The Mi Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 1080p is Xiaomi’s first outdoor security camera offered in France under its own brand. With price its attractive price and its complete services, it seems to have everything to please… Answer in our test.
Source: Edouard Patout for Frandroid
outdoor security camera Xiaomi Mi Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 1080p operates on battery and thus has an autonomy of several months. It has been designed to be installed outdoors and thus cope with the vagaries of the weather.
Beyond the camera aspect, it is logically able to detect movements and has local storage using its connection base. The camera is offered as a kit with its base at the price of 99.99 euros and it is possible to add up to 3 additional cameras at an additional cost of 79.99 euros per camera.
Design and ergonomics
Camera
The camera itself is entirely built in a very classic white plastic and features a rounded shell. The front is in shiny black plastic and houses the optics, surrounded by its infrared LEDs. An imposing motion detector is positioned below and there is also an indicator LED and a microphone.
Source: Edouard Patout for Frandroid
The Mi Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 1080p, on the other hand, remains quite imposing due to its integrated battery which ultimately takes up most of the internal space. We also regret that this 5700 mAh battery is not removable, which means that the camera will have to be changed if the battery fails. Pity.
Because it will still be necessary to recharge the camera from time to time, it has a USB C port hidden near the power button. A speaker is also present on this edge and will allow two-way communication that we already find on the Mi 360° 2K.
Source: Edouard Patout for Frandroid
As for fixing, Xiaomi has equipped the camera with a wall mounting that requires 2 screws (supplied with their pegs). A third screw is present on the part linked to the camera to secure the assembly. A more or less judicious choice since it will always be necessary to bring a screwdriver to unhook the camera.
Source: Edouard Patout for Frandroid
The ball joint that takes place at the back of the camera lacks amplitude in our opinion and it will be necessary to pay attention to the placement of the latter before drilling your wall. For example, it is not possible to orient the camera parallel to the support on which it is fixed. In addition, we would have liked a magnetic mounting system to be present in the box, or even a base that could have made it possible to simply place the camera on any surface.
Login base
The camera is therefore supplied with a connection base acting as a central alarm. This base is essential for the operation of the camera and looks like a small Wi-Fi router made entirely of white plastic. The device nevertheless has the merit of being relatively compact and can be used to aggregate several cameras.
Source: Edouard Patout for Frandroid
This small box will logically have to be connected to the network and this action can be done as desired. wired (via an RJ45 port) or wireless via your usual Wi-Fi network. Power is provided here by a USB C port. If the cable is provided in the box, the power supply is unfortunately absent. An increasingly common habit among all manufacturers…
Source: Edouard Patout for Frandroid
The plant also has a USB port and a micro SD card reader that can be used to store images cameras. Two rather welcome additions since Xiaomi does not offer cloud storage for these cameras and only security events will be stored there.
Getting started
As often with this type of product, all the configuration is done using the dedicated application which is none other than Xiaomi Home. The configuration steps are pretty clear, but we had some difficulty connecting the camera to the base and it took several attempts.
Note that this Xiaomi Home application is also used by many other devices of the brand and that it will be logically possible to operate all these products together if you are already equipped.
Features
Basic features and recordings
When our first camera is added to the application, we can directly access the ” map dedicated to the latter. The app however does not seem to offer a live preview of this stream and it will be necessary to press the play button to see the live image. It is also possible to access a few shortcuts which are then displayed superimposed on the video stream.
From here, it is then possible to make a video capture or recording. When triggered manually, these recordings are stored directly in the phone’s memory. Events triggered by motion detection are stored on the cloudsfrom Xiaomi for 30 days and also on external storage if added.
It is not a priori not possible to completely disable storage in theclouds. In addition, the Mi Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 1080p does not offer continuous recording, even if external storage has been added. This is a feature that was however found on the Mi 360° 2K. Pity.
Equipped with a microphone and a loudspeaker, the camera therefore records and broadcasts the sound at the same time as the video when the images are viewed live (or in a recording). The presence of the loudspeaker also allows tocommunicate» through the camera thanks to two separate buttons.
Source: Edouard Patout for Frandroid
At first, we didn’t really understand the usefulness of the second, which actually adds audio processing to the voice to make it more serious. Why not. In any case, the quality of the microphone is very average and it cannot really be exploited. The loudspeaker is quite correct for the use that could be made of it in practice. We just regret that it is not possible to use it as an alarm.
Motion detection
The motion detection is very lively and therefore globally effective thanks to the imposing motion detector present on the front. The latter can be set to different levels of sensitivity and different detections are possible: movement, person or camera movement. All of these detections prove effective and the detections are almost always relevant. Only the detection of people after dark could be improved.
It is also possible to customize recording duration which will be triggered when an event is detected. In the same way, in order to avoid being harassed by notifications, the delay between each of these can also be personalized according to the user’s expectations. Overall, the app offers rather limited options for this model and sticks to the bare essentials.
Autonomy
The autonomy announced by Xiaomi is about 3 months with the 5700 mAh battery. If it is not possible to verify this with only a few weeks of use of the camera, we can nevertheless compare it with its real-false twin, the Imilab EC2.
Source: Edouard Patout for Frandroid
The latter easily lasts 3 to 4 months on a charge, knowing that its accumulator is more reasonable. We can therefore logically deduce that the Mi Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 1080p and its larger battery will also be able to reach such values.
Image quality
The Mi Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 1080p sensor captures 1080p images that can also be saved in 720p to limit the impact on local storage. Here we benefit from a fairly wide field of vision of 130° and an extended dynamic range “WDR” is also included.
This results in very decent quality images during the day. The image is sufficiently defined to be able to recognize a face. However, sudden changes in brightness can sometimes cause problems, or even trigger motion detection.
Once night has fallen and the infrared LEDs are on (automatically), the image quality logically degrades. The videos and photos turn out quite washed out and it may sometimes be difficult to formally recognize someone who is not very close to the camera. On this point, we remain on rather classic performance, although lower than the best models on the market.
Surprisingly for an outdoor camera, on the other hand, it is not possible to mask certain areas of the image. It will therefore be necessary to be vigilant about the orientation of the latter to stay in the nails vis-à-vis the law.
Xiaomi Mi Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 1080p price and availability
The Mi Wireless Outdoor Security Camera 1080p is available at the recommended price of 99.99 euros.