Aqara 2K Indoor Security Camera E1, Pan & Tilt, HomeKit Secure Video Indoor Camera, Two-Way Audio, Night Vision, Person Tracking, Wi-Fi 6, Plug-in Cam Supports HomeKit, Alexa, Google Home and IFTTT

Working well in an Apple HomeKit environment
Reviewed April 2024:
Bought this on a bit of a whim, as it was on special and I came across it while checking the price of another brand.
We’re an Apple household, using HomeKit for lights, heating, power strips and a number of cameras from different manufacturers, some directly support HomeKit, some require HomeBridge to connect them together. It all works pretty well.
Wanted a camera set up in the garden shed, ideally with the means to record without having a subscription and additional cost. Have previously experimented with one Netatmo camera, which is excellent, but even at the cheapest I paid, still double what this Aqara unit is, and its static while this has pan and tilt.
Set up was relatively painless, I used the Aqara app to set it up in the house, and once all working, moved it to the shed.
I decided to set it on the roof, meaning its upside down. There is a fitting kit supplied, so this was painless and in the Aqara software its possible to adjust the picture by rotating it, and this is then inherited into HomeKit.
Adjusting the pan and tilt can only be carried out using the Aqara software, it is (currently) not possible directly from HomeKit, although I’m told this is due to HomeKit not supporting it, not an issue with Aqara. (come on Apple, sort this out!).
Pan and tilt works pretty well, I don’t use it much once its set up to give a view of the shed door and the camera is quite a wide field of view so there is no way somebody can get in without being picked up.
Picture quality is pretty decent, its as good as a Google camera (we have several of these both indoor and out), and this includes the night vision which I think it probably better than the Google ones, but its an opinion rather than based on any test.
History is stored on a memory card (not included), I think it may be possible to also save events on a NAS drive of similar, although I’ve not experimented with this yet.
Overall, this is a good buy. I’m not sure we have a need for another indoor camera, but this would be a good choice.

Awesome value HomeKit camera
There is so much to love about this camera. Firstly, the price represents great value for the feature set. By far my favourite feature is the way you can create preset camera positions then add those as scenes in Apple home and trigger them from other sensors. I have IKEA PARASOLL door sensors and VALLHORN motion sensors around the house, they are dirt cheap and work really well, I can use these to trigger the Aqara scene to rotate the camera, great feature, so useful. Setup of the camera is super simple and quick. My only real complaint is the field of view isn’t particularly wide, I’d have like it a little wider, but I guess as it’s 360 degree movement it’s not that big of a deal. Night vision is absolutely excellent, I’d say it’s almost as good as it is in the day. I’ll be getting more of these, best HomeKit indoor camera on the market as far as I’m concerned.

I was intrigued by having a camera that I can use to monitor remotely and live. This camera does just that.
I tried to use it on a battery, and works great just that it won’t last as long as I wished. To be more specific, on a power bank with 2×3.7V Li-Ion batteries works for about 1.5 hours. On a noco GB40, 1000A, lasts longer, about 8 hours on a cold (-5C) night. Not bad, but also not feasible to use it this way every night.
As long as the camera is registered to a network, I can use the phone to monitor from any location over the internet. I think this is the most amazing and only feature that matters. Otherwise, it does what a camera should do. It tracks people, but seems this is one of those trendy features that which will soon be forgotten.
Oh, just in case you plan on using this camera to look out any glass window at night… not a great idea. The IR LEDs that you can’t see, will blow their light on the glass and the camera won’t see anything other than the reflection. Luckily, half-good street light is enough to let the camera record in regular mode decent enough. The night vision is literally for indoor use only, in extreme darkness. Other than that, regular mode is fine.
I found the notifications available for automation features exciting. For example weather changes, again a novelty… I thought, imagining that they managed to get the camera to recognize snow or rain, but temperature differences… and than it was clear, it send notifications based on the weather services from their online services. Not as cool after all, but still , could be used in different scenarios. It is tempting to start buying all sorts of sensors and other devices, as not much automation can be done with a camera alone, but be realistic, do you really need all those?!?
Anyways, nice product, works at -5C as tested overnight, and does what the description says it does. Plug and play type of product, works well with it’s own app, works with Apple Home too, just less features as far as I have used. It does record rather how I wanted, of course has multiple options but is a logical product, not a lot of non-sense.

Fiyatına göre oldukça iyi bi ürün. 1,5 yaşındaki bebeğimin odasını uzaktan izleyebilmek için aldım. Görüntü kalitesi iyi.
Eksileri; Enerji kablosu daha uzun olabilirdi.
Iphone cihazıma kurulum yaparken biraz zorladı. İkinci bir iphone telefondan aqara home uygulamasıyla kameraya bağlanamadım. Muhtemelen çoklu kullanım için bağlantımı bir hub üzerinde yapmam gerekiyordu veya biz beceremedik. Bununla ilgili yeterli bilgiye ulaşamadığım için eşim apple home üzerinden izliyor fakat kamerayı hareket ettiremiyor. Ben aqara home üzerinden tam denetim sağlayabiliyorum. İkinci bir kamera daha almayı planlarken, çevremdekilere de bu cihazı önerdim.