Eufy Floodlight Cam E340: undoubtedly the most powerful surveillance camera tested here

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

– “Is this a person?”

– “No, Eufy, that garden chair on the terrace is not a person, as I have already told you ten times today! It doesn’t matter, we both know that you will ask the question again in two minutes…”

Here is the conversation that I could have on a daily basis with this device.

The Eufy Floodlight Cam E340 lamp-camera, which I tested last week, is one of the four new surveillance cameras that the company has recently launched. It is equipped with an ultra-wide lens and a telephoto lens to capture more distant subjects. And what is this camera humping hard! Sometimes even too much. Let me explain myself.

The Eufy Security Floodlight Cam E340 has two objectives

First of all, know that the Eufy Security Floodlight Cam E340 has two objectives. A wide-angle camera records videos in 3K resolution, while a telephoto camera records in 2K resolution and can capture details up to a distance of 15 meters.

To test the Eufy Floodlight Camera E340, I replaced one of the projectors in my garden, which was in an ideal position for monitoring. My husband and I turn on these spotlights every time we take the dog out in the evening or take a walk on this side of the yard, where the barbecue is located.

We had already installed a Wyze Cam and another on the large side of the courtyard, but until the arrival of the Eufy Floodlight E340, we had not found a real solution to cover the entire space.

A time-lapse video showing how the Eufy Security Floodlight Cam E340 tracks movements. Maria Diaz/ZDNET

This projector camera can record 24/24 and 7/7

The installation of the Floodlight Camera E340 was as easy as replacing an outdoor luminaire. Especially since we installed it with the already existing wiring. Because the camera requires a wired installation to work: you will have to run electrical cables to the desired location.

Once the camera was installed, the rest of the installation process took place via the Eufy Security app. We already have a Eufy HomeBase 3 (or HomeBase S380) at home, which serves as local storage and hub for this camera.

As it is powered by electricity and can be configured with expandable storage, this projector camera can record 24 hours on 24 and 7 days on 7, although you can also choose to record only events. Recordings can be stored on the HomeBase 3 or on a microSD card with a maximum capacity of 128 GB. With the HomeBase, you can expand the SSD support up to 16 TB, which is huge in storage.

The HomeBase 3 is the latest smart home hub for Eufy security devices. Maria Diaz/ZDNET

A good level of coverage and image quality

The most impressive feature of this camera is, by far, the level of coverage and the image quality. Our garden extends to the forest, which can be dark at night. But even if the camera is installed on the second floor and more than 9 meters from the fence, you can still clearly see the details in the wooded areas, regardless of the time of day.

Day or night, I can see if a squirrel is walking along the fence or if a deer is walking in the woods, and I expect a similar level of detail if an intruder is ever in the distance. The camera follows the movements very well, keeping the subjects in the frame as they move through different areas, which is essential for a large garden.

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

The only drawback of the Floodlight Cam E340, to which I have already alluded, is that it emits far too many false alerts for human detection. The HomeBase 3 uses artificial intelligence not only to detect humans, but also to learn to recognize individuals and to detect vehicles, pets and any other moving object.

Beware of false detections

The Floodlight Cam E340 unit that I tested mistakenly detects a human being on our terrace and on a path every two minutes when there is no one there; it’s amazing if you believe in ghosts! The excessive number of alerts has been such that I have noticed a noticeable decrease in the battery life of my iPhone and my Apple Watch… And I’m sure my elderly neighbors don’t appreciate the human detection alarm going off at 7:15 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

My husband, always optimistic, thinks that this is not a problem in itself: it would be enough to train the system to recognize what a “person” is. I think there should be a better solution than waiting for the camera to improve on its own.

Notifications (on the left) of the detection of a person every two minutes and a screenshot of the detected person (on the right). Maria Diaz/ZDNET

I tried to solve the problem by reporting these erroneous detections of human beings via the Eufy Security application. More effective, I have since reduced the sensitivity of the motion detection function: now there is about a false alarm every hour instead of every two minutes. That’s a big difference.

A new firmware is coming

There is also an option to temporarily put notifications to sleep while continuing to record events, but this harms the purpose of a surveillance camera, right?

This does not seem to be a problem due to the HomeBase, because it is the only camera of all our Eufy products at home that behaves this way. The good side of things is that this problem can be solved by a firmware update. So, it’s not a major concern for me. It’s not very pleasant, but it’s not a problem that we can’t solve by making some adjustments.

ZDNET buying tips for the Eufy Floodlight Cam E340 camera

My experience with the Eufy Security Floodlight Cam E340 has been generally positive. I enjoy seeing my garden in 3K resolution and getting a breathtaking level of detail from such a great distance. The brightness of 2,000 lumens alone rivals some of the best-selling PAR38 bulbs, and it can be set to mood lighting on a schedule or automatically from dusk to dawn.

At €230, you get your money’s worth with a system for which you will never have to pay a monthly subscription fee, or recharge or replace batteries. It also includes a duo of high-resolution cameras for motion tracking. If you don’t want to spend more on the HomeBase 3, you can still add up to 128 GB of storage to the camera on a microSD card.

If Eufy Security can solve the only problem with false human detection alerts, the Floodlight Cam E340 will be the best outdoor security camera I have ever tested, without exception.

Source: “ZDNet.com “