Rating: 4
Author: Paul Lamkin

360-degree smart camera that can jump to your favourite location

Adding favorite locations makes the Ezviz C8W Pro easier to control, as a tap of a button gets you the view that you want. This makes configuring activity zones and motion detection easier, as you can guarantee where the camera will point. The only complaint is that there’s no automatic option to return the camera to this location automatically. High-quality video, particularly at night, and offline recording make this a great mid-range camera for those that want the ability to look around when they’re away from home.

Pros

Favorite locations mean it's easier to use
Offline recording
High-quality video
Excellent night-vision

Cons

App is little confusing in places
Fiddly to download clips
No automatic home location

Pan and tilt cameras are a great idea, in theory, letting you change what the camera is looking at to get a better view of what’s going on.

Sadly, many are let down by poor apps and lacking features. The Ezviz C8W Pro tries harder than most, adding favourite positions to the mix, and some clever AI human tracking.

The big-name competition, such as the Arlo Pro 4 and Nest Cam IQ Outdoor offer better apps and control.

At this kind of price – $149 – the Ezviz C3X and Reolink Argus 3 Pro are also decent alternatives.

However, read on to find out why the Ezviz C3X is still a Top Pick smart security camera.

Ezviz C8W Pro: Design

Similar in design to the Ezviz C8C, the C8W Pro is a big ‘eye’ hanging from a wall mount. The ball of the eye can pan 340-degrees, while the central camera can tilt 80-degrees.

Combined with the 108-degree viewing angle, that gives you a full 360-degree sweep of an area.

As the tilt isn’t quite as good, I recommend installing this camera fairly high up, so you can tilt down to monitor the area you want.

Installation is pretty straightforward. Ezviz provides a mounting guide in the box, plus wall plugs and screws.

There are two cables hanging out the back of the camera, one for the power input and one Ethernet.

As seems to be standard for budget outdoor security cameras, the Ethernet connection ships with a weatherproof adaptor, but the power connection does not.

Given that Ezviz provides a power extension cable in the box, that potentially means two non-weatherproof connections outside: power adaptor to an extension cable, and then extension cable to the camera.

New model: Ezviz CB8 review

Wrapping these connections in electrical tape is the way to go, but a more elegant option should really be available.

This could be solved if the camera supported PoE, but it doesn’t. In fact, you don’t even need the Ethernet cable, as this camera supports 2.4GHz Wi-Fi.

Neatly, unlike the C8C, the C8W Pro doesn’t need the big antennas on the side, so it looks neater.

Ezviz does have a cloud storage plan, but you can avoid using this if you install a microSD card in the slot underneath the camera.

You can install cards of up to 256GB, which is plenty even when monitoring very busy areas.

Ezviz C8W Pro: Features

The one issue that I’ve had with previous Ezviz pan-and-tilt cameras is that they didn’t have preset locations to jump to.

Without this ability, it was all too easy to move a camera away from an area you want to focus on, throwing motion zones out of sync.

With the C8W Pro, there’s finally the option to save up to 12 favorite locations. Just use the camera to where you want it, then tap the Preset Locations button to save an option.

Thanks to a slightly cluttered interface, it took me a while to find out where the saved options go: after bringing up the pan and tilt controls, you have to tap ‘Preset Loc…’ to view them.

It’s worth saving your main camera position as the first option in the list, covering the main area you want to protect.

Once you’ve done this, you can set up a motion detection area and know that the camera can always be refocussed quickly on this.

The only minor drawback is that if you manually control the camera to look at something else, you have to remember to use your favourite location to move the camera back.

It would be much better if Ezviz just had an option to always return to a set position after a defined period.

Via the live view you can also activate two-way talk, which is pretty good here: the C8W Pro has a good microphone and loud-enough speaker.

This camera has some smart AI features, with the option to get notified when the camera spots humans or vehicles. These are far better options than generic motion detection; when combined with motion zones, I found that the Ezviz C8W Pro wasn’t particularly annoying and sent me relatively few notifications.

For human detection, the C8W Pro can be set to auto-track a person, following them. Thankfully, this camera will return to its original position after an event, so there’s no danger that the camera will automatically turn away from the area you want to monitor.

Notifications can be activated on a schedule, giving you quiet time when you don’t want to be bothered. However, I think it’s better to control notifications through the phone’s do not disturb mode, and control when the C8W Pro can and can’t record. This level of control can be done with geofencing and manually.

Footage can be recorded to the cloud if you have a subscription to Ezviz’s CloudPlay plan. This starts at $5.99 for seven days of history for a single camera, rising to $15.99 a month for 30-day history for up to four cameras.

Compared to Nest Aware, Ring Protect or Arlo Secure are all relatively better value. I’d skip subscription costs and use a microSD card instead.

The footage is available in the app, which shows a list of thumbnails that can be filtered by date but not event type, such as people.

Downloading a clip is a little too fiddly. Selecting one to play, doesn’t give you a download option.

Instead, there’s a Download button, which brings up an identical set of thumbnails. The clip you’re currently viewing is highlighted with a very thin blue border, making it practically invisible.

From this view, you can tap any video to download it to the album in the app; from there, you can save a clip to your phone. That’s far too fiddly.

Ezviz C8W Pro: Video quality

The Ezviz C8W Pro has a 2K resolution, which is pretty much par for the course for modern security cameras.

There’s also a 3K version of the camera available – although that sounds like its much higher resolution, there’s actually not as much in it as you may think. In any case, 2K resolution is more than good enough for a security camera.

Certainly, the Ezviz C8W Pro’s video is nice and sharp, right through the frame. Video is well exposed, and detailed during the day, making it easy to see what’s going on.

At night, there are two video options. First, there’s the standard IR view, where the camera shoots in black and white.

IR footage is generally a bit softer than that shot during the day, but the extra resolution steps in and helps. Objects towards the back of the picture become a bit softer, but close-up and everything remains sharp.

Secondly, the camera can turn on its spotlight and shoot video in full color. It’s a bright ligth and makes the world of difference to video, bringing out the full detail in the shot.