TheBaseus Security N1 Outdoor Cameragives you a two-camera solution for monitoring your premises. It offers a wireless security solution for quick installation, and its massive onboard battery means you don’t have to worry about power. Best of all, it comes with a base station, so you don’t have to pay a monthly fee just to keep your house safe.
Baseus N1 outdoor security camera
The Baseus Security N1 Outdoor Camera is a two-camera wireless security camera solution. It connects wirelessly to the H1 base station via Wi-Fi, making it easy to set up, and its massive battery can make it go up to 210 days between charges.
Price and Availability
The Baseus Security N1 Outdoor Camera is available on Amazon for $199.99 or directly on the Baseus website for $249.99. The package already comes with two cameras, covering most of your needs. Unfortunately, Baseus doesn’t yet offer cameras only, so you cannot add more cameras to the security system if you need more coverage.
Specifications
Easy Setup and Installation
Everything you need to install the security system comes in the box—the two cameras, the base station, the camera mounts, a USB-A to USB-C charging cable, an RJ45 network cable, a power adapter, and the screws.
Setting up the system is also easy—it just took me 15 minutes to remove everything from the package, add a hard drive to the base station (this is optional), and briefly charge the cameras for the initial set-up. I then downloaded the Baseus Security app (available foriPhoneandAndroid) and added the base station to my Baseus Security account.
After I finished adding the base station, I added the two cameras, and the system started capturing and recording video. After finishing the initial setup, I walked to the locations where I wanted to install the cameras. However, since these security cameras use Wi-Fi to connect to the base station, you have to ensure that they’re within range of your home network.
Furthermore, the cameras must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network—meaning if you extend your Wi-Fi coverage using another independent router (and not a mesh router), it won’t connect to the base station. Once I found a good spot for the cameras, I used the included stickers to mark the spot where I wanted to drill the holes for the camera mounts and installed them.
The camera mounts are made from a combination of plastic and powder-coated metal. They also securely lock the camera in place, ensuring that the cameras won’t inadvertently move after installation.
Human and Movement Detection and Recording
Since the Baseus Security N1 Outdoor Camera is powered by a battery, it does not record all the time to save power. Instead, it has an onboard sensor and will only start recording when it detects humans or movement in its line of sight.
Nevertheless, you can still access the camera if you want to see a live view of what it sees via the Baseus app. You should note, though, that although the Baseus Security N1 doesn’t need an active internet connection to record events, it still needs a Wi-Fi connection so that the cameras can communicate with the base station.
The base station also requires power, as it doesn’t have a built-in battery. So, to ensure that your cameras remain recording even if the power goes out, consider plugging your Wi-Fi router and the base station into a UPS.
Built-In Spotlight, Microphone, and Speaker
The Baseus Security N1 works well in broad daylight with its 2K (2,304 x 1,296) resolution. It also has infrared lights, which allows it to see even in the dark, although it captures black and white video to do so clearly.
But if you really want to see at night, you can turn on the camera’s spotlight features, which throws a bright light directly in front of the camera. The light can go as far as 12 feet away from the camera so that you can see in full color. It can also serve as a warning to any potential intruder, as they will know that they are being watched.
In the Baseus Security app, you can choose between B&W night vision and Spotlight Night Vision. This allows you to force the camera to light up the area if it detects movement at night. However, this will use up more battery, so I prefer the B&W night vision mode.
The cameras also have a built-in microphone and speakers so that you can see and talk to the person on the other side. The microphone can clearly pick out the environmental sounds in the camera’s area, meaning you can hear what’s happening in front of it. However, the speakers are a bit lacking. Since my front camera is located at my gate, which is along a somewhat busy street, the person I want to talk to could barely hear me, if at all.
You’d also struggle to hear the other camera, which is in my garage and is in a slightly quieter area. Nevertheless, these are minor things, and they don’t diminish the security these cameras provide.
A Battery Life That Lasts Weeks
Since the cameras are battery-powered, that’s one of the more important things you should consider. After all, you don’t want to run out of juice while you’re away from home, and having to take down the camera to recharge it every other day is a definite hassle.
Baseus claims that these cameras can last up to 210 days, and while that is technically correct, you must consider that they use up battery every time they detect someone and record a video. My gate camera lasted only eight days before needing a charge, as many people pass by daily. On the other hand, my garage camera is still at 62% even after 13 days, so I expect it to last a little less than a month and a half before needing a charge again.
While a week and 40 days are far from the suggested 210-day endurance, they’re not half-bad. It also doesn’t take a lot of time to recharge the cameras. If you plug them into the base station with the included USB-C port, they will take around five hours to recharge. So, what I did was take down the camera when I woke up in the morning and put it back up at lunchtime when it was already fully charged.
Since the cameras are also powered via USB-C, I can recharge them using any USB charger at home. If you don’t want to dismount the cameras when charging, you can also use a long USB-C cable and an extension cord (or even a power bank) to get them back up to full.
Be Careful Where You Place the Cameras
Given that the Baseus Security N1 uses Wi-Fi to communicate between the cameras and the base station, you must ensure they get a good signal before finding a permanent place to install them. The cameras work even if I’m more than 20 feet from my mesh router (which is indoors), even though the signal bar is already registering low.
However, when it rained heavily, I lost contact with the camera because water affects Wi-Fi signals. So, to ensure that my cameras remain connected to the base station even in inclement weather, I need a more powerful mesh Wi-Fi router or must install an outdoor router.
Notifications and the Baseus Security App
The Baseus Security app is where you change everything on the security cameras. In addition to accessing the recordings on the base station, you may also use it to change the settings on the cameras, like how long they will record events, their detection zones, their privacy zones, and so on and so forth.
But one thing I didn’t like about the cameras is how often they sent notifications on my phone for little movement. While this might be useful for keeping you up to date if you place them in low-traffic areas of your home, it’s an annoyance to me because the gate camera is pointed at the street, and it would literally tell me every time someone passes by.
Although I’ve already excluded the road from the camera’s detection area, I still have to include the sidewalk just to ensure it will record whenever someone’s standing at my gate. It’s good that I can just turn off the notification function on a per-camera level, so that my gate camera doesn’t have to tell me when someone is passing by, but my garage camera tells me when someone is walking by my car.
Baseus Security N1 Outdoor Camera Video Quality
Although the N1 doesn’t have a 4K sensor, its 2K image quality is more than enough to capture faces and details, even at night. It also handles glare from vehicle lights well, allowing you to see detail even if the scene it covers has high contrast.
The lens remains clear even when it rains, so there’s no danger of fogging up the camera’s view in inclement weather. At night, the camera seamlessly switches between a colored view and an infrared view, meaning you’re not missing out on anything even when it gets darker.
Should You Buy the Baseus Security N1 Outdoor Camera?
For $200,the Baseus Security N1 Outdoor Camerais a great option. It already comes with two cameras, giving you wide coverage, and everything is stored locally for better privacy. The base station already has 16GB of storage, and you’re able to upgrade it up to 16TB via a 2.5-inch drive.
The only downside is that you can’t purchase additional cameras for your system yet, so if you need more than two cameras, you’ll have to buy another complete set. Nevertheless, we expect stand-alone cameras to be available in the future, especially as a single base station can pair with up to 16 cameras.
