Xiaomi Mi Smart Plug Google Home

Tom's Guide Verdict

The Mi Home Security Camera is inexpensive: only $39.99. Unfortunately, it's no bargain, because Xiaomi cut corners in design, functionality, support and quality.

Pros

+
Very good daylight video quality — if WDR is enabled
+
Clear, distinct audio

Cons

-
Poor nighttime video
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Android app requires access to your private data
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No deject storage programme
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Uneven characteristic ready, with some key functions very lightweight

Even though it costs $39.99, the Mi Abode Security Camera is no deal. While daylight video and audio are generally very practiced (especially when wide dynamic range is enabled), the camera's feature set is uneven, nighttime video is poor and there'southward no cloud storage plan. What'due south more, the Android version of the photographic camera'southward companion app requires access to your private contacts and agenda, despite the fact that such private information is unrelated to monitoring or decision-making the camera.

Blueprint

The lightweight Mi Home Security Camera has a skeletal appearance. That's because the 2.iv x 4-inch oval body is only 0.125 inches deep, except where it thickens to 0.25 inches to surround the 2-inch-round black faceplate. The "works" of the camera are independent in a 2.25-inch blackness, puck-like disk that's about 0.5 inches thick and attaches to the dorsum. The trunk pivots 180 degrees in one direction only (forward and dorsum) on a 3.i-inch-round white base. The base has no holes or other means for attaching the camera to a wall.

(Prototype credit: Xiaomi)

Surrounding the lens on the faceplate are a status light and eight 940-nanometer infrared lights for night vision. The power cord, which is well-nigh vi feet long, attaches via a mini-USB port on the bottom of the "puck"; its ii x ane.25 x 1-inch power block obscures an next electric outlet. The slot for a microSD memory card (not included) is on the side of the "puck," while the speaker is on the back and the microphone is on the bottom. As role of the installation, you have to insert an unbent paperclip into a difficult-to-see reset pigsty on that's on the opposite side of the puck from the memory card slot.

Video and Sound Quality

The Mi has a 2-megapixel, 1/2.nine-inch CMOS sensor that captures 1080p video over a 130-degree field of view through a drinking glass lens. The quality of our test videos was all over the identify, from poor to very good, depending on the weather condition.

The Mi has an interesting optional setting: the ability to turn its WDR (broad dynamic range) on or off. With WDR off, our test daylight videos were unappealing, with muddy colors. With the feature turned on, videos were improved; the colors were make clean and authentic, with appealing brightness and contrast. In both sets of daylight test videos, details — such as a person's face — were generally distinct, though with some pixelation.

Unfortunately, WDR (which works generally on colour) doesn't have any effect on the poor quality of Mi'southward night vision. While the camera'southward eight 940-nm infrared lights illuminate objects up to 10 meters away, our test nighttime black-and-white videos had besides much dissimilarity, with keen loss of item and significant blur. The but time people's faces were recognizable was when they were looking directly at the camera and were insufficiently still.

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Similar the Ezviz Mini O 1080p, the Mi boasts full-duplex, 2-manner audio. The sound from the camera to a mobile device was articulate and audible, with just a slight echo. From our test phone to the photographic camera, voices were not quite as loud, merely they were articulate. While the audio on our recorded examination videos was distinct when played on our iPhone, saved MP4 files of the aforementioned videos had no audio.

Motion Detection

The Mi'south motion-detection tools are a mixed handbag. At that place'south a overnice depth of functionality for expanse detection, but very limited scheduling, and sometimes, features required too many taps.

Different other cameras' move-detection-surface area tools, which will warning you to move in user-defined areas of the frame, the Mi'south Partition Sensitivity grid lets y'all assign priority settings to each square in the grid: high, medium, low or off. Unfortunately, setting that sensitivity requires too many taps: Rather than allowing the user to draw a larger rectangle then selecting the level of sensitivity for the entire section, the user has to bicycle through the four settings for each square.

Amid the other motion-detection settings, you can choose how often you'll receive alarms, from every infinitesimal to ane every 5, 10 or xxx minutes. Information technology would be better if you could also set up a custom value, such as 15 minutes.

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The Timer tool (scheduling) allows you to define a single time menstruum that is practical to all days, and that'due south it. On the other hand, it does respond to Bluetooth geofencing, so that the camera will slumber automatically when you (and your phone) return habitation.

Cloud Storage

Xiaomi doesn't offering any cloud storage plans in the U.South., either for complimentary or every bit a subscription. Even so, the app supports NAS (Network Attached Storage), which means you tin can cull to have videos saved to your local network or cloud drives.

In addition, the Mi camera supports a microSD card that holds upward to 64GB, which you must buy separately.

Playback

The photographic camera's home page has a time line that is awkward to use. You cannot change the time increase, and the timeline has no popup thumbnails. So it is hard to null in on a specific effect.

Information technology's much easier to discover and play back videos through the Records screen, which displays thumbnails organized by twenty-four hour period and time.

Mobile App

The Xiaomi mobile app is available for Android and iOS. Even so, to install the app on an Android device, you must give information technology permission to admission all of your phone'southward data, including your personal contacts and calendar — something the iOS version doesn't require. Given that level of privacy intrusion, we don't recommend using the Android version of the app. The iPhone permissions are less invasive and more appropriate for a security camera. Likewise, the simply countersign protection for the camera is through the user-defined login of the app.

The self-explanatory icons on the photographic camera dwelling screen provide convenient and direct admission to key functions, such as Sleep, Talk and Records (for recorded videos).

The app centralizes controls in a single Settings screen, and we liked the depth of some of the features. For case, you can give family and associates full access to the app and the camera or limit their access to the live feed only.

Unfortunately, not all the features settings are intuitive. What's more, while Xiaomi's tech support people were well-versed in very bones issues, they responded with unrelated, rote answers when our questions were more than detailed. For instance, a tech support employee said that information technology was possible to provide dissimilar levels of admission (full or alive view only) when sharing with specific individuals but then couldn't explain how. Ane tech provided a URL for an online user transmission. However, on further investigation, we found that no manual exists for the Mi beyond a tiny QuickStart guide with some camera specifications and instructions to download the app and follow its on-screen installation instructions.

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The Mi photographic camera supports Amazon Alexa and basic IFTTT automation within the app.

Specs

Video Resolution	1080p
Field of View	130 degrees
Nighttime Vision	Eight 940-nm infrared lights
Network Connectivity	802.eleven b/m/n ii.4 GHz/5GHz
Smart Home Connectivity	Amazon Alexa and IFTTT
Audio	Full-duplex, 2-way sound
Mobile Devices Supported	Android 4.0 or iOS eight.0, or better
Web Browsers Supported	northward/a
Deject Storage & Monitoring	No cloud storage programme. Supports users' Network Access Storage (NAS)
Local Storage	MicroSD memory card, upward to 64GB (not included)
MSRP	$39.99

Bottom Line

Though the $39.99 price is tempting, we cannot recommend the Mi Home Security Camera. Its video quality is uneven, it has no cloud programme and some key features are lightweight. What's more, if you use an Android telephone, we recommend not downloading the app, which insists on having access to your individual data.

If y'all're looking for a upkeep security photographic camera, we propose the Ezviz Mini O 1080p ($59), which is amend in every respect than the Mi Camera. And it's as well more secure than Xiaomi's photographic camera.

Credit: Tom'due south Guide

Sally Wiener Grotta is the president and lead analyst of DigitalBenchmarks exam lab (www.DigitalBenchmarks.com). The scripts she created for various tech publications for testing and evaluating digital cameras, image quality, software and related technologies have become industry standards. Amidst her numerous books is the first major book on paradigm processing "Digital Imaging for Visual Artists" (McGraw-Loma), co-authored with Daniel Grotta. Her hundreds of reviews, stories and columns have appeared in scores of magazines, journals and online publications.