There are a host of controls, despite this being easy to use. Using your finger you can move the camera and the response is near instant making looking around a genuinely useful feature. The ability to control the camera using a virtual joystick is a great, fun touch. We loved the simplicity of the app which just works well. The C8C works with both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, allowing you to get video notifications you can view on any screen-based devices that support those assistants. Having this automatically activate when you are detected, if you want, would have been a nice touch that is missing here. Privacy Mode is a nice touch, which will have the camera turn and face inwards so you can see that nothing is being recorded. There is the light, which can be strobed at an intruder, making it clear you're there, but it still feels a little helpless. As such you won't have the option for two-way talk and with no siren either, you have no way or making sounds. While video quality is great and audio detection is decent, the lack of speaker on the camera can be a let-down. This means the light can auto-activate to ward off intruders but also to get a clearer image of them at night for your records. The fact this camera uses AI to detect humans and automatically activates is a welcome feature. The color night vision mode is a great touch and helps if you want a clear visual of an intruder, for example.
Image quality is excellent with that 1080p video feed which looks clear and bright in the day – handling exposure well even when facing the sun – and also works well with night vision. Although if you're opting for a moveable unit you're likely not going to worry about this too much.
It might be nice to have a wider angle lens though as that would mean less need to move the camera to see more. This isn't the widest, so it's a good thing that pan and tilt availability is there. The camera itself uses a 105-degree lens. Having the option to use one or both is a great touch for those that don't want to pay the subscription fee. Pop in a microSD card and/or connect to the cloud for online backed up video. You can hardwire the internet or use WiFi but it's worth noting that unless you're close to the router this won't work well. That said the power cable is quite short and the connection could do with some tape to make sure it's waterproof. Everything is IP65 rated for waterproofing and you even get a special waterproofing box included to make sure you don't need to get any extras. But then running the power cable is also easy – this can be done into a wall or to an outside socket.
As mentioned above the physical install is simple.
Getting set up and running is a surprisingly easy process. That means you won't get to have a two-way chat which is quite a commonly expected feature now that doorbell brands like Ring have made it normal. There is a built-in microphone for picking up audio which is useful for monitoring but can be frustrating as there's no speaker. This can be set to deter people further with automatically strobing or manually controlled strobes using the app.
Usefully, the Ezviz C8C does come with a security light, primarily designed to make your view of a detected person clearer but it can also double as a great deterrent, coming on automatically. It also hs a micro SD card slot, for local storage of the video it records. Although the range isn't much better but more on that in the performance section. The device is mains powered so will need to be close to a socket and while it can be hardwired to a router it is also Wi-Fi capable. When you consider that this will offer a 352-degree horizontal view and 95-degree vertical view, even after mounting you'll have plenty of movement to play with. It does require screwing into a surface, but if you have a point ready – ideally wood – then you can just screw the provided four screws into place and this camera will go nowhere. Mounting is something that can be a problem for many people and as such Ezviz has made a point of keeping things simple here. As such it's imposing, with that baseball-sized round form, but looks well designed with the sweeping symmetrical antennas and white on black finish.
It straddles the line between looking too minimal to be professional and too ugly to be worthy of living in your home. To look at the Ezviz C8C isn't the prettiest camera but it's not ugly either.