The Ecobee SmartCamera ($129.99) is the latest addition to its family of smart home devices and is the company’s first home security camera. It’s an indoor 1080p camera that offers motion detection and acts as an Amazon Alexa device that can do everything an Echo smart speaker can. Image quality is sharp and Alexa functionality works well, but ultimately you can get more features for the same price with our Editors’ Choice, the SimCam 1S. Still, the SmartCamera is a solid alternative for Ecobee Haven users.

Design and Features

The Ecobee SmartCamera stands 5.4 inches tall (with its stand) and is 2.2 inches wide and 1.7 inches in depth. The enclosure is white, with a glossy black faceplate, and it uses a small silver stand that can be attached either to the bottom of the device for placement on a flat surface or on the back panel for mounting on a wall. Mounting screws are included in the box.

The top of the camera is home to Alexa action and mute buttons, and the front contains the camera itself, a pair of far-field microphones, a camera activity LED, four LEDs that glow blue when processing Alexa voice commands, and a speaker.

The camera captures 1080p video at 30fps and has a 180-degree field of view. It offers digital pan and tilt using the mobile app and has an auto pan and zoom feature that zeroes in on moving subjects. The camera uses three infrared LEDs for night vision and is equipped with a dual-band Wi-Fi radio for connecting to your home network and a built-in siren. It is also equipped with a 2GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 4GB of flash memory for onboard video processing, and it contains circuitry that allows it to serve as an Alexa device that will play music, run Alexa Routines, give you the news, and control Alexa-enabled smart home devices. You can also view video from the camera on a compatible smart display. The camera also detects motion, but you have to subscribe to Ecobee’s Haven service to view recorded video and receive motion alerts.

Haven is Ecobee’s new home monitoring service that allows Ecobee devices including thermostats, room occupancy sensors, cameras, and door and window sensors, to work together to monitor activities in your home. With Haven you can automatically arm and disarm your devices using your phone’s location services (Autopilot), see when people are coming and going, view up to 14 days of motion-triggered video stored in the cloud, and receive event notifications on your mobile device. You’ll receive alerts when the camera or any of the Ecobee sensors detects motion, but you can’t have the camera begin recording when another device, such as a door/window sensor, is triggered.

If you don’t subscribe to Haven you can still use the camera as a standalone device, but you won’t receive motion alerts and events are captured with a snapshot instead of a video clip. A Haven subscription will cost you $5 per month for the Essentials Plan, which offers support for a single camera, or you can pay $10 per month for the Extended Plan with unlimited camera support. In addition to Alexa and Haven compatibility, the SmartCamera supports Apple’s HomeKit and Siri voice commands, but it doesn't support Google Assistant voice commands or IFTTT applets that would allow it to interact with third-party smart devices, at least not yet. 

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The SmartCamera works with the same mobile app (for Android and iOS) used to control other Ecobee devices such as the Ecobee Switch + and the Ecobee Smart Thermostat With Voice Control. The home screen contains tabs for all of your Ecobee thermostats, cameras, and sensors. The camera tab displays the name of the camera, the last captured image, and a View Live button. Tap that to launch a live stream with buttons for two-way talk and panning. If you subscribe to Haven, you’ll also see snapshot and video record buttons. At the top of the screen you can switch from a Live view to a History view that displays thumbnails with timestamps for all recorded video. Tap any thumbnail to view the video, download, or delete it. A gear icon in the upper right corner takes you to a settings screen where you can enable Autopilot, configure motion settings (activity, motion zones), and enable Window mode, which disables the infrared LEDs to eliminate glare when the camera is facing a window.

Back at the home screen there are four buttons at the bottom. The Home button returns you to the home screen, and the Activity button takes you to a screen where you can view events from all of your Haven devices including camera motion events, arming and disarming events, and triggered sensor events. The Vacation button is used to configure thermostat settings for when you are away on vacation, and the Account button brings you to a screen where you edit your home information, location, and anonymously donate thermostat data for research purposes.

Installation and Performance

The SmartCamera is easy to install, but before you start you’ll have to download the mobile app, create an account, and create a Home. Tap the plus icon in the upper right corner of the home screen, select Camera from the list of products, and follow the instructions to power up the camera. After 10 seconds or so, when the LEDs go from white to amber, tap Good to Go and select the camera when it appears in the device list. Select your Wi-Fi SSID and tap Next to have the app add the camera to your network and device list. Complete the installation by naming the camera, selecting a few settings (Window Mode, Autopilot, Notifications) and updating the firmware (if necessary).

The Ecobee SmartCamera performed well in testing. With a Haven subscription enabled, I received instant notifications when the camera detected motion and recorded video was immediately available in the History screen. Image quality was sharp and colorful, with no obvious signs of distortion, and black-and-white night video showed good contrast. I had no trouble viewing video from the camera on an Amazon Echo Show, and it worked flawlessly in my HomeKit scenes. Two-way audio was clean, and the siren was loud enough to be heard throughout my house.

The camera also worked well as an Alexa device, although its speaker lacks bass response and is not well suited for playing music. That said, it always responded to requests to control Alexa-enabled smart devices, and never failed to give me the current local news and weather when asked. 

Conclusions

If you’re looking for a versatile indoor security camera that does more than detect motion, the Ecobee SmartCamera is worth a look. It not only lets you use your phone to see what’s going on in your home, but also acts as an Alexa device that can give you the news and weather, play music, control Alexa-enabled smart devices, and more. The camera delivers sharp video, but you have to subscribe to Ecobee’s Haven service to view recorded video and receive motion notifications. It’s a worthy addition to any existing Ecobee ecosystem, but you get more bang for your buck with our Editors’ Choice, the SimCam 1S, including face recognition, mechanical panning, free local video storage, intelligent alerts, and support for Google Assistant voice commands and IFTTT applets.