INTRODUCTION

    As crime rates continue to soar all over the world it should be clear to everyone by now that we all need to be doing our best to protect both ourselves and our loved ones. From reinforced doors and iron bars outside your windows to alarm systems and surveillance cameras there are quite a few things nowadays with which someone can improve security at home. Personally, I’ve always favored alarm systems and surveillance cameras (and sometimes these two are combined) and so today I'll be testing one of eufy's best-selling models, the S120 Solar Wall Light Cam.

    With a unique focus on privacy protection, eufy Security offers a home security ecosystem that focuses on smart technologies, artificial intelligence, and unmatched battery life. eufy Security keeps data safe by storing it locally under encryption accessible only by the user. Find more information about eufy Security at eufy.com.

    The S120 by eufy is basically a 3 in 1 wireless (Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz) IP65 certified solar powered device (5200mAh rechargeable battery pack) which combines an 2K (2304x1296p) resolution camera (120 degree viewing angle) with a user adjustable LED spotlight (4000K temperature, up to 300 lumens) and an alarm siren (105dB). The 2K resolution camera also features infra-red (6 LEDs) and color (via the lamp or other light sources) night vision, comes ready with a PIR motion sensor (up to 25 feet distance) and 2-way audio and thanks to its built-in 8GB eMMC storage it can hold alarm footage for up to 60 days (largely depends on your configuration however). Needless to say the eufy S120 is compatible with both Google Voice Assistant and Alexa for easier voice control.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

As with past products eufy uses a white and blue box to ship the S120 the front of which is taken by a product picture, their logo and the main product features.

A few words about the product and its smartphone app are printed the sides.

Turning the box around we find the main product features printed in 7 languages right over the bundle contents.

So, along with the S120 inside the box you'll also find a wall mounting base with screws, adapter for external solar panel and the quick start guide.

THE S120

The eufy S120 measures 170mm in length, 125mm in height and 69mm in thickness (top end).

At the front we find the 2K lens, 6 IR LEDs (left of the lens), microphone and PIR sensor (speaker is on the right side of the enclosure).

The solar panel is as expected located at the top of the S120 and yes, should be plenty if you place it under lots of sunlight.

Moving at the rear we find the mounting base area, sync button (doubles as the reset button) and the USB-C charging port.

EUFY SECURITY APP

The eufy S120 is very easy to install, just download their security app and pick your model from the initial menu as seen above.

You will need to follow a few steps in order to connect it to your local wireless network (shouldn't take more than 2 minutes).

The app also has a proper mounting guide and even a Wi-Fi signal meter.

You can check what the S120 sees and records and even access the two-way, LED spotlight and alarm siren features from the main tab.

Strangely enough the main settings tab indicates current signal strength but not battery life.

As with other models by eufy from within the app you can adjust the motion sensor sensitivity, adjust the LED spotlight intensity and whether or not it should be motion activated, choose your preferred working mode (battery life depends a lot from this), change viewing and recording resolution, enable/disable audio recording and set the volume levels, configure push notifications, check the current storage status, check for new firmware updates and share access to the device.

AUDIO / VIDEO QUALITY

The eufy S120 is an 2K model so as expected image quality is quite inferior to that of the S330 (also also rarely goes over 250-300K/s but at a much lower resolution).

That being said the S120 is not the same as the S330 in where you'll place it and so for very small areas such image (and audio) quality should suffice, at least during the day.

Digital zoom (should be around 4X) is as expected not very good (luckily for this specific model that shouldn't matter much).

Again, at long distances image quality is bad at night (zoom included) but as already mentioned this isn't a model aimed for such use (and for a few meters away image quality should suffice).

CONCLUSION

    I ended up using the S120 for just over 2 months and well, it did well overall. Yes, image and audio quality is not great but the same applies for most wireless-only cameras so i can't really single out eufy for that. Battery life is probably the best selling point of the S120 since if you have plenty of sunlight where you place it chances are it will never run out (it didn't during my tests, however, remember to fully charge it prior to mounting it). The built-in motion sensor did a good job detecting people but sometimes the LED spotlight just wouldn't turn on and well, this is clearly a software/firmware issue which I hope eufy looks into (although the S120 could be near EOL status). The LED spotlight also did well and did sufficiently manage to illuminate an area of around 3 meters in front of the S120. Unfortunately, however it stopped working right before I finished testing the S120 and since my eufy contact also left (and no one has stepped up to replace her since then) I wasn't able to check and see if this was an isolated issue (did look around the web for people with similar issues but couldn't find much).

    Right now, eufy has a global brand sale and so you can find their S120 Solar Wall Light Cam for just USD69.99 inside the USA and for 89.99Euros inside the EU directly from their online store. This is obviously a good price tag for what you’re getting so if what you saw here today is good enough for what you have in mind, I do recommend grabbing one. At the end of the day even though the S120 fell short of my expectations I do hope eufy further expands on this concept since I really do think it could be a lot better.

PROS

- IP65 Certified Enclosure
- Camera, Spotlight & Alarm Siren- Wireless Connectivity
- Two Way Audio
- Integrated Solar Panel
- 5200mAh Battery Pack
- IR & Spotlight Night Vision
- PIR Motion Sensor
- Available Features
- 8GB Local Storage
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Overall Audio & Video Quality
- Spotlight Failure (Isolated Incident?)