March 29, 2024

Sapiensdigital

Sapiens Digital

Lorex 1080p Smart Indoor Wi-Fi Security Camera – Review 2020

With the Lorex Smart Indoor Wi-Fi Camera ($69.99), you don’t have to spend a bundle for an indoor security cam with motion and sound detection. This 1080p camera connects to your home network using an embedded Wi-Fi radio and comes with a 16GB microSD card for storing video triggered by motion and sound. It will even stream video to Amazon and Google video devices, though it doesn’t offer quite as many features as our somewhat pricier Editors’ Choice for indoor security cameras, the $129.99 SimCam 1S.

Design and Features

The Lorex Indoor Camera’s white, puck-shaped camera housing sports a glossy black face and is supported by a round white base. The camera stands 4.3 inches high and is 2.7 inches wide. It has a power jack and a microSD card slot with a 16GB card preinstalled for storing video triggered by motion and sound. The camera supports media up to 256GB.

The 2MP camera captures 1080p video at 30fps and has a 115-degree field of view. It uses an infrared LED array for black-and-white night vision and is equipped with a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio and a speaker and microphone for two-way audio. 

Lorex 1080p Smart Indoor Wi-Fi Security Camera

A Person Detection feature helps reduce false alerts due to motion from small pets. The camera also has motion zone settings, motion sensitivity settings, and sound sensitivity settings, and it supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands that allow you to stream video from the camera to compatible smart displays. That said, it doesn’t support IFTTT applets that would let it interact with other smart home devices, and it lacks support for Apple’s HomeKit platform. 

The camera uses the same Lorex Home mobile app (for Android and iOS) as the Lorex Smart Outdoor Wi-Fi Camera W281AA-W. The app opens to a Devices screen with panels for each installed camera. Each panel displays the name of the camera and has a still image of the last activity and a play arrow. Tap the arrow to launch a live stream with a timeline of recorded activity. Here you’ll also find buttons for initiating two-way talk, launching full-screen mode, manual recording, muting the sound, pausing the live stream, and taking a photo. The gear icon in the upper right corner takes you to a Device Settings screen where you can change Wi-Fi settings, configure the camera for continuous recording, enable notifications, set motion zones and adjust motion and sound sensitivity, and update the firmware.

At the very bottom of the Device screen are three buttons. The Devices button takes you back to the main screen, the Activities button displays daily event activities with video thumbnails for triggered events, and the Account button takes you to a screen where you can access settings for all installed devices, test your Wi-Fi connection, and view manual recordings and snapshots. 

Lorex 1080p Smart Indoor Wi-Fi Security Camera app

Installation and Performance

I had the camera up and running in minutes in testing. I already had a Lorex account from a previous review, but if this is your first Lorex device, you’ll have to download the app and create an account. I powered up the camera, opened the app, and tapped the plus button on the Devices screen. When prompted I scanned the QR code on the back of the camera, tapped Next when it was recognized, and waited a few seconds for the LED to begin flashing green. I created a password for the camera, selected my home Wi-Fi from the list, and entered my Wi-Fi password. A few seconds later the LED turned solid green and I tapped Next to add the camera to my account. I gave it a name and the installation was complete.

The camera performed well in testing. Daytime video showed very good image detail with rich colors, and nighttime video was sharp out to 20 feet with good contrast. There was some barrel distortion, but it was very slight.

I had no trouble streaming video from the camera to an Amazon Echo Show, and motion detection worked as advertised. However, I had to lower the sensitivity setting and enable Person Detection to prevent false alerts from my cats.

Sound detection also worked well, but once again I had to lower the sensitivity setting to the lowest (50dB) to prevent alerts from normal conversation and sounds from my TV located in the next room. Push alerts arrived instantly whenever sound or motion events took place, and the recorded video looked every bit as sharp as the live stream.

Conclusions

If you’re looking for an affordable home security camera with sound and motion detection, put the Lorex Smart Indoor Wi-Fi Camera on your short list. It’s very easy to install and delivered sharp video in testing, and it never failed to send an alert when motion or sound was detected. Moreover, it offers free local storage for recorded video and supports Alexa and Google voice commands. That said, if you’re willing to pay a bit more for the SimCam 1S, you’ll get a wealth of features including mechanical panning, face recognition, intelligent alerts, support for IFTTT, and dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity, so it remains our Editors’ Choice for indoor security cameras.

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Further Reading

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