After what seemed like Eufy abandoning Apple Home for good, the company has now released its second HomeKit compatible camera this year. The Indoor Cam E30 can be viewed as an update to their previous indoor pan & tilt camera launched back in 2020, that offered 2K, alongside a second 2K fixed position camera.
The E30 boasts some impressive specs, chief among them being 4K recording, although given that Apple Home still only allows you to view live streams or recordings in 1080p, that resolution boost is slightly tempered, with only the option to experience full resolution clips via the Eufy app. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the E30 only connects via the 2.4GHz band.
- One important thing to note is that the E30 looks almost identical to the company’s Indoor Cam C210, which only offers 1080P, doesn’t come with a spotlight, and is not HomeKit compatible.
It’s a PTZ camera, so you get a 360º view in the horizontal plane, along with controls to manually control its position – although once again, only via the eufy app. The E30 also has the ability to be fixed to ceilings with an included mounting plate.
What sets the E30 apart from the previous 2020 model comes in the form of a built-in spotlight. This allows for colour night vision. standard night vision is still available, however, so if you prefer a more traditional night view, you can turn the spotlight off.
As with pretty much all Eufy cams, there’s the option to install an SD card for on-device recording, which allows for recording without any associated monthly fees you get with cloud recordings, although Eufy do still offer such options.
The company claims that AI performance has been improved significantly since their last batch of HomeKit compatible indoor camera, which isn’t a surprise given the fast pace at which AI has progressed in just the last year or so. This allows the camera to distinguish between humans, pets, and even different types of audio. With the camera’s pan & tilt feature, AI allows you to set the E30 so that it can track both humans and pets more accurately.
A few things to bear in mind are that whilst their previous PTZ cameras have built-in sirens, there seems to be no mention of this feature regarding the E30, even though it does come with an integrated speaker. Two-way audio is mentioned, but whether that’s the case with Apple Home is unclear, as their cameras traditionally haven’t offered this for Apple Home users. It’s also not entirely obvious if these cameras can be added directly to Apple Home without the eufy app, or if HomeKit integration relies on this app, as was the case with their previous models.
The final point is that for long time users of Eufy products, many will still remember a couple of incidents where security was less than stellar that gave some users access to live video feeds of other account users. Whether that will mar this release, time will only tell.
The Eufy Indoor Cam E30 is available now on Amazon.com for US$69.99 but with US$10 off when using the code EUFY8417 at checkout, bringing the price to just US$59.99, which is very cheap for a 4K PTZ camera with Apple Home support.
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