Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera Review

Introduction

A lighting company moving to introduce security cameras, with the Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera, might seem like a bit of a strange move.

But, there’s a clear link between lighting and security, with smart lights able to mimic presence when you’re not there and also light up areas when motion is detected to help you see what’s going on.

In many ways, then, it’s surprising that Signify hasn’t extended Hue with security cameras before. This review comes as Hue announces a major update, with everyone getting 24-hours of free cloud storage for video recording, as well as extending its security range with a video doorbell.

Design and installation

• Magnetic mount
• Indoor and outdoor
• Integrates with the Hue Bridge

The Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera reminds me a lot of the original Nest Cam Outdoor, in a good way, before Google completely ruined the ecosystem. As you might expect from a company like Philips Hue, the camera is exceptionally well built, with a nice heft to it that shows it’s tough and built to last. It also looks nice, as far as security cameras go, with a smooth, curved body.

Mounting is easy, inside or out, with a simple magnetic mount in the box that needs to be screwed to a wall. Once in place, the back of the device snaps powerfully into place, but I could easily move the camera to point where I wanted it.

As this is a powered device, the waterproof power cable (the camera is IP65 rated) needs to be clipped securely in place under the camera, and the other end plugged into a power socket.

This part isn’t weatherproof, so needs to plugged in either inside or inside a weatherproof power socket. There’s plenty of reach on the cable, so the camera should be fairly easy to power.

Once plugged in, the camera can be connected to the Hue app. It’s scanned like a light bulb, so adding a camera is very much like adding a new light or accessory.

And, as the camera has Zigbee onboard it can connect directly to the Hue Bridge for direct lighting control, something that no other security cameras can do. 

Once powered on, the camera needs to be connected to the Hue app. The main camera connection is Wi-Fi, which is used to stream video. As this is a Hue camera, Zigbee is also built in, and the camera can connect directly to your Hue Bridge, which can act as a direct motion sensor for controlling your lights.

The only issue that I had was that I’ve got so many lights and scenes that I couldn’t initially use scenes with the Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera until I had deleted scenes and devices elsewhere in my house. This is a clear reason for me to upgrade to the Philips Hue Bridge Pro.

Features

• Requires a subscription for advanced features
• Acts as a Hue motion sensor
• Free 24 hours of cloud recording

Core to the Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera is its motion detection and recording. After all, this is a security camera that needs to compete directly with the competition, such as the Ring Outdoor Cam Plus.

At its most basic, the camera uses the entire frame to detect motion, sending an alert to your phone and recording the clip to the cloud. Everyone gets 24 hours of cloud recording, but pay for a Hue Security subscription and this increases to 30 days of history (£3.99 a month£34.99 for 30 days for one camera or £8.99£84.99 for unlimited cameras), and also enables some additional features, including Activity Zones and AI-powered object detection.

It’s nice to get the 24-hour trial, as it makes it easy to buy a camera and try it out without committing to a monthly spend. However, you will want to upgrade to get the extra features and longer history.

With the basic motion detection, the camera does tend to send a lot of alerts for even basic motion, such as a plant blowing in the wind. There is a motion sensitivity setting, which works to a degree, but this still left me with a lot of alerts that I wasn’t interested in.

With a subscription, you get object detection, with a choice to react to your choice of people, animals, vehicles and all other motion. That’s an improvement, but the settings are a little basic.

With the equivalent options in Ring, you can choose independently to receive notifications and record for object types. For example, you could record all people and receive notifications, but just record animal motion without receiving a notification. 

There’s another anomaly with the Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera. Turn on activity zones, and the object detection options disappear. I’d like to have both options simultaneously.

Footage recorded to the cloud is available in the event section of the app. This is listed by date, with a thumbnail for each event, and a filter to select the date, detection type and camera. This part of the app is neat and well organised, but I have to say that the Ring’s scrollable timeline makes it easier to find a recent event.

All clips can be viewed in the app or saved directly to your phone if you want to save them.

Of course, you can also get a live view stream from the camera, and turn on two-way talk to chat with anyone that you spot on the feed.

The Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera doesn’t sit separate from the Hue lighting ecosystem and can both take part in your home lighting and act as a wider security system as part of Philips Hue Secure.

For pure lighting, the camera can act as a motion sensor, with adjustable motion and light sensitivity settings. Once you’ve selected which lights you want to trigger, you can set the scene you want to apply for each timeslot you create. For example, you may want a bright light in the early evening and a more gentle light at night. And, you can choose how long to wait until the lights are turned off again.

In this regard, the Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera acts just like the existing motion sensor.

As with an alarm system, Philips Hue Secure has Home, Away and Disarm modes. For each mode, you can choose which sensors should be active. Cameras count as motion sensors, but you can also include existing motion sensors and door/window sensors.

The point of the two modes is to have different reactions depending on where you are. For example, you may arm all sensors and internal cameras when you’re away, and just door/window sensors when you’re in Home mode to prevent accidental triggers.

For each mode, you can then choose what to do when motion is detected, including flashing your choice of lights and sounding a siren on any camera. The default behaviour is to send a notification, which you have to tap to start the light flashing and sirens, but there’s also an option in beta that will trigger the alert automatically, which makes Philips Hue closer to a regular alarm system.

Ideally, the company would also release a siren and have optional mobile and battery backup in the Hue Bridge Pro, so that your alarm would work even if the internet and power went down. As it stands, the secure part doesn’t reach the levels that the Ring Alarm and Yale Smart Alarm do.

In addition to the alarm parts of the system, each camera can be turned on or off in each mode, so you can disable cameras when you’re at home.

Arming is largely a manual system via the app, although there is a scheduling option if you want to switch modes at set times. I couldn’t find a way to change modes based on geolocation, which is a shame, and there’s no keypad option. Again, this isn’t a full alarm system.

Performance

• Sharp daytime footage
• IR night footage is a little soft

The Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera really does need the object recognition turned on. Without this, I found that I got a lot of alerts from an outdoor camera, just through plants blowing around. Turning on object detection dropped the number of alerts to a manageable level.

Placed outside facing towards the sun, the Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera handled the direct light well. Its 1080p resolution is good enough for most uses, producing a well-balanced image that’s relatively sharp towards the back of the frame. I found it easy enough to find a still frame with people in sharp focus.

When it’s dark, the camera uses IR lights and doesn’t have a full colour mode. You can boost the image quality by using the camera to control your Hue lights and, as the Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera uses Zigbee, that control is near instant and as fast as using the dedicated motion sensor.

Shooting with just IR LEDs, the image quality is good, although the image does get a lot softer, and details start to disappear.

Should you buy it?

FAQs