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My First HomeKit Camera!

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Apple has a Secure Video feature built into iCloud+ that lets you use a camera without third-party software or a subscription. My mom has wanted a camera to keep tabs on her home and her African gray parrot, Grayson, while she’s away, so I picked one up, and figured it’d be a good time to test HomeKit Secure Video for the first time.

The camera

After very little research I bought the Logitech Circle View. Only a handful of cameras are HomeKit-compatible, and I wanted one built for HomeKit and Apple’s Home app, with no third-party app or account. This isn’t a review; it’s about the setup. I’ve used other cameras (eufy, Google, and I use UniFi now), but I needed something simpler for my mom, and this has what she needs: HD video, night vision and a privacy button. It’s an indoor/outdoor camera, and in the box you get the camera, mounting hardware and a power adapter. At $160, it’s not the cheapest HomeKit camera, but it was quick to get on Amazon.

Setup

  1. Plug it in and let it boot, then open the Home app, tap Add → Add Accessory, and scan the code on the device (or the card that comes with it, handy if it’s mounted).
  2. The catch: it said I needed to connect to a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network, and most of my home network is 5 GHz. I connected my phone to a 2.4 GHz network so the camera could join the same network, and I assume I can move my phone back to 5 GHz afterward. After a few seconds, the light turned blue (in progress, instead of green).
  3. Choose a room (my studio) and name it.
  4. Choose when the camera streams and records. Streaming means you can watch live but not record. For when you’re home and when you’re away (it uses your main iPhone’s location), I allowed stream, detect activity, and record in both.
  5. Share it with others in your household if you like, and optionally add automations, like turning on the studio lights when it detects motion (I left that off).

Using it

You get a live view, and after a bit of time, a timeline appears so you can scroll back. Recording is activity-based, not 24/7: it only records when it senses activity, and you can go back up to 10 days of events, with a calendar to pick a day.

Notifications: in Settings, turn on activity notifications for people, animals, vehicles or packages, and status change notifications if the camera goes offline. I tested it by stepping out of frame and coming back, and a notification arrived in a couple of seconds. Tapping it opens the camera live, where you can use the talk button to speak to someone in your house, plus a list of events.

Night vision: with the lights off, the camera switches to infrared and I can see in the dark up to about 15 feet.

Other options:

  • Face recognition: it can say “Jerry’s in the room” for a person you’ve told it to recognize.
  • Activity zones: mark where you want it to record, so a yard or other area outside the zone won’t trigger a recording or notification.
  • Snapshots in notifications, and turning the status light and night vision on or off.

What you need

You need an iCloud+ subscription for activity recording; without it, you can still watch live. The plans:

  • 50 GB: one camera, up to 10 days of events.
  • 200 GB: up to five cameras.
  • 2 TB: unlimited cameras.

It can be your own plan or a family plan.

Verdict

It was a pretty easy process, and I think it’ll work well for my mom: she doesn’t need another third-party app, login and password, and I can help her manage it. Is HomeKit Secure Video something you’re looking at?

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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