Yes, you just need to bind your eufyCam 2C and motion sensor to the same Homebase, so that you can achieve Automation.
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I think it also has to do with the position of the PIR-sensor. The cameras are usually aimed down towards an area, so that’s a relatively small surface to cover. The doorbell however, is generally aimed horizontally, so it is exposed to a greater area.
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I agree. This clearly is a work around using hardware versus doing an update to their camera or recalling the defective product. It’s concerning that they haven’t integrated their own products into the home base as well.
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Unfortunately, it appears Eufy didn’t consider this during their design stage. Maybe they should take a note from you on how consumers use video doorbell.
I had a Ring doorbell before switching to Eufy. I moved to Eufy as it offers local storage and advertised that the storage will allow USB expansion at a later date. However, Ring battery easily lasted me 3 months with at least 20% battery still remaining with higher sensitivity. So, in my case at least it’s nothing to do with positioning. It’s to do with Eufy using either inferior battery or poor AI or poor software implementation. I think this case is indefensible on Eufy’s part. Moreover, battery degrade over time. So, with this battery performance this product has an effective shelf life of 1.5-2 years max.
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Agreed
Should I turn the motion detection on the doorbell back on after it is linked to the motion sensor, or leave it off
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It’s too bad it isn’t outdoor friendly… It notifies way too much every seconds when it detects motion which is annoying unlike regular motion detection once it detects motion it will record and stop notifying me every second. Good suggestion but doesn’t seem to work well. Eufy need to fix motion detection it’s too slow and add additional activity zone to filter off motion such as trees/shadows and etc.
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It would be nice if the cameras could be linked to record when another in close proximity starts recording. For example, if I have a camera down my driveway that senses motion and the person walks out of view they would then get recorded on my doorbell camera as they walk into view.
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can a separate sensor be paired with an eufycam 2c cam whose own motion sensor is not far reaching and i want to have a sensor placed ahead of walking path.
I have the motion sensor set up to complement detection of my doorbell and porch cam. I found a cheap Blink camera case on Amazon that fits the sensor with only a little dremel work. It shields the sensor from the elements and allows me to detect someone earlier than I normally would because of an chimney box obstruction blocking the view of both the camera and doorbell. I get about 3-4 seconds earlier notification and recording on an automation set up linked to the porch cam and doorbell. Works great.
The only thing that would make it better is for the motion sensor to have a adjustable delay to ignore a second trigger if someone just drops off a package and then turns around and walks away. I sometimes get two triggers from this setup. One before they get to the porch and one walking away.
This does give me good full on video of someone the minute they clear the obstruction until they get up on the porch.
I’ll probably set up a similar motion sensor and camera to watch over my truck sitting in a carport. That way it can supplement the camera’s motion detection and start recording earlier if someone enters the carport at the opposite end fom the camera.
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My doorbell last at least 4 months. You product could be faulty. How many recordings does it make a day to last 10 days?. Have you tried geofencing?
Regards
Warren.
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Yes. The motion sensor can be placed to catch events before they can be detected by your 2C cam. You just set up an automation in the homebase and when the motion detector actuates, it can start your 2C cam recording.
The only issue is the motion sensor is an indoor rated device and it won’t like getting wet. I put mine in a case to shield it and so far it’s stayed dry and worked fine.
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If you have homebase cams its easy to set up automation to trigger other cams when a cam or other sensor detects motion. You can also chain multiple cams from one trigger event. Works good.
The longevity of the battery recording time depends upon the number of times it senses anything, so will vary accordingly.
It is best to wire it to a transformer, they aren’t expensive and doing so eliminates any battery depletion issues. It is possible to purchase a plug-in transformer if you have an electrical socket nearby.
As an alternative you could use a 5volt mobile phone charger if there is an electrical socket nearby.
Failing that, a power bank ( the type you use as a backup for mobile phones) could be mounted inside the property, which you plug into the cameras usb charging socket.
You can get a power bank that suits your needs then swap-out the power bank when it gets depleted. That way you will not loose the functionality by having to remove the doorbell to charge.
I think something might be wrong with yours, or perhaps the settings are wrong? Mine has been installed for weeks now and still has 68% left, which admittedly is way less than all the cameras I have. I do think the doorbell has higher power consumption.
Mine has the sensitivity turned right down but due to where it is - positioned perfectly to identify people at the door - it still picks up movement from the house across the road. Tired of getting notifications when my neighbours come and go, I’ve installed the motion sensor today. For £25 seemed like a fair solution, plus as it’s installed sideways on to the front door and facing the car it should also be better for security. We’ll see…
A side effect of installing the motion sensor for me was being able to cut the sensitivity of the doorbell back to the lowest setting and eliminating false alerts. After having it set that way for a week, I decided to turn off motion detection on the doorbell all together and rely on the motion sensor. Its been working that way for a couple weeks and the only false alert was a woodpecker that landed on the motion sensor. I’ve caught all the deliverys and visitors that have come up on the porch. It might not work that way for everyone, but for the geography of my place, it works great.
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Just an update on this. I’ve been using the motion sensor for a little while now and my observations are as follows:
Firstly it doesn’t appear to have made a significant difference to battery life, in that the doorbell still uses way more juice than the cameras I have? To be fair, it could be that I won’t really see the true situation until I’ve charged the doorbell battery again and we start from 100% with the motion sensor, but as it stands I’m not yet at two months (most of that was without the motion sensor) and it’s at 54%.
Secondly, and this is the real negative about it, using automation to trigger video recording via the motion sensor instead of just having motion detection enabled on the doorbell results in a delay of a few seconds before the doorbell starts to record. What this means is that we often get notifications of somebody walking away from the door instead of towards it. Not ideal. The motion sensor is mounted at the side of the porch at about 90 degrees to where the doorbell faces, and the sensor itself is tilted enough to pickup motion from the end of the driveway. It’s all positioned as per the recommendations provided by Eufy in the installation instructions. I’ve already repositioned the motion sensor once in order to try and trigger the automation sooner, but it barely made any difference.
If I move the motion sensor round any further I might as well just use motion detection on the doorbell!
So now I’m kind of stuck. On the positive side we get far fewer notifications/triggers (and that should mean better battery life - it’s too soon to know for sure) but the trade off is that we don’t always get video footage that’s of any use, and that’s kind of the point of having a video doorbell isn’t it??
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I have replaced an elderly 720 Ring doorbell with the battery 2k and I can confirm in exactly the same location with quite similar settings the Ring consistently got 3 months life between charges. Unfortunately the Eufy only gets a week. The PIR is clearly operating over too long a distance. I find it unlikely that eufy will be able to fix this with software. It will require a hardware change. I suggest that a future version could have an angle adjuster on the PIR lens to dip the FOV of the sensor when facing busy streets.
You can adjust the detection area zone and the range in settings