Logitech Circle 2 Camera Gains Support for HomeKit Secure Video

Thursday November 14, 2019 10:15 AM PST by Juli Clover
Logitech today announced that existing Circle 2 Home Security Cameras are being updated with HomeKit Secure Video support.

‌HomeKit‌ Secure Video is designed to offer up a more secure way to manage the footage captured by in-home security cameras.


The Logitech Circle 2 camera will leverage the iPad, Apple TV, or HomePod (whichever is set up as a Home Hub) to analyze video on your devices. Video feeds are encrypted end-to-end and uploaded to iCloud where you and you alone can see the footage.

‌HomeKit‌ Secure Video will send notifications if activity is detected so recordings can be reviewed, and Apple is providing 10 days of ‌iCloud‌ storage for video content that does not count against data plan limits.

Using Apple's ‌HomeKit‌ Secure Video does, however, require a higher-end ‌iCloud‌ storage plan with either 200GB or 2TB of storage. A single camera can be connected with the 200GB plan, while up to five cameras can use ‌HomeKit‌ Secure Video with the 2TB plan.

In the United States, 200GB of storage is priced at $2.99 per month, while 2TB of storage is priced at $9.99 per month.

When ‌HomeKit‌ Secure Video was announced, Apple said that Logitech, Eufy, and Netatmo would be among the first companies to support it. Official support for ‌HomeKit‌ Secure Video came in iOS 13.2, which means companies can now begin rolling out the feature.

‌HomeKit‌ Secure Video for the Logitech Circle 2 camera requires a beta firmware update that Logitech is rolling out today.

Tag: Logitech
80 comments

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Grimace
4 weeks ago
Hopefully we will get some decent 4K PoE camera options for HomeKit too!
Rating: 4 Votes
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MacFan23
4 weeks ago
Went Logitech for my home cameras for this feature alone, glad they’re finally delivering on it and it’d be happy to purchase some more from them.
Rating: 3 Votes
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robinp
4 weeks ago
OK, now I’ve set up the streaming & RECORDING, the app is exposing the full interface. Scrubbing around clips is much smoother and easier than with the circle app.

The clips have little icons indicating what has been detected (ie a car). You can then select it and tap the share icon which very quickly brings up the share sheet. It is actually pretty neat.
Rating: 2 Votes
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dog.cow
4 weeks ago
Impressed so far, as others have said it connects instantly (on Wi-Fi) and I like the timeline feature.

The best bit is this is the beginning, it’s only going to improve.
Rating: 2 Votes
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bonokoot
4 weeks ago
Need a Beta firmware update. However you get that.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Stewie
4 weeks ago


The best and safest is for people to run their own cloud server from home and store everything themselves for better privacy. No need today to pay others and store with others when one can store by themselves


Until the thief that breaks into your house and steals your cloud server and you have no video of it. I would give up a little privacy for on off-site solution.
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I hope Eufy security cam also have and update in the way ...


One should never buy something on the hopes that they will release what they say they will. Only give companies money when they are actually selling what they promised to. This

Also, don't hold your breath waiting.
Rating: 2 Votes
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btrach144
4 weeks ago


True, but that could happen any where

Could not disagree with you more. The chance that your home and Apple'd iCloud are broken into in the same event is 0.0000000001%. If a scenario like that ever occurred, you'd have bigger issues at hand.

On the other hand, it's very reasonable for someone to break into my home and destroy the evidence that they were there by destroying a NAS.

Having an offsite copy of your data is data protection 101.
Rating: 2 Votes
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robinp
4 weeks ago


Thanks for the update.

You definitely lose your history, I got the attached warning.

It certainly feels very Beta.

Also saw this on Twitter:
[MEDIA=twitter]1195107687350112256[/MEDIA]


It seemed clear at the start but later on there was a message about whether I wanted to remove the camera from the circle app or not. It then said that if I did that it would cancel the subscription and I’d lose any saved video.

At this point, there seems to be no way to access historic video stored on iCloud so I guess I have lost my history and no current hope of gaining anything new of use.

EDIT: having dug around in the settings (thanks for the screen shot above) it is possible to set it to record but you have to be very explicit about it. Thanks for the heads up.
Rating: 1 Votes
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SqB
4 weeks ago


The best and safest is for people to run their own cloud server from home and store everything themselves for better privacy. No need today to pay others and store with others when one can store by themselves

Secure, offsite storage is it’s own feature. Theft from, damage to, or destruct of my house could potentially reduce the viability of that home based solution you mention.
Rating: 1 Votes
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robinp
4 weeks ago


Just appeared for me in the UK.



Be interesting to hear how you get on. I imagine you lose the ability to set ‘Motion Zones’ once you enable HomeKit Secure Video? Any updates appreciated.


No explicit motion zones, but I guess apple have done some kind of machine learning to determine what counts as activity. It will be interesting to see how it fairs.
Rating: 1 Votes
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