Wi-Fi security cameras for your home can provide peace of mind when you're traveling for long periods of time or just at work each day. But they can get expensive quickly: most devices cost around $200 per camera and require subscription fees for long-term monitoring.

The Ezviz Mini wants to lighten the burden of outfitting your home with one or more Wi-Fi cameras. For just $70, the Ezviz records up to 720p video, takes screenshots periodically, and alerts you if it detects motion. It has many of the features you can find in a Nest Cam, Canary, or Netatmo Welcome device, but with a much cheaper price tag. Of course, you get what you pay for. The Ezviz doesn't come without caveats, but the newcomer security cam manages to stuff a lot of useful features into its tiny frame.

SPECS AT A GLANCE: EZVIZ MINI CAMERA RESOLUTION Up to 720p FIELD OF VIEW 115 degrees INTERNET 2.4GHz 802.11n LIVE STREAMING Yes NIGHT VISION Yes MOTION/SOUND DETECTION Motion detection only MOBILE APP Android and iOS SUBSCRIPTION Cloud storage, $5 per month or $50 per year; comes with a 16GB microSD card for local storage, supports up to a 64GB card PRICE $70

Tiny price, tiny camera

I love small things because small things are adorable. The Ezviz Mini is a small, adorable camera. Weighing less than four ounces and standing a mere 3.5 inches tall, the Mini is constructed much like the Nest Cam, with a sturdy base and a neck that can bend backward and forward and swivel from side to side. Its square-shaped head has one bulbous eye of a camera lens, and next to it is the IR sensor used for night vision. The indicator light below the sensor flashes steady blue when connected, and on the left side of the device is a slot for the microSD card and a reset button.

I wish the setup process was as simple as the hardware itself. First, you first have to make an account in the Ezviz app, which will send you an authorization code via e-mail or text. Once you're logged in, you can add your camera by scanning the QR code found on the back of the device or inputting the serial number manually. I'm glad the serial number option was available because when the app accessed my camera, it would not focus on the QR code at all, leaving me furiously tapping the small square on the screen to no avail.

Once the camera is recognized and you put in your network password, the device will connect to the Wi-Fi network that your mobile device is on. When the connection is established, you'll be asked to put in the device verification code found on the back of the camera. Overall, it's a much more tedious setup process compared to the plug-in-and-connect installations of competitors like the Nest Cam.

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Image quality: The compromise

One reason that the Ezviz is less expensive than other home security cameras is that it only shoots video of up to 720p resolution. However, you can choose the quality level you want via the app, which gives you "basic," "standard," and "high resolution" options. I could definitely see the difference in sharpness between the three levels: fine lines and details in the basic feed were blurry and nearly nonexistent, while the standard setting made them slightly more defined.

High-res was obviously the best, rendering the outlines and details of my home decor sharply and even making the lighting in my apartment appear brighter. Night vision was decent to watch from my iPhone, but the footage was rendered very pixelated when I saved a video clip and viewed it on my laptop.

Don’t judge a cam by its cover

Despite its cheaper price tag, the Ezviz has most of the crucial features you'd find in a more expensive Wi-Fi camera. It detects movement around your home and will send alerts if you've turned on the alarm notification setting in the app. It won't automatically know when you've left your home like other security cameras do, but you can put the camera on an alert schedule for certain times of the day.

I chose this option rather than opting to turn the alarm on at all times because the Ezviz will detect every bit of movement in your home. Since I work from home, I didn't want to be bombarded with notifications every time I got up from my table to sit on my couch. I did appreciate how sensitive the camera was, though, since when the Nest Cam detects motion or sound, it will alert you only once every 30 minutes or so. I walked in front of the Ezviz four times within 10 minutes and got an alert on my iPhone each time.

The Ezviz doesn't detect sound within its alerts, but all recorded clips and live video streams have sound. Impressively, the livestream lag is only about one second. Every time the camera detects movement, it will save a clip of that disturbance on its 16GB microSD card and leave the alert in your Messages folder in the app. Most of my clips were about two minutes long, and when I walked in front of the camera multiple times within a short period, some footage overlapped.

You also have the option of recording video or taking a screenshot while watching the livestream, just in case you happen to be observing when something interesting happens. The video is saved locally, and while the camera comes with a 16GB card, it can support up to a 64GB card—more storage capacity than the Netatmo Welcome. However, you can't just remove the microSD card and view the files on your computer. According to Ezviz, the microSD card acts as a host for your videos, so when you want to watch them, the card trasmits the playback data to your device through the Ezviz app. This is where encryption comes in—the card encrypts all your videos when you watch them on your smartphone, so the data is secure as the camera's card broadcasts the files to your device. Ezviz says the microSD card can hold about 44 hours of video at once, before the earliest videos get automatically recorded over by new footage.

And that's pretty much all the camera does—watch your home, sense motion, and record clips of it. The Ezviz doesn't have facial recognition like Netatmo's Welcome, it doesn't have a smart home protocol like the Nest Cam, and it doesn't have an eardrum-crushing alarm to scare off intruders like the Canary camera. You can connect up to four Ezviz cameras and monitor them all at the same time from the app, and doing so will certainly cost less than buying additional units of any of the more expensive competition.

With its lack of bells and whistles, Ezviz is more of a surveillance camera than a security device. I wish I could put two of the Canary's best features—the loud siren and the storing of local authorities' phone numbers—into the Ezviz, since they would give me more peace of mind if I ever saw an intruder in my apartment.