I test a lot of security cameras. Big, small, wired, wireless, static or pan and tilt, I've used the lot. But for my own personal collection of CCTV tech I've always turned to wireless cameras, just because of their sheer simplicity. And they don't come a lot more simple than SwitchBot's new Outdoor Spotlight Cam.
SwitchBot has a habit of rewriting the rule book when it comes to tech, and that's certainly the approach they appear to have taken with this weird and wonderful new product.
Rather than take the conventional route of designing a camera around a familiar frame, either with a static base, or in the familiar cylindrical style, the new spotlight camera is styled more like a baseball.
It's a spherical ball that can either sit on its own flat spot, or it can be mounted using a tripod-screw on the base, or in its own holder.
As cameras go, it ticks a few important boxes straight away. It delivers clear 1080p footage, houses a 10,050mAh battery, sports a wide field of view and contains lights to boost its night mode capability.
There's other clever additions too, it has AI detection, which means it can distinguish between pets and humans, so its motion detection is smart, and this means you can tailor your motion-sensing notifications to what you want to see.
It plays nicely with Google Home and Amazon's Alexa, and can either take a 256gb memory card, or upload footage to a cloud storage system. It's also waterproof and dustproof.
But what I really like about it is how easy it is to install, and keep running. I've got two set up at the moment, one mounted to a fence in my back garden, sitting in its little "cage", and one on a tripod in my front garden, monitoring the house.
They've been outside for a few months, and they've stood up well to all sorts of weathers. And the battery life has been seriously impressive too.
Depending on how often I log in to look at my footage, I can let them go several weeks, even a month or two, between charges, and that's quite remarkable.
There's also a solar panel available, which I've recently rigged up to both cameras and, even following a cloudy spell, they're both currently running at 100%.
The Outdoor Spotlight Cam connects up to SwitchBot's app, which has been updated recently and feels a lot like the Google Home app. It works really well, and I've managed to keep it up and running on a tablet I prop up on my desk, giving me a constant view of comings and goings at my house. The camera logs off occasionally, but one tap on the screen refreshes it.
And that's perhaps the only thing I've found that I dislike about it. It's not as if it's a problem unique to SwithBot either. All basic WiFi cameras do it, and it could be as much down to my overworked WiFi setup than a problem with the camera.
The app makes the cameras easy to set up, and the spherical nature of the device itself makes it very easy to position for that perfect viewing angle.
Of course, there's no pan and tilt function available, and I have tested cameras at a similar price point with better image clarity, or perhaps better night vision.
But as an all-rounder, all things considered, it's a brilliantly simple piece of security tech that makes other cameras look old-fashioned and cumbersome.
The camera itself costs £89.99, and a solar panel would set you back £49.99. It's also worth noting that even a basic plan to add cloud storage would cost £4.99 per month, offering up to 30 days of recorded video for one device. But you could always rely on a Micro SD card instead.
But, honestly, this is now my go-to security camera. It's so simple to set up, simple to install, and that bumper battery life and solar panel backup just makes it worth every penny.
There aren't many decent wireless outdoor security cameras available for less than £100, but this one is definitely among the best.
AMAZON PRIME DAY DEAL: How to save 30% off any SwitchBot product
SwitchBot will be offering 25% of every one of its products for the Amazon Prime Day weekend on July 11 and 12, including the Outdoor Meter.
Mirror Readers are also being offered an additional 5% off every product by using the discount code REACHPDXM at the Amazon checkout - that's a 30% saving overall.
The savings will start ahead of Prime Day itself, on Switchbot's web store from July 4, and the code can also be used there to save the 5%.
