I have a few eufy PTZ cameras. There are a few things I wish I knew about them before I bought them. If I did, I probably would not have bought them. They are great cameras except for a few major issues. I wanted to share in the hopes that Eufy is listening and will improve their cameras.
- Even if your camera is configured to record to a local SD card, the camers need wifi AND internet to function. If they lose wifi or internet, they stop recording to the local SD card. So if you’re in an area where the internet goes down often, then the Eufy cameras won’t record.
- There is no easy way to download footage from the cameras to your computer. You can’t plug the SD card into your computer because the videos are encrypted and there is no way to decrypt it on the computer. If I need to download 128 GB worth of videos, I have to use the app on my phone. It’s very slow.
- Eufy does not know what destination ports their cameras need to for talking to other devices on your LAN. I’m not talking about WAN traffic. I asked Eufy and they said the cameras use all 65k ports. This is technically impossible. Hardware/applications have to know what DESTINATION PORTS they use when trying to reach another device – like the homebase, another camera, a computer, or a phone. But Eufy does not know. This is very troublesome. I do not have a lot of confidence in Efuy’s security if they don’t know what ports their cameras use.
I hope others find this information helpful. I hope even more that Eufy is listening and fixes their cameras.
As of now I am getting rid of all of mine and going to Reolink I think.