If you're looking for an affordable way to keep an eye on what's going on inside of your home, the Mi Home Security Camera from Xiaomi is worth a look. Priced at $39.99, the Mi camera offers motion detection alerts and records motion events locally, which means you don't have to pay for cloud storage. It delivered quality video and clean audio in our tests, but it doesn't have as many features as our Editors' Choice for affordable home security cameras, the even less expensive Wyze Cam V2.

Design and Features

The Mi camera looks similar to the Yi Camera 2 that we reviewed a couple of years back. The black puck-shaped camera enclosure is attached to a white stand that lets you tilt the camera forward and backward and contains a mini USB power port and reset button.

The 4.5-by-3.1-by-3.1-inch (HWD) camera captures 1080p video at 20fps and provides up to 30 feet of black-and-white night video. It has a 130-degree field of view and contains dual-band Wi-Fi circuitry (2.4GHz and 5GHz), a motion sensor, and a microphone and speaker for two-way audio. However, it does not use the microphone for sound detection like the Wyze Cam V2 and the Momentum Cori security do.

The camera is accessed using the Mi Home mobile app (available for Android and iOS), which opens to a home screen that displays all connected cameras. Tap any camera to launch a live stream with buttons along the bottom for taking a snapshot, recording video, deleting a timeline clip, saving a timeline clip, and viewing a history of event recordings. Tap the live stream once to access the timeline, which lets you go back in time to view video from a particular point in time (a microSD card, not included, must be installed for this feature). Above the live stream are buttons for entering full-screen (landscape) viewing mode, speaker mute, and camera resolution (HD, Auto, Low). There's also a button for sharing video with friends and family via Facebook, iCloud, or text message, and a button for accessing the Settings menu.

The Settings menu includes a Sleep option that will put the camera in sleep mode for privacy when your phone is detected, an Image settings menu where you can enable Lens Distortion Correction and Wide Dynamic Range modes to improve image quality, and an option to enable automatic Night Vision. In the Detection settings menu you can enable/disable motion detection and use the Partition Sensitivity grid to assign various sensitivity levels to different parts of the image field. Storage settings allow you to change the recording mode (always, motion only, never), check the status of your SD card, and easily back up videos from the SD card to a connected NAS device. General settings include firmware updates, camera name and password, Wi-Fi, and sharing permissions.

The Mi camera doesn't interact with other smart home devices and lacks support for IFTTT applets, which provide interoperability with other compatible devices such as lights, thermostats, and sirens. Nor does it support Alexa or Google Assistant. You get all of these features with the $90 D-Link Full HD Wi-Fi Camera DCS-8300LH.

Installation and Performance

The Mi camera is easy to install. I downloaded the app and created an account. Once my email address was verified, I plugged in the camera and tapped the Add a Device button in the app. I selected the Mi Home Security camera from the list and followed the instructions to reset the camera using the reset button. Next, I selected my Wi-Fi SSID, entered my password, and used the Mi camera to scan the QR code on my phone. The camera was immediately connected to my network and I gave it a location and a name, and after a quick firmware update, setup was complete.

The Mi Camera delivered sharp 1080p video in my tests. There was no obvious barrel or pincushion distortion and color quality was excellent. Night vision video was also sharp, with good contrast and uniform lighting. The camera's motion sensor worked well, but I had to use the Partition Sensitivity grid to tweak sensitivity levels around my windows to avoid alerts from passing cars and windblown trees. Two-way audio was clean, and push alerts arrived quickly.

Conclusions

With the Xiaomi Mi Home Security Camera, you can use your phone to keep tabs on your home using live and recorded video without having to pay a fortune. It's easy to install and stores recorded video locally, but you have to supply your own microSD card. In our tests, the camera delivered sharp 1080p video and clean two-way audio, and motion detection and alerts worked well. That said, the Mi camera doesn't interact with other smart devices and lacks support for voice commands. The same can be said of our Editors' Choice for affordable home security cameras, the Wyze Cam V2, but it's half the price of the Mi camera and offers more features including motion tagging, time-lapse recording, and sound detection.

Xiaomi Mi Home Security Camera 3.5 See It $37.73 at Amazon MSRP $39.99 Pros Affordable.

Easy to install.

Sharp 1080p video.

Motion detection.

Clear two-way audio.

Local storage. View More Cons Doesn't interact with other smart devices.

Lacks sound detection.

No support for Alexa voice commands or IFTTT applets. The Bottom Line The Mi Home Security Camera is a reasonably priced indoor security camera that detects and records motion events.

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Further Reading