Eufy SoloCam S340 Wireless Outdoor Security Camera
design
Straight out of the box I was impressed at just how compact the Eufy SoloCam S340 is. This is a small and sleek little unit with all of the premium finish you’d expect for a single security camera rapidly heading towards £200. Without the solar panel the SoloCam S340 sits just 12cm high and less than 9cm wide, making it small enough to install in the garden without intruding on the view.
The white, rounded off block that makes up the bulk of the SoloCam S340’s body feels almost like a solid block and lends a surprisingly hefty amount of weight. The rotating dome that hangs underneath and houses the dual cameras, light and IR feels equally robust with a contrasting black finish. Everything feels robust and ready for the elements and with an IP67 rating it should handle whatever bad weather Mother Nature throws at it.
The included mount offers the choice of both wall or ceiling installation, which is a nice quality of life touch from Eufy, and while it’s not exactly a high tech affair it does the job well. Installation was super simple with just a couple of screws to contend with, Eufy is even kind enough to include the hardware in the box – though having paid a premium for a security camera a couple of screws is probably the least they can include. Also in the box is the SoloCam S340’s external solar panel which can be directly mounted to the camera or away from the unit in a sunnier spot – another nicely considered approach from Eufy.
performance
I was impressed with the performance of the Eufy E340 Video Doorbell I’d tested a few weeks beforehand and so approached the SoloCam S340 with high hopes. Thankfully in most of the areas that matter, the S340 delivered.
Eufy seems to be all about dual lenses with their new models and just like the E340 there’s a dual system on offer here. The 3K wide-angle lens offers an impressively sharp view across a reasonable 135 degree field of view, with only a small amount of fish-eye distortion beginning to creep in at the edges. While 2K instead of 3, the fixed 3x zoom telephoto lens still offers more than enough detail to keep an eye on what’s going on.
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The Eufy SoloCam S340 continues to deliver sharp pictures at night too, though I found the difference between the IR night vision and full colour light supported modes too small to really worry about. The colour night vision lacked any real punchy colours but the small LED source does throw a surprising amount of light – it’s not enough to read a book under but enough to spook intruders. If the light doesn’t do it, the 90db siren certainly will because not only is it strikingly loud it’s about as obnoxious a noise as you could want from such a thing.
The only disappointment for me with image quality came when I attempted to look down the wall of my courtyard at night. In both the IR and colour night vision modes the close proximity of the wall completely blew out the image on both lenses, leaving me with nearly a pure white frame. This severely limited how far I could turn the camera and stopped me looking down the side passage.
The SoloCam S340 offers full 360° rotation with 70° of vertical tilt, in reality that’s enough to see just about everything going on below where you mount the camera. The Eufy Security app made controlling the camera simple and I found it was responsive to movement even when I was out of the house on a slower mobile internet connection, there is a second or two of latency but not enough to cause a problem. Being able to set a couple of preset positions in the app is handy with one of these designated as the default position the camera will return to once you’ve left the app.
What’s particularly impressive when it comes to camera movement is the SoloCam S340’s AI tracking. It’s quick to identify and respond to a person’s presence, it’s agile in quietly following them and it tracks them incredibly well. It’ll also ping a notification your way when it detects movement with a shortcut to jump straight into a live view in the app. If you’re not paying attention at the time it’ll save a recording to the 8GB of onboard storage for you to recall through the app later on. The S340 will also sync with a Eufy Homebase for extended local storage up to 16TB though in most situations the onboard capacity will be more than enough.
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It’s worthy of real praise that like the Eufy E340 Video Doorbell there’s no additional subscriptions or paywalled app features. It’s a frustrating trend that’s becoming increasingly common with smart devices so to see Eufy go the other way with a generous amount of onboard storage and a local expandable option is excellent.
I have to say, unlike Eufy’s doorbell which was poor in the battery department, I’ve been very impressed with the S340. Eufy says with a full charge indoors the SoloCam S340’s internal battery should last three months on its own, but the included 2.2W solar panel means you should never be short of juice. The camera has been installed for just over three months, through the peak of British winter and at no stage has the battery fallen below 94%. Admittedly there’s not a huge amount of activity in my garden so I’m probably seeing prettier numbers than some busier street facing situations might, but the solar panel has been more than up to the job of keeping on top of the SoloCam S340’s power usage in a pretty typical residential setting.
In its own little ecosystem and via the Eufy Security app the SoloCam S340 works wonderfully, however things aren’t so great when you try to connect in other ways. There’s no native Apple HomeKit or Matter support which feels like a glaring omission for a device like this. There is, in theory anyway, support for Amazon’s Alex but along with the E340 doorbell I never managed to make this work. No matter how many times I added and removed the devices and skills Alexa would defiantly claim the S340 wasn’t responding and I should check its network connection and power supply. They’re both fine Alexa, I just checked the live view, please just show me my garden. Whether this is a short term firmware hitch or a more deep seated problem it’s hard to say, but after three months it’s not looking promising.
summed up
The Eufy Solocam S340 gets a lot of things right and achieves them with a quality that’s heading towards the £179 price tag hanging off it. Both cameras offer sharp, detailed video that’s easily accessible through the app whether you’re viewing live or checking a recording from the 8GB of onboard storage. As a security camera, it does everything it needs to with a few little AI tricks up its sleeve too.
There are things that could be better, integrations with other smart ecosystems are noticeably lacking and while night vision performance is good for the most part – your specific installation will have a drastic impact on how effective it is. These likely won’t impact a majority of users though so if you can stomach the premium price, there’s a premium security camera waiting for you.
