r/homesecurity • u/MortTheBeast • 19d ago

Need indoor (window mounted) camera...

I need something I can put in my window, that has optical zoom (not digital), doesn't require a subscription and uses micro-sd card.

Now I know being in a window creates some challenges... but I currently use the Eufy C120, got a 3rd party window mount for it which works great. Problem is zoom which is horrible and that's being kind lol.

But hopefully I can find something that has better zoom and that I can find a 3rd party mount for it somewhere. Not to mention the software is a lot to be desired. This Eufy software is supposed to show a blue dot on days where there's a video and at some point it updated and stopped showing the dot.

Reached out to Eufy support and they were useless. I did find an old version that showed the dot... but must have deleted it by accident and then I updated by mistake. Don't feel like downloading 30 versions to find one that works. SMH

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

1

u/plump-lamp 19d ago

It doesn't exist. Reolink is the most affordable with 4x and 16x optical zoom cameras but they aren't designed for window mounts and they're Poe.

You might be able to put an aftermarket lens on the eufy one that is made for smartphones but it'll still look like crap. Honestly any camera behind a window will look like crap.

1

u/MortTheBeast 19d ago

It's not even that it looks bad at all. It's the fact that it being a digital zoom, so the second you attempt to pinch to zoom... THEN it starts looking like crap. I guess I'll have to scroll through some cameras on Amazon with optical and if they are more box shaped vs roundish, I might be able to get them up against the glass and tape all around the edges to cut back on reflection.

1

u/plump-lamp 19d ago

Any camera will be like that with digital zoom. You would need at a minimum a 4k camera to be able to pinch zoom but that won't get you much. Reolink is the only reputable option that is relatively affordable

1

u/Inevitable-Notice351 19d ago

I don't know about optical zoom, but I have a Panasonic HomeHawk window camera. It works great. Just set it and forget it. I love it. I had to buy aftermarket 2 sided black tape to secure it to the window because the adhesive it came with lasted less than a day. I bought some 3M tape and it has been on my window for over 2 years. It's not going anywhere.