**Smart Home Camera Review: Circle View with HomeKit**

When it comes to smart home cameras, there are many options available on the market. However, when it comes to integration with Apple's HomeKit platform, one camera stands out from the rest. The Circle View camera is a great option for those looking for a HomeKit-enabled camera that can control who and what files can see the camera, as well as stream and view recordings.

**Key Features**

The Circle View camera has multiple accessories within the Home app, including the actual video feed itself, light luck sensor, and motion sensor. The light and motion sensors are great because they can be used to control other accessories like turning on lights when someone's in their room or turn on a nightlight when it gets dark. The camera also has automatically disabled streaming, so if you go into the Home app, you can't see anything and that goes for everyone else in your home.

**Streaming Quality**

One of the standout features of the Circle View camera is its ability to stream high-quality video. When you're actually downloading the full footage or saving it from the cloud, the quality is even better than when streaming it. The footage is 1080p and has a 180-degree field of view. Unfortunately, HomeKit doesn't allow for higher resolution video, so users are limited to 1080p.

**Recording Options**

When recording, the camera can detect any sort of motion or specify vehicles, animals, or people. Users also have the option to record audio or not to record audio in those clips. There are several other changes that can be made to this camera within the Home app, including viewing other accessories that are included with it, such as a deluxe light sensor and motion sensor.

**Additional Features**

The Circle View camera has several additional features that make it stand out from other smart home cameras. Users can include it in favorites, control occasions, and get snapshots of motion captured. The snapshots will even show up on the Apple Watch. Users can also change the settings to detect motion or record audio, as well as opt to turn off the status light if desired.

**Outdoor Use**

One of the biggest advantages of the Circle View camera is its ability to be used outdoors. While the camera itself is water-resistant, the power cable and plug are not. However, with a special box that makes it watertight, users can mount this camera outside using their porch on their deck, their driveway, or wherever they need it. The original Circle to camera was quick to adopt HomeKit over a software update, and the Circle View is even better designed for HomeKit from the ground up.

**Conclusion**

If you're in the market for a smart home camera that integrates seamlessly with Apple's HomeKit platform, the Circle View is definitely worth considering. Its high-quality video streaming, advanced recording options, and outdoor use capabilities make it a top-notch choice for those looking to secure their home. While some features are limited due to HomeKit constraints, the overall design and functionality of the camera make it a great option for anyone looking to upgrade their smart home security system.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome everyone it is Andrew here from Apple Insider and this is the new logitech circle view the successor to the wildly popular circle to camera and this model exclusively supports Apple's own home kit secure video that makes it very similar to the Eve cam that was announced earlier this year and it makes it very easy and seamless to use no third party apps no additional subscription fees just encrypted video ten days of storage and easy integration to Apple's smart home platform the design the camera is very sleek it feels solid in the hand with a metal base and a matte black finish around the edges of the lens has a 180 degree field of view and of course it powers over USB now I do wish that this was USBC rather than USB but it does have a minor benefit they will talk about in just a moment in general though the cord is permanently affixed so something should go wrong with the cord you can't change it or swap it out now what we're looking at the back there's also this small button this small button is actually used to enter privacy mode you can press that button and immediately disable the camera so that we don't have to worry about having it on if you're in the room and you just don't want that camera to be looking at you now many privacy focused individuals don't think that is far enough they don't want that camera looking at them and all and they don't trust that software button on the back but fortunately there's a physical way to obfuscate the camera so it can't look at you and then it's tilting it down on that articulated neck there is a hinge there that can put that camera straight down so it can't see into the room whatsoever this is also a great swivel point allowing you to adjust the point of view especially if you have it staying down or if you matched up on the wall with the including mounting bracket the bottom of the camera is covered with a silicone ring and of course you have your home kit pairing code the ring is good to stop it sliding a little bit but the camera isn't heavy enough to really keep its place design would pool on that cable a little too hard so make sure you have this thing in place where you want to and then it's not going to simply slide around because circle view only supports homekit secure video we don't need that circle app or the circle safe subscription is so easy to set up and begin using used open the home app tap on the plus button add accessory and scan the home cake code it then walks you through the basic setup there's a little bit more because it is a camera versus another passive accessory but it's good to know what's going on for instance your privacy settings when you're home do you want the camera just completely off do you want just to detect motion and activity so you can use it to automate other accessories do you want to be able to stream but not record or do you want to allow to stream and record and you can make those same choices for when you're away then you can control who and your files can see the camera whether they can stream it or stream and view those recordings the canvas shows up as multiple accessories within the home app there's the actual video feed itself a light luck sensor and of course the motion sensor the light and the motion sensor are great because those can be used to control other accessories like turning on lights when someone's in their room or turn on a nightlight when it gets dark since we are home our camera has automatically disabled streaming so if you go into the home app you can't see anything and that goes for everyone else in your home of course if you do enable streaming you can easily see how good the quality of this camera is now everything right here is streaming and it actually gets even better quality when you're actually downloading the full footage and 1080p or saving it from the cloud first is just streaming it but overall the footage is good quality it is 1080 P has at 180 degree field of view well unfortunately homekit doesn't allow her higher resolution video you can't get 2k or even 4k video through home kit so it is a limitation of home kit and not necessarily limitation of third party camera manufacturers still the quality here is really good and we are very happy with how it turned out it's very comparable to the previous generation circle 2 camera while we are recording we still do see occasional stuttering but that seems to be par for the course for any smart home cameras of course as you can see here this is the downloaded full 1080p resolution footage and it does look better than when we are streaming it there are several other changes you can make to this camera all over within the home app for instance you can view those other accessories that are included here including deluxe light sensor and that motion sensor those can split off into their own tiles if you so choose you can include it in favorites you can control occasions and we really love being able to get those snapshots so this will even show up on your Apple watch as a snapshot of the motion that was captured you can change you can get implication of that statuses change like in to detect mode or recording mode whatever it may be and you can control when you get those notifications to certain times of the day specific times or when someone's home or when you're not home we really like to have those working all the time when nobody is supposed to be in the house and of course you can choose whether all motion is detected or just when a certain clip is recorded which you can change under recording options recording options can detect any sort of motion or you can specify vehicles animals or people of course you can also opt to record audio or not to record audio in those clips down below you have a couple more options including turning off the status light if you so choose and you can turn off in night vision lights this will automatically turn on them and maybe if you have it up against the window you want to turn those off now there are two IR lights there that help from night vision give you about 15 feet of view now this is very similar to the circle - that it replaces just has much updated body it's still weather resistant so can go outside except for the power cable and it still has that large circular face other than the design change the biggest change is that it doesn't require that third party circle app at all it runs entirely through home get no NEFA an extra subscription through that circle safe now we did mention there was one benefit to that USB a poor and it works with some of the accessories from the circle - so just this outdoor power adapter you can easily plug your USB a cable in here and use this camera outside see the camera itself is water-resistant but the cable or the plug is not by using this little box and makes it watertight allowing you to mount this camera outside using your porch on your deck your driveway whatever it is and get that outdoor point-of-view we really like the original circle to camera they were quick to adopt home kit over a software update I mean are quick doesn't work at home get secure video the circle view is even better designed for home kit from the ground up and it definitely shows right now if we're gonna pick out a camera this would be the one that we'd go to and if you do want to grab one for yourself you can find it at the link down below in the description let me know what you think over on Twitter at Andrew underscore OSU hey everyone did you guys like that video be sure to click on that like button so we can create content that we know that you guys want to see and follow Apple Insider tour in all social media channels if you want the best prices on any Apple gear check out the Apple insider price guide that is updated daily and until next time we'll see you laterwelcome everyone it is Andrew here from Apple Insider and this is the new logitech circle view the successor to the wildly popular circle to camera and this model exclusively supports Apple's own home kit secure video that makes it very similar to the Eve cam that was announced earlier this year and it makes it very easy and seamless to use no third party apps no additional subscription fees just encrypted video ten days of storage and easy integration to Apple's smart home platform the design the camera is very sleek it feels solid in the hand with a metal base and a matte black finish around the edges of the lens has a 180 degree field of view and of course it powers over USB now I do wish that this was USBC rather than USB but it does have a minor benefit they will talk about in just a moment in general though the cord is permanently affixed so something should go wrong with the cord you can't change it or swap it out now what we're looking at the back there's also this small button this small button is actually used to enter privacy mode you can press that button and immediately disable the camera so that we don't have to worry about having it on if you're in the room and you just don't want that camera to be looking at you now many privacy focused individuals don't think that is far enough they don't want that camera looking at them and all and they don't trust that software button on the back but fortunately there's a physical way to obfuscate the camera so it can't look at you and then it's tilting it down on that articulated neck there is a hinge there that can put that camera straight down so it can't see into the room whatsoever this is also a great swivel point allowing you to adjust the point of view especially if you have it staying down or if you matched up on the wall with the including mounting bracket the bottom of the camera is covered with a silicone ring and of course you have your home kit pairing code the ring is good to stop it sliding a little bit but the camera isn't heavy enough to really keep its place design would pool on that cable a little too hard so make sure you have this thing in place where you want to and then it's not going to simply slide around because circle view only supports homekit secure video we don't need that circle app or the circle safe subscription is so easy to set up and begin using used open the home app tap on the plus button add accessory and scan the home cake code it then walks you through the basic setup there's a little bit more because it is a camera versus another passive accessory but it's good to know what's going on for instance your privacy settings when you're home do you want the camera just completely off do you want just to detect motion and activity so you can use it to automate other accessories do you want to be able to stream but not record or do you want to allow to stream and record and you can make those same choices for when you're away then you can control who and your files can see the camera whether they can stream it or stream and view those recordings the canvas shows up as multiple accessories within the home app there's the actual video feed itself a light luck sensor and of course the motion sensor the light and the motion sensor are great because those can be used to control other accessories like turning on lights when someone's in their room or turn on a nightlight when it gets dark since we are home our camera has automatically disabled streaming so if you go into the home app you can't see anything and that goes for everyone else in your home of course if you do enable streaming you can easily see how good the quality of this camera is now everything right here is streaming and it actually gets even better quality when you're actually downloading the full footage and 1080p or saving it from the cloud first is just streaming it but overall the footage is good quality it is 1080 P has at 180 degree field of view well unfortunately homekit doesn't allow her higher resolution video you can't get 2k or even 4k video through home kit so it is a limitation of home kit and not necessarily limitation of third party camera manufacturers still the quality here is really good and we are very happy with how it turned out it's very comparable to the previous generation circle 2 camera while we are recording we still do see occasional stuttering but that seems to be par for the course for any smart home cameras of course as you can see here this is the downloaded full 1080p resolution footage and it does look better than when we are streaming it there are several other changes you can make to this camera all over within the home app for instance you can view those other accessories that are included here including deluxe light sensor and that motion sensor those can split off into their own tiles if you so choose you can include it in favorites you can control occasions and we really love being able to get those snapshots so this will even show up on your Apple watch as a snapshot of the motion that was captured you can change you can get implication of that statuses change like in to detect mode or recording mode whatever it may be and you can control when you get those notifications to certain times of the day specific times or when someone's home or when you're not home we really like to have those working all the time when nobody is supposed to be in the house and of course you can choose whether all motion is detected or just when a certain clip is recorded which you can change under recording options recording options can detect any sort of motion or you can specify vehicles animals or people of course you can also opt to record audio or not to record audio in those clips down below you have a couple more options including turning off the status light if you so choose and you can turn off in night vision lights this will automatically turn on them and maybe if you have it up against the window you want to turn those off now there are two IR lights there that help from night vision give you about 15 feet of view now this is very similar to the circle - that it replaces just has much updated body it's still weather resistant so can go outside except for the power cable and it still has that large circular face other than the design change the biggest change is that it doesn't require that third party circle app at all it runs entirely through home get no NEFA an extra subscription through that circle safe now we did mention there was one benefit to that USB a poor and it works with some of the accessories from the circle - so just this outdoor power adapter you can easily plug your USB a cable in here and use this camera outside see the camera itself is water-resistant but the cable or the plug is not by using this little box and makes it watertight allowing you to mount this camera outside using your porch on your deck your driveway whatever it is and get that outdoor point-of-view we really like the original circle to camera they were quick to adopt home kit over a software update I mean are quick doesn't work at home get secure video the circle view is even better designed for home kit from the ground up and it definitely shows right now if we're gonna pick out a camera this would be the one that we'd go to and if you do want to grab one for yourself you can find it at the link down below in the description let me know what you think over on Twitter at Andrew underscore OSU hey everyone did you guys like that video be sure to click on that like button so we can create content that we know that you guys want to see and follow Apple Insider tour in all social media channels if you want the best prices on any Apple gear check out the Apple insider price guide that is updated daily and until next time we'll see you later\n"