Logitech Circle View Weatherproof Wired Home Security Camera with TrueView

I live in the Apple ecosystem so this was the logical (pun intended) choice for my home security needs. Secure HomeKit support is solid, the cameras are high quality, compact in size and they work as intended. I do wish, though, that they had a battery version and that the cord was in black instead of white to blend in better but they work perfectly. They will occasionally go offline for a few minutes but reboot themselves fairly quickly. I've been literally halfway around the world and had a perfect view of my home with high-quality, crystal-clear images. Everything I buy needs to be compatible with Apple HomeKit so these are for me an ideal product. I've owned these for a while now and I've had no issues and no regrets.

I’m not a tech person but am reasonably smart about these things, but this camera and setup process defeated me. I had get help from Logitech AND Apple thru their support line. Initial setup: Logitech Circle 2. Worked thru their app. 2years experience with it. Failed twice - as another reviewer said it better than me, you have to be next to the camera for many reset operations. Ladder 10’ up, taking apart camera from base, pushing reset buttons that are hard to get to - dangerous, poor design. Now the camera appears stable for the last 6 months. Important note: These “older” generation cameras do work with Apple home but do NOT record on their iCloud. There must be thousands of them out there- why does it not? You end up with cameras on the Logitech app and the “new generation” on Apple home. I wanted to add another camera, and use Apple Home. Found Logitech View camera on Amazon. Priced high, I thought, but once you are locked into a vendor’s system, you can’t integrate others. Problems: Could not get camera to register on the Logitech app, could not get it to show on Apple Home. The connection instructions that come with the “View”box are appalling. Child-like diagrams with minimal writing. I hunted (you have to hunt!) for customer support and found the number. Called, and cumulatively I have spent 5 hours, 37 minutes, 53 secs working the problem of getting an image on the iPhone 12. Some buyers have luck and it works first time. Not me. I have fairly new Apple products and bought the AppleCare service (best deal Apple offers). After many hours, the L people said it was an Apple problem, so I called their support and found a senior advisor who had a L product, and knew how to fix it. It turns out that it was a combination of network, L setup processes. BTW, Apple can’t support third party products but there’s a “grey zone” that if you get the right advisor, they’ll help. Lessons learned: 1. Make sure you have a strong network signal. It HAS to have a strong signal to work. The Apple advisor had me go find and buy two additional Apple AirPort Extreme’s (from eBay) to get the new camera to work. MAKE SURE YOUR NETWORK IS STRONG. As mentioned in other reviews, it will only work on 2.4 ghz. 2. L’s customer support is, how shall I say, not in the US, and that presents problems. In my many, many, calls, I found most try to be helpful, but unless you have a simple problem, it’s very difficult to solve a problem that has multiple possibilities and non- technical employees working off set screens. 3. I was lucky to have a supportive Apple consultant, but I was about to call in an IT device to install it. Be careful, you may have to do that. Experience after 5 weeks: 1. Cameras both work through Apple home. 2. The older camera won’t record there. Older camera has more adjustable features than new camera. 3. No failures so far. 4. Take note of a previous review that if you travel and your camera fails, you may be screwed as for some fix-it procedures, you have to be at the camera. Not acceptable in my view. 5. Added two Apple Extreme “extenders”, $80 each. As they say, “more news at 10”!

If you're an Apple HomeKit user and want to use HomeKit Secure Video there aren't many cams to choose from. This is a good choice as far as the available options are concerned but its tech is getting stale when compared to other cameras. It operates solely on 2.4Ghz and its resolution is good but not great. The picture looks fine but details are missing and when you zoom in it pixilates and loses all detail and clarity. The resolution is a limitation of HomeKit. Video quality is limited to 1080p. This wasn’t such a big deal when Apple first rolled HSV out, but 2K and 4K cameras are common now. Even if your chosen camera supports a higher resolution, your video will be limited to 1080p if you use it with HSV. When you are squinting to recognize someone with a hat on or pick out a number plate, the extra resolution helps. On the other hand, you need a lot of internet bandwidth if you want to upload and stream 4K videos. You can review camera footage in the Home app on your iPhone, but HSV cameras can’t record video continuously. They only record motion events based on your chosen triggers and activity zones. You can scroll back through the timeline, and events are marked with icons, such as a person or package, but there’s no easy way to search or filter the recorded clips. All your videos are uploaded to iCloud, and there’s no option to keep local copies on a memory card or hard drive. Apple is falling far behind the competition on the home security front but on the other hand they aren't charging huge fees for the service. You will have to step up your iCloud storage subscription to at least 200Gb if you have more than 5 cameras. One thing to note: I had one camera come in with the most recent firmware preinstalled and the other two had older firmware. Upon initial installation to HomeKit the ones with the old firmware immediately started to update. You don't get any real indication that the update is happening so be prepared to let them finish. It only took a few minutes to complete. I returned one camera to Amazon for replacement because I wasn't aware that it was in the middle of an update and I unplugged it to move it to it's new location. Basically I bricked the camera because it didn't finish the update process and therefore would not boot up properly when powered on. The LED blinks a certain way to let you know what it's doing but being new to these cameras I didn't know what to look for. Just add it to HomeKit and leave it on for 30 minutes just to be sure. The latest firmware is 8.2.64 and that can be found by opening the camera view in HomeKit, tapping the gear icon on upper left and then scroll down to the bottom. You can also setup the camera's options from this page as well.

This is a great outdoor security camera. Many have complained about the difficulty with placing the camera outside while keeping the power supply protected from the weather. I installed two of the cameras and have small holes going from the outside of the house to the interior, and it works just fine. I wish the resolution was a bit better, because it is hard to identify a stranger's face with the cameras positioned about 12 feet above street level, especially at night. A word of warning : one strange problem I had when I first bought these off of Amazon was with mounting the base of the camera to the mounting plate. I found that both of the cameras were not able to slide onto the plate the way it was shown in the included diagram. I assumed the notches on the plastic plate must have a slight design flaw and I just needed to press down harder or even file them down, but I didn't want to damage them. I asked the company, but they had not heard of this problem. Eventually, I went to the Apple Store and bought two more cameras to see if they also had this problem --- and they were able to slide onto the plate without any issue! Comparing the two sets of cameras, there is a difference in the thickness of the little railing on the base of the cameras which the mounting plate is supposed to slide beneath. The Amazon-bought Circle Views were too thick. The Apple-bough Circle Views were just right. I then returned the cameras I bought from Amazon. I emailed Logitech about this. For some reason, there are Circle View cameras for sale that do not fit on the mounting plate. Maybe it is only a problem for some of the ones in Amazon's warehouse, but I think it is worth knowing about. Some minor connection hassles at first, which I notice happens with some other HomeKit accessories when you're installing them initially. But after that, the cameras have been great. I've had them for almost one month.

Every other IP camera manufacturer should take note of the Circle View. Logitech pretty much nailed it on the feature set, picture & audio quality, HomeKit integration, and overall user experience. I've set up many different kinds of devices with HomeKit, both native and through a (relatively involved) Homebridge configuration, and including several different types of cameras. This camera was, hands down, the easiest one to add to HomeKit, and the most seamlessly integrated. Most HomeKit devices require the use of their own app at some point, but the Circle View is 100% HomeKit. It's fantastic in that regard. Physically, the Circle View is a nice size, unobtrusive, and the mounting system is very clever and adaptable to virtually any type of setup. The only very minor aesthetic gripe I have is that the integrated USB cable on the black Circle View is white. The Circle View needs improvement in motion detection and overall stability. The motion detection settings allow you to select either "Specific Motion," at which point you can selectively enable detection of people, animals, and/or vehicles, or "Any Motion," which offers no additional options. The "Specific Motion" setting only works well if the camera is mounted at or near eye level, as the AI is tailored to mimic human perception. Mount the camera up high, and it often fails to recognize things, so you'll miss important motion events. Set the camera to detect "Any Motion," though, and you'll be completely inundated with motion events. It'll pick up a fly at fifty feet, for crying out loud. Even a $20 WyzeCam has a "sensitivity" adjustment for basic motion detection, and the Circle View desperately needs this type of adjustment under the "Any Motion" setting. The Circle View is reliable in the sense that it reliably follows Murphy's Law. The likelihood of it randomly going offline is directly proportional to the importance of the motion event that it needs to detect and record. Sometimes it comes back online all by itself, other times it needs a power cycle. So...overall, a very solid product, with room for improvement.

I had seen other reviews warning about the Logitech Circle View camera dropping off and not responding. I was hoping it was user error or maybe flaky network setups. I should have listened! It worked mostly for the first month, only dropping off once. After that, and after I could return it, it started dropping off every few days. I can now tell you that if you get this camera it will likely spend most of the time not working. It will appear to be working, it will still show up on the router, its night vision lights will turn on when it’s dark, but it will not respond in the Home app. The only way I’ve found to get it to work again is to manually unplug it, which isn’t the best if you’re out-of-town. I’ve seen some reviews say they use a dedicated smart plug to force restart it when it stops working, but I’m not sure I want to spend anymore money on this camera. It was already 4x the cost of other name brand security cameras with similar specs, they just didn’t have the dedicated HomeKit Secure Video support. Also, after buying it I saw a Wirecutter article titled “Why We Don’t Trust Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video—and You Shouldn’t Either”. I suggest giving it a read before buying this dud of a camera. In the future, if Logitech is going to keep selling these, I wish they would: 1. Make it more reliable! 2. If it is going to be wired for power, give it an option to use Ethernet. The USB power cord already isn’t waterproof, so it shouldn’t really change anything. That way you could possibly have a faster and more reliable connection. 3. If you are going to keep only supporting WiFi, at least add support for 5 GHz. Trying to get it to work for the first time on a modern router that uses the same network name for both the 2.4 GHz and 5GHz connections is a pain to troubleshoot. You have to go into the router and temporarily turn off the 5 GHz connection to get it to connect. 4. Cost half as much. Like I said, name brand competitors with the same specs cost 1/4 the price.

This was easy to set up and stays connected. I like that it works with Apple's HomeKit and is easy to access. I have this in an upstairs window of my garage overlooking my driveway. I turned off the camera status light and the night vision light because the camera is behind glass. In this setting, I find the motion detection sometimes does not activate the recording when a vehicle is in the detection zone, including my own car underneath it after dark, even with the headlights on. The night vision is not very good and the camera does not seem to have a sensor suitable for really low light. I'm sure if I had the camera in a different location and not behind glass, the night vision light would be helpful at close range. The camera uses a USB plug to power it, which would create a challenge to find a weatherproof power supply with USB if the camera was mounted outside. The Black color works for my location, but I'd also like it in white for other locations. I'd also like the ability to zoom the camera a bit, preferably optically, so as to have less of a fisheye view. My Logitech web cam can zoom digitally, why can't that feature be included in the software for this camera? Overall I'm okay with the limitations for my usage, I may purchase the Logitech doorbell cam and see if that offers any improvement with it in a better location. I like that Apple allows recording of up to five cameras on iCloud, it makes me want to stay with this platform. UPDATE: I added the Doorbell cam and am very frustrated with that. I regularly disconnects and requires a reset and reconnect to make it work I rewired my doorbell with a new transformer and new wiring, then added a wifi extender just inside the door where this is installed and it still disconnects every 2-4 months. If I wait a few days to see if it comes back online, nothing happens and I have to remove the camera from it's holder, reset it, remove it from Apple Home, and start over with connecting it to the system When we travel I worry it will fail while we are gone, which defeats the purpose of having the doorbell camera. The doorbell camera is definitely not the quality of the circle cameras, I've had two if those longer than the doorbell camera and never had an issue with them. I cannot recommend this doorbell camera and hope that EVE or someone else will come out with a Apple Home enabled doorbell camera.

Let's be clear: the only reason to buy this is because it is one of the few Apple HKSV-native outdoor cameras that you can run wired and doesn't come with a huge floodlight I don't need (like on the Eve). Like so many other reviews, I agree it is pretty much garbage. But I am getting OK use out of it, and here's how. First, you need a very good Wifi router. I've got an Orbi that automatically manages 2.4 and 5.0 traffic. This made setup very easy. No problems at all. Second, I use it to keep an eye on the front of my house while I am at my home office desk. That is my main use case. And sure enough, it disconnected 3-5 times per hour and sometimes much more than that. In Apple Home, I had it set to "Stream and Allow Recording." If I set it to "Stream" only, then it disconnects only a couple times per day. So I set Apple Home to "Stream" when I'm at home and "Stream and Allow Recording" when I'm not home. This made a huge difference. Of course if you want to record and stream at the same time, well, get ready for lots of disconnects. I did find that it disconnects less often if you set an activity area in Apple Home. My recommendation: use this camera to stream or record, but not both at the same time. Also, the night vision is awful--almost unusable. And it seems to reset the IR often, and I can't figure out why. But the night vision is so bad, it won't detect vehicles on the street as they drive by just 30 feet in front of my house! So this means you have to set the camera to record based on any motion, which means you get blowing leaves, snow, or bugs triggering the motion detector--and in this mode, more disconnects. If you want to record things that happen in the dark, this is not the camera for you. It is an outdoor camera with a power brick that isn't rated for outdoors! That is completely stupid. But since my camera is on my garage wall, I ran the cable inside the garage for power. But to do that, I had to drill a 3/4" hole in the wall because the power cable is USB-A! Overall, Logitech should be ashamed of this product. HomeKit users deserve more competition in this area. In particular, I wish Tapo would make an outdoor-rated version of their awesome C125 HKSV-native camera. That product blows this Logitech away in every dimension and it is less than a quarter of the price. But for the right use case, you can get by with the Logi.

We purchased this last year and it's been running outside in Ontario for over a year now and has been rock solid. Easily the most reliable HomeKit camera we have. This is our second camera to replace a battery camera, since the motion detection range on the Logitech Circle View's is much better than battery cameras (it uses image based motion detection vs passive infrared motion detection). Very impressed with this camera. Pros - Rock solid connectivity - Crystal clear video - Reliable HKSV recording - Recording starts a few seconds before motion event, so it captures everything - Clear audio - Fast streaming time. Image appears near immediately Cons - No outdoor extension cable. This isn't a big deal for our use cases, since the length was enough; however, there's definitely some places where we would love to put one of these with an outdoor rated extension - No firmware release notes. We block this camera from the internet, so we usually manually keep track using websites to determine when new firmware for our HomeKit accessories becomes available. After talking with Logitech reps on Reddit: it appears this is not something Logitech offers for the Circle View. This means we'll just have to unblock it occasionally and let it check for updates.

Lo único que requiere la cámara es corriente eléctrica y completar su configuración desde la App Casa. Esta es la segunda cámara que adquiero por que estoy satisfecho con la calidad y precio que ofrece.

se deja de ver y funcionar!!

Unlike me you should listen to all the reviews about constantly disconnecting from wireless. This security camera has amazing quality and simplicity of setup and use is top-tier. But that’s where is benefits end. I spent more time troubleshooting this than it worked. My wireless access point was on a shelf inside in front of the window where the camera was mounted outside. No more that 2-metres away from each other and on a 200mbps internet connection. Kept disconnecting, took over 30-seconds to connect to live view. And video was delayed and chopping when you could connect. Night vision with the infrared lighting is so bright that it causes the camera’s auto exposure to darken the image so nothing is viewable. It is also worth mentioning that Logitech’s app on the iOS App Store is defunct and abandoned. Hasn’t seen an update in years and currently crashes upon opening and trying to set up the camera. You can only use the Home app to set up some basic settings. I do not recommend this HomeKit security Camera.

Es un producto confiable, tarbaja 24/7 sin problema. Lo unico que no me gusto es que el cable usb es muy corto y dificulta la instalación.