I’ve been using a SoloCam S340 and Floodlight Cam E340 for a few days and I’ve been very disappointed in how infrequently they actually pan to track motion. At this point I believe that the product descriptions are heavily misleading with respect to motion tracking, or I must be missing something very obvious.
Can the Eufy team, or anybody really, please clarify the following:
- Does the SoloCam S340, when operating without a HomeBase 3, actually have the ability to automatically pan and tilt to track motion that has not been identified as a human or a vehicle (i.e. will it pan/tilt to track generic motion)?
- Does the SoloCam S340, when combined with the HomeBase 3 (S380), have the ability to automatically pan and tilt to track motion that has been identified as a pet (i.e. does the HomeBase 3 enhance the S340’s pan/tilt tracking ability in any way)?
- Does the SoloCam S340, when combined with the HomeBase 3 (S380), have the ability to automatically pan and tilt to track motion that has not been classified into one of the AI detection categories (i.e. does the HomeBase 3 enhance the S340’s generic motion tracking ability in any way)?
- Does the Floodlight Cam E340 have the ability to automatically pan and tilt to track motion that has not been classified as a human, vehicle, or pet (i.e. will it pan/tilt to track generic motion)?
From my (admittedly brief) experience with these cameras, the answer to all of the above is “no”. Every time my cat has walked across the FOV of the S340, it records a pet event (if connected to a HomeBase 3) but does not pan/tilt to follow the cat. The E340, which does have native support for pet tracking, does a good job at both detecting (as a pet) and following the cat. But both cameras seem to totally ignore (in terms of pan/tilt tracking) generic motion. In testing the E340, I literally put a broom into the FOV and moved it around slowly and it triggers a motion event but the camera does not pan to look at it. But as soon as I poke part of my body into the edge of the frame, the camera jumps over to look at me.
This is a huge disappointment for cameras in this price range ($200 and $220), especially based on Eufy’s descriptions of the motion tracking ability of the cameras (see below for some excerpts). There should always be a generic motion tracking option in the event that a security threat does not fall into one of the fancy AI detection categories. Does this mean somebody can just hold up a sheet at the edge of the FOV of my fancy AI-powered pan/tilt camera and damage my property while the camera just stares straight ahead instead of turning to get a closer look at what they’re damaging? I’m tempted to try this myself just to see how bad it is.
On a related note, in my experience with the S340, adding a HomeBase 3 seems to provide the following cool, but somewhat low-priority (compared to generic motion tracking, on a pan-tilt camera), benefits:
- Centralized storage within the HB3
- Person recognition (primarily face recognition)
- Pet detection but not tracking
On to Eufy’s description of motion tracking. The S340 product page includes the following statements:
- 360° Guardian, No Blind Spots: Say goodbye to blind spots with full home coverage. Enjoy 360° surveillance, check your front porch, monitor your backyard, and keep an eye on the driveway with ease.
- On-Device AI-Powered Tracking
- Tracks targets in the area. Pans, tilts, and zooms to follow the action.
- Motion Detection, Human Detection, Vehicle Detection
The in-app FAQ for AI Tracking states:
- When motion is detected, the camera automatically pans and tilts to track the motion.
These statements had lead me to believe that the S340/E340 would, at a minimum, pan ant tilt to track any motion meeting the present sensitivity setting. And the 360 degree/no blind spots claim lead me to believe that the S340 would support something like “auto-cruise” as on the E340. I think any reasonable person would have come to the same conclusions.
However, what I’ve seen in practice, and what is stated seemingly exclusively under “AI Tracking” in the configuration section for an up-and-running S340, is “Automatically pivot and follow the movement, exclusively limited to tracking humans and vehicles.” (emphasis mine). The Floodlight E340, which is hard-wired (power), says on its configuration page “Automatically pivot and follow the movement, exclusively limited to tracking humans, vehicles, and pets” (emphasis mine). Similarly, the claim of no blind spots with the S340 is incredibly misleading; it has pre-set positions but no “auto-cruise” mode like the E340, so it can’t to get anywhere near 360 degree coverage automatically because it’s just going to be staring at one hemisphere the whole time. The sneaky exception is that if you have some other device that raises an event, you can set up an automation on the HomeBase 3 to have the S340 look at one of your pre-programmed locations. But that’s a lot of extra hardware that is required to even have a chance of coming close to what was claimed by Eufy.
So back to the main point; the E340 natively supports tracking pets while the S340 does not, and this native support appears to dictate what the camera will actually pivot to track; the HB3 does not enhance the S340’s tracking ability in any way. And in my experience, neither camera seems to actually pivot to track generic motion that has not been classified into one of its natively-supported “AI Tracking” categories. This is in stark contrast to multiple of Eufy’s descriptions of both cameras, as well as the “enhancement” promises of the HB3.
So here’s the bottom line. I have a USB-powered $65 MobiCam Pro with no fancy AI features that has no problem performing pan/tilt motion tracking on basically anything that passes its FOV. A mains-powered $220 pan/tilt camera like the E340 should be able to track generic motion, and if it can only track AI-classified people/vehicles/pets and not generic motion then that limitation should be explicitly and clearly called out in the product description. The same goes for the S340. If the disparity between Eufy’s description of the motion tracking features of the E340/S340 and how they behave in reality isn’t false advertising then I don’t know what is.
If anybody has had a better motion tracking experience, I’d very much appreciate some guidance.