What you need to know
- The Wyze Cam Outdoor starter kit retails for $50 and is on sale right now. The camera will sell for $40 by itself later this year.
- The camera can be used on the base station with constant power and ethernet connectivity, or wireless on its own.
- Wyze has also created an "offline travel mode" that will record all video to an SD card for some serious versatility.
Outdoor security cameras are a dime a dozen, but Wyze's first fully-wireless outdoor camera might just be enough to catch your attention. At $40, the Wyze Cam Outdoor is the least expensive camera in its class, with features that even more expensive cameras don't seem to have. It's got 1080p video and a 110-degree field-of-view, 8x night vision LEDs for solid illumination in the dark, two-way audio, and even 8x digital zoom.
The camera is designed to be taken practically anywhere. Wyze describes it as a great way to temporarily set up during the spring to see a Robin's nest, or to set in the crawl space to find the critter that roams around at night. If you're using it at home and are connected to your home's Wi-Fi, the camera can store all captured video in the cloud for free for 14-days. The Wyze Cam Outdoor also supports up to 32GB SD cards, so you can opt for local storage instead.
But it's more versatile than most outdoor cameras in this class because it doesn't actually need to be connected to Wi-Fi at all times. Wyze has included an "offline travel mode" that lets users take the camera anywhere they need to record offline. That includes taking it on vacation or anywhere else it might make sense to keep a visual record of things, with everything being stored on the SD card for easy access later.
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$50 gets you the starter bundle, which includes a camera base and goes on sale today, June 23. The base station that comes with the kit connects to your home's network via ethernet cable and transmits a wireless signal that your Wyze Cam Outdoor cameras connect to. This one has a 50ft maximum distance, so you won't be able to place it too far from the base station if you want a consistent connection to the cloud. Additional cameras can be purchased for $40 a piece and will be available later this year.
Each camera comes with a mounting bracket that can be screwed in anywhere, and the camera easily attaches to the bracket via magnets. The camera is powered by 2x 2,600mAh rechargeable batteries, which are rated at 3-6 months of use depending on settings used. It's also IP65 rated for water and dust resistance, which should be just fine for anything the cameras will encounter outdoors.
Take it anywhere
The Wyze Cam Outdoor isn't just designed to fit anywhere outside your home; it's made to be taken with you, as well.
