Logitech today introduced its newest home security camera with HomeKit Secure Video support, the new Circle View. The Circle View Camera offers crisp, 1080p video capture with a 180-degree diagonal field of view.
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According to Logitech, the Circle View features a wide dynamic range for more detail in sunlight or shadows. Like existing Logitech Circle cameras, the Circle View features an infrared night vision camera so it can continue to record in the dark, offering full-field visibility up to 15 feet away.
The design is similar to the Circle 2, but it is made from black aluminum with a new base design. The camera can tilt downwards when needed for privacy, and it can be placed on a shelf or mounted on a wall. Available to use indoors or out, it has a weatherproof body and a microphone and speaker for two-way communication in the Logitech Circle app.
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Logitech has in the past offered cameras that are battery powered, but the Circle View is a wired option because it records continuously.
The Circle View Camera supports Apple's HomeKit Secure Video, so it does not rely on Logitech's cloud services. With HomeKit Secure Video, recorded footage is encrypted and stored in iCloud. Video can be viewed from the Circle View Camera in the Home app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Unlocking full functionality will require a home hub, which includes a HomePod, Apple TV, or iPad running the latest software from Apple.
There are no monthly fees associated with HomeKit Secure Video, but it does require a 200GB or 1TB iCloud storage plan. 200GB is needed for a single camera, while multiple cameras require the 1TB storage option. Apple prices its 200GB iCloud storage plan at $2.99 per month and its 1TB storage plan at $9.99 per month.
Though HomeKit Secure Video requires a higher-tier iCloud storage plan, video stored in the cloud does not count against your iCloud storage totals.
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All video is secured with end-to-end encryption with video analysis done on device rather than in the cloud. The camera can detect the presence of a person, animal, or vehicle before video footage is saved.
The Circle View can be purchased for $159.99 from the Logitech website or from Apple's online store starting today.
Top Rated Comments
I have one, but not had any issues at all? HomeKit in the cloud works great too, and Logitech even kindly cancelled my subscription to their service when I enabled it.Yeah, the Circle 2 HomeKit support is an absolute disaster. This will likely be the same.
Had nothing but positive experiences with Logitech in general, gear's generally good quality.
Because this sort of camera tech was around a decade ago for $500. It's since been commoditized, so that a $150 is probably $15 in parts, and excluding packaging/branding/software (I know....), $135 in profit, plus the chance to grab one of those sweet sweet reoccurring subscription fees.Why is everyone and their mother making camera products nowadays?
They're solving a very different problem. Both are useful, and people who are not insane are happy to use both! I personally have both (equivalents) in my house -- Blink for some tasks, Nest for others.Wyzecams are $26 shipped with no subscriptions and even comes with 12 seconds/event of free cloud storage. If you want "complete motion capture" to upload more than 12 seconds to the cloud, it's $1.50/mo/camera. I'm sure this logitech camera is "better" in every way, but imo it's hard to compete with Wyze's business model.
There's something broken about modern society that KEEPS insisting, no matter how often this is pointed out as dumb, that every problem requires one *and only one* solution.
Can we stay at least vaguely attached to reality? PoE is a MASSIVELY specialized item, it's hardly something that the average consumer knows about, cares about, or could even support in their house. It makes zero sense to demand that a consumer product support that; if you want business features look at business products.No 5Ghz WiFi? No POE option? Nope.
5GHz is less justifiable, but I think the reality is that the market has pretty much concluded that 2.4GHz is the best option for IoT devices because of range. You can fight this every day, or you can accept this reality, create a separate 2.4GHz network for your IoT devices, and get on with your life.
There is real crap out there in the IoT space -- things like WeMo plugs that simply randomly disconnect from HomeKit every few days. I think we need to spend our energy fighting the battle against real crap, not against decisions that are perfectly reasonable, even if you don't like them. If you want 5GHz, EveCam gives you that. If you want PoE, the Ubiquiti cameras give you that, and you can HomeBridge them to HomeKit.
All cables should be white. If you want some special color just paint it. At least it’s not black.The white cable irks me.
If they offered both an 802.11ax and a PoE variant that would be perfect. WiFi can be flakey at times. Personally I avoid Google products like the plague due to them dropping support for virtually everything, their censorship record on Youtube, general business practices, I don't trust them. There's no way I would be OK with them having live feeds of my home, I only have a small amount of trust in Apple as their business model has been around a major privacy focus and their decent track record.yup, not even ac, let alone ax support for the current developing standard.
no PoE makes this not great...im struggling to pick a camera system for a business. It seems that Nest now has made their subscription service include all the cameras for one price rather than all cameras are a fee on the subscription.
Granted, my customers would probably not be too giddy about a security system integrated with Google.
I'd get a better response with an "homecooked" solution, ex: cameras connected to a closed network with local redundant storage. Don't get to view anything remotely but no one worries about their personal security or face being logged by a company that very obviously sells individual's data.
Pretty much all of the options like Ring are just massive privacy/security issues, hence Homekit is the only real option if you care about your privacy.
I think this HomeKit ecosystem is still in the development phase, but it has a lot of potential. I already use a bunch of iCloud storage, $10 a month to never have to worry about data loss, every family picture, every important document, plus 'free' cloud video storage makes HKSV a no brainer for me.