alarm companies we’ve reviewed.
Pro Tip: Security systems are either self-monitored (you deal with security situations) or professionally monitored (your security service keeps an eye on your house for you and contacts police if necessary). If you’re not sure which is right for your home, our home security buyer’s guide will lead you through both options.
Check out more recommendations from the SafeHome team:
Eufy sells a handful of home security packages at different price points. I chose the Edge Starter Bundle, a midrange package. I’ll explain why I went with this particular system below in my pricing breakdown. For now, I’ll just say my bundle came with:
Here are a few notes on the goodies that came in the box.
One, you may have noticed the absence of motion sensors on my list. That’s because the Edge Starter Bundle didn’t come with any. If you’re like me and you like your motion sensors, you can just add them on for $29 a pop, rather than upgrading to the much more expensive Edge Advanced Bundle.
Two, my Edge Bundle came with an Ethernet cable. That cable was for connecting the HomeBase 3 — my hub/alarm — to my router. The HomeBase 3 doesn’t work over Wi-Fi, in other words. I’m not complaining about that. Ethernet is always faster and more stable than Wi-Fi. Then again, my router happens to be centrally located. If for any reason yours isn’t, this might be an inconvenience.
To be clear, you shouldn’t have any difficulty hearing your HomeBase 3 from your office, if that’s where your router happens to be. At 100 decibels, it’s loud enough. But you might need to extend your Wi-Fi. Eufy cameras, which do communicate over Wi-Fi, have a built-in range of about 30 feet.
Finally, you may be wondering why my security system came with a USB-C cable. I sure was. It turned out my eufyCam 3Cs were good-looking 4K cameras, but they weren’t solar-charging, so no “forever power” for me. Always read the fine print, folks.
In the end, this didn’t make much of a difference for me. I was using my cameras inside. According to Eufy, these particular batteries had a 180-day charge anyway. But if I’d been using my cameras outside, I definitely would have exchanged my bundle for a package that came with cameras that charged in the sun.
FYI: Eufy cameras record events only. They don’t record continuous footage — this despite their enormous 16 TB storage capacity.
Overall, setting up my Eufy security system was easy. It just took a little longer than expected to go fully operational. The eufyCam 3Cs need at least three to four hours to charge, and that’s if you’re using the zippier USB-C cable. The cable plugs right into the HomeBase 3.
The HomeBase 3 comes with 16 GB of built-in local storage, or roughly two to three months’ worth of clips, which was plenty for me. The advantage of local (versus cloud) storage, by the way, is that my videos would stay private this way. In fact, that’s one of Eufy’s big selling points. Or at least it was.
A few months ago, security researchers discovered that Eufy was actually beaming “local” customer footage — thumbnails and face recognition data included — to its cloud portal unencrypted.1 This dealt Eufy’s parent company, Anker, a huge and embarrassing blow. The company claimed it has since fixed the issue. I’m reporting this to you because our business is home security and digital privacy is a huge part of that.
So that’s the story on Eufy’s built-in storage. The only other thing worth noting here is that you can expand your storage to 16 TB by dropping a hard drive into your hub. That’s a truly staggering amount of storage. Why would you need that much? Unless you’re the local 7-Eleven, I’m not quite sure.
Did You Know? The first CCTV security camera wasn’t invented in the basement of IBM. It was the work of Marie Van Brittan Brown, a Black woman from Queens, New York. She patented her revolutionary device in 1966.2
Next, I had to install the Android app. There’s an iOS version too. Both get solid reviews, with the Apple app scoring slightly higher. Doesn’t it always? In order to add my HomeBase 3 to my app, I had to create an account and log in. Registration took less than a minute. Now I could link my hub with my account.
The final leg of the process was pairing each of my cameras. Again, the road was bump-free. Just note that I had to press the button on the back of the cameras and the button on the back of the base station to complete the process. Otherwise, the devices couldn’t communicate. I had to repeat the process for my entry sensors.
After my cams were fully charged, I was ready for business. This brings us to Eufy on the day to day. But before we get into my experience testing Eufy’s features, here’s a quick breakdown of packages and pricing.
Pro Tip: Expanding your built-in storage is simple with Eufy. You just pop the lid off the HomeBase 3 and stick in a compatible external HD.
So, first things first: price. You’ll notice that Eufy’s packages start fairly cheap with the $160 5-piece Home Alarm Kit and then blast off into the home security clouds with the $675 Edge Starter Bundle.
So what’s the deal? Here’s my take.
The budget Home Alarm Kit is so cheap because it doesn’t come with any cameras. Theoretically, that shouldn’t have been a problem. I could have added on one or two cameras à la carte for a couple hundred bucks, right?
As it turns out, not exactly. For one, Eufy cameras aren’t as cheap as other top home security cameras. You can purchase a top-of-the-line Lorex security camera for under $100, for instance. Ring Stick-Up Cams with solar power are a bit more pricey at around $140. But the third-gen eufyCams run over $200 a pop!
Second, after a brief chat with customer support, I discovered that the budget Eufy Home Alarm Kit is compatible only with its second-gen cameras (the EufyCam 2, 2C, 2 Pro, and 2C Pro) — not the state-of-the-art Eufy 3 series, which meant, folks, that I had no choice. If I wanted to test Eufy’s latest tech, I had to purchase the $675 Edge Starter Bundle, a far cry from the budget home security package I was expecting.
Here’s a breakdown of Eufy’s most popular plans, with a side-by-side comparison of costs and features.
FYI: Eufy recommends placing your cameras within 30 feet of your base station. If you’ve got more area to cover, you’ll want to invest in access points or a mesh network to extend your coverage.
| 5-Piece Home Alarm Kit | Edge Starter Bundle | Edge Plus Bundle | Edge Advanced Bundle | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $159.99 | $674.95 | $1,089.93 | $1,774.89 |
| Pieces | 5 | 7 | 9 | 16 |
| Home base | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Keypad | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Entry sensor(s) | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Motion sensor(s) | 2 | — | — | 2 |
| Eufy Cam 3C | — | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Video doorbell 2K | — | 1 | — | 1 |
| Floodlight Cam 2 Pro | — | — | — | 1 |
| S330 Video Smart Lock | — | — | 1 | 1 |
| 1 TB hard drive | — | — | — | 1 |
| Yard sign | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 16 GB local storage | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Note: Both the Edge Plus and Edge Advanced Bundles come with solar-powered indoor/outdoor cameras. The cameras that come with the cheaper Edge Starter Bundles don’t have solar panels.
Compared to the budget 5-piece Home Alarm Kit, the Edge Starter Bundle costs a chunk. On balance, however, it isn’t as over-the-top expensive as it might seem at first glance. Here’s what I mean.
A Simplisafe security system with all the trimmings runs about $550. Simplisafe, by the way, has a reputation for quality security equipment on the cheap. Eufy is in the same ballpark. If you’re looking for comparable AI face recognition, a Vivint home security system would be my pick, but your Vivint options start at around $1,300.
That said, I’ve also reviewed Ring’s top-rated security cameras. A 14-piece security system over at Ring set me back under $250. That’s obviously a lot more affordable than Eufy’s Edge Starter Bundle, so it’s definitely worth considering.
Did You Know? To date, Eufy doesn’t sell environmental sensors. Until it does, you’ll have to figure out an alternative solution for your smoke, water, and carbon monoxide detectors.
Using the Eufy app was headache-free. Alerts came through promptly. The 4K video was remarkably crisp, though you’ll need a pretty fast connection to stream at that definition — 100 Mbps minimum. If you’ve got slow internet, you’ll want to reduce the playback speed manually. Otherwise, you may be struggling to see what you’re streaming, which can be nerve-racking.
The audio on my eufyCams was decent indoors, as you’d expect. Usually, if there are issues with sound quality, they’ll crop up outside where you’ve got background noise. Compatibility with my Google Nest was likewise fine with the eufyCam 3.
But the eufyCam 3’s standout feature is AI face recognition, aka BionicMind™, so let’s take a closer look at that.
Pro Tip: Eufy isn’t the only DIY home security provider to use AI face-recognition software. The latest Abode security equipment also uses machine learning to pick out family and friends from strangers.
Eufy’s cameras aren’t born smart. You need to train them by either tagging subjects that make repeat appearances or manually showing them photos. This is Kayla. This is Ralph. You won’t get 100 percent accuracy overnight. Eufy started slow, correctly identifying tagged subjects about 40 percent of the time. After a week of practice, though, it was recognizing my face fairly consistently.
But it doesn’t always work. Eufy can take its time triggering, and when foot traffic is too quick, common acquaintances can show up as strangers.
On the plus side, you can set Eufy to alert you only when it identifies a person, as opposed to the dog next door or a tricycle rolling past. It knows how to do that very well. If you’ve ever gone on vacation and been bombarded by footage of squirrel panhandlers at your front door, you’ll appreciate this very much.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to put Eufy’s solar-charging claims to the test. My cameras, eufyCam 3Cs, didn’t come with this feature. Dang! But from what I hear, they actually can run forever on just an hour or two of sunlight per day. In theory this is perfect, though I do wonder how well that claim would hold up come wintertime.
That said, if you end up with 3Cs like me, even without “forever power,” you’ll have to recharge your cameras only twice a year. So it’s really not bad at all.
FYI: “Forever power” is really the energy produced when the sun hits the photovoltaic cells in Eufy’s solar panel. That energy flows from the panel into your battery, which can last anywhere from five to 25 years.
Eufy gets solid scores on Trustpilot, with 3.8 stars out of 5 overall and 71 percent 5-star reviews. That means almost 3 out of every 4 customers reported top-notch service from Eufy.
On the other hand, Anker, Eufy’s parent company, gets an F from the Better Business Bureau. In Eufy’s defense, Anker produces a whole slew of smart home gadgets. In fact, it started off making robovacs. That’s a lot of different folks to keep happy.
My own experience dealing with Eufy customer service via chat was mostly helpful and quick, though sometimes it felt as if the Eufy “experts” I was talking to were better at googling answers to my questions than answering them outright.
Did You Know? Eufy launched its first product, a budget robovac, back in 2016.
My bet is that we’ll all be hearing a lot more from Eufy in the next couple of years. Its AI is already quite capable, and image quality on its third-gen cameras is exceptional. It does have a few issues to iron out in terms of its packages and price points, though.
If I’m paying 700 bucks for out-of-the-box home security, I’d like some motion sensors. I’d also like to see solar charging on all of Eufy’s outdoor cameras. Last on my home security wish list is a wireless base station. At present, you have to connect with an Ethernet cable.
If Eufy can manage to shuffle around some of those bundles, while trimming a few bucks off the price, it could easily become one of the best self-monitored home security systems available.
Eufy security systems are slightly more expensive (and less well equipped) than other affordable brands we’ve tested, like Simplisafe and Cove.
Yes, it does, though you’ll have to train your cameras. While Eufy’s AI does well picking out pets and vehicles, it has trouble recognizing humans with obscuring details like hats, sunglasses, and hoods.
The third-gen eufyCam 3s have 4K HD video.
It depends on the model. Not all eufyCam 3s come with solar charging, so check the fine print carefully before purchasing yours.
Eufy has 16 GB of local, built-in storage, which you can expand to 16 TB. Eufy also has cloud plans.
As of this writing, Eufy doesn’t make environmental sensors, though we expect they’re in the pipeline.
ARS Technica. (2022, Dec). Eufy publicly acknowledges some parts of its “No clouds” controversy.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/eufy-publicly-acknowledges-some-parts-of-its-no-clouds-controversy/
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Marie van Brittan Brown.
https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/marie-van-brittan-brown
