While decking your house out with smart security camera can make your life easier, it comes with one big problem: charging. Most smart home devices run on battery, so you need to juice them up. Solar cams make up for this, but you usually need an extra bit of kit. But Baseus’ new option doesn’t, which makes it one of the best and most affordable 24/7 security cameras I’ve seen.
The new Baseus S1 Lite has a built-in solar panel, which is arguably the star of the show. Two and a bit hours of sunlight per day is apparently enough to keep the 5200mAh battery happy for nearly half a year.
This built-in solar panel means you can finally slap a security camera on the far end of your garden without running cables or finding somewhere to mount a separate panel. You won’t waste a weekend trying to set up a “simple” security cam only to discover it needed a firmware update, twelve apps, and a priest – Baseus reckons theirs takes five minutes to install.
On the image quality front, you get 2K video and a 135-degree field of view. That’s not the highest spec security cam you can find, but it’s not too shabby for the price. There’s also 8x digital zoom, so you can really zoom in to footage – though I’m not sure how well it’ll hold up. Plus, you get full-colour vision at night thanks to a spotlight that triggers when it detects movement.
What I also like here is the local storage approach. You can pop in a microSD card (up to 512GB) and skip the monthly subscription to unlock the most basic feature. Baseus has thrown in AES+RSA encryption to keep footage secure, a two-year warranty, and customisable privacy zones. It’s also IP67 rated, meaning this security cam can survive just about any weather.
The S1 Lite plays nicely with Alexa and Google, with smart alerts pinged straight to your phone when it detects motion. Plus, two-way audio lets you yell at trespassers or coo at your cat from wherever you are.
The Baseus S1 Lite 2K security camera is available to order now in white from Amazon US and Amazon UK. It’ll set you back $80/£80, which is pretty decent for what you’re getting. And if you order early, there’s a $20/£30 discount you can bag.