I've had the Outdoor Camera for a few weeks now and I want to provide my feedback on it. I'd love to hear some feedback from SimpliSafe on this, especially around the pricing for the accessories.

First, the good:

- Packaging

Whoever designed the packaging for the outdoor camera did a bang up job. There's not much wasted space, everything fits in nicely and it is, in a word, "slick". Seriously, kudos on this.

- Hardware Design

The hardware itself feels solid and the plastic feels nice. The design is pretty modern as well. This feels like a huge step up from the SimpliCams.

- Set Up

Set up is a breeze. Easier than my Video Doorbell Pro or my 3x SimpliCams for sure. Very streamlined. This was a welcome surprise after the struggle many of us went through to set up previous cameras on a router where we can't differentiate the SSID for 2.4/5GHz bands.

- Image Quality (Day)

The video quality during the day is pretty solid. It's objectively better than my Video Doorbell Pro and my Wyze Cam v3. Colors are good. Motion is smooth.

Now, for the not so good (or downright bad):

- No AC Adapter

To be fair, most of us don't need yet another USB to AC Adapter but some of us have moved on to USB-C entirely and might not have an adapter compatible with your cable. More importantly, you're charging $170 for a camera and there's no AC adapter? My Wyze Cam vs3 cost $35 each and they come with a much longer cable than you all provide and an AC adapter.

- Battery Life

I've had my camera since September 11. I went through a full charge in about a week and I'm at about 70% now after another week. I've had motion detection set to high and spotlight off as well as the detection grid enabled. For a good chunk of this time my camera hasn't even been properly installed - it's just been sitting on my fireplace mantle staring at the ceiling. I (and more than a few others) are not seeing anywhere near the estimated battery life. I understand that I'm using settings that aren't "default" but as I've mentioned elsewhere I don't believe the "default" really represents how many people will actually use your product.

- Motion Detection (Day and Night)

Abysmal. There's no other word for it. I installed the Outdoor Camera at the same height and about 6 inches to the side of my Video Doorbell Pro with detection/sensitivity set to high on both and the Outdoor Camera set to detect everything for testing. I performed a few tests but the most telling is when I walked from the street into my driveway, opened my car door, paused for a moment, closed the door and then walked into my garage ... none of which was picked up by my Outdoor Camera. (I back into my driveway and my car door is 25 feet or less from the camera, FYI.) My video doorbell pro detected me on the street (Edit: Which I measured at 61 feet from the camera!) before I even walked into my driveway and the clip it recorded showed me walk from the street to the car door. For reference, I am 6'5" so there's plenty of me to pick up on. Oh and did I mention it was 2PM and light outside? Night vision detection is even worse. It either doesn't pick up or it does but by the time it kicks in, I've moved past it, turned around, etc.

Edit: I want to make it clear that of all of the issues listed here, this is the absolute deal breaker. I can work around battery charges that don't last long but there's nothing I can do to make the camera detect motion better and that is literally the one thing the camera has to do well. Without proper motion detection there are no alerts and no recordings and at that point, what good is the camera for most of us?

- Image Quality (Night)

Abysmal. There's no other word for it. With the camera installed on my porch and pointing out to my front yard and my porch light off you can't see 10 feet in front of the camera. With the porch light on you can kind of see maybe 15-ish feet? (Please note, these results are very similar to my video doorbell pro.) By comparison my $35 Wyze Cam v3 in the same spot without the porch light on gives me color night vision and I can make out people walking on the far side of my street and generally determine what they're wearing, if they're walking a dog, etc.. (From my front door to the street is ~43 feet. It's 60+ feet to the far side of my street.)

- Connectivity

Frequent (but not always) long pauses to open and wake up and connect to the camera. Constantly dropping connection. Sometimes reconnects when I hit retry. Sometimes it takes minutes to reconnect. Sometimes I have to kill the app and start over entirely. This is with the camera installed on my front porch and my router less than 10 feet from it with sheetrock/wood/glass between it. As others have noted, it's a inconsistent experience.

- Software

While this isn't about the camera it does pertain to the camera experience. The interface is lacking some key features, imo. The ability to snapshot an image from the camera feed would be lovely. There's no wifi connectivity check in the camera settings. The status bar is difficult to read and I have no idea what it 'means'. Is it at 50% or 60%? Does that mean I have an estimated two weeks left or 2 months based on how fast the battery has drained so far? There's real room for improvement here.

- Value

The camera is too expensive for what it gives us. There are other cameras available with the same feature set for less and a few cameras with more features (including 2K resolution) for $20 more (or less than $170 if bought as a pack.) The big draw in theory is that the camera is directly tied to the rest of the SimpliSafe system but that only matters if the product works well. (See above) There's also no mount for us to or stand for us to use inside sitting on a bookcase or ledge or something which I find irritating.

Not only is the camera too expensive but the accessory pricing (with one exception) is outrageously expensive:

- $35 for a metal mount for the Outdoor Camera. This is literally the same price as an entire Wyze Cam v3! It's $15 more than the Outdoor Kit for the Simplicams which includes a mount, a cable and a rubber skin!
- $50 for the outdoor charging cable and AC Adapter. Fifty. Dollars. You're in Apple territory here for peripherals and to be blunt, it takes some balls to charge Apple money for something that is not an Apple product.
- $80 for the Solar Panel and charging cable. The pricing on this isn't too bad and is in line with some other manufacturers products but also more than a few as well. The pricing for this does highlight just how awful the pricing for the outdoor charging cable and adapter is.
- $30 for a spare battery. This is the only pricing that makes sense, honestly. The pricing for this also further highlights how outrageous the pricing of your other peripherals are. I can buy a lithium ion rechargeable battery for less than a metal mount? For almost half the price of an outdoor cable and AC adapter?

- Conclusion / Final Thoughts

I think some of these issues can be fixed via firmware / software but I suspect some of these issues are hardware related and here to stay. Honestly, I feel like I'm beta testing a product still that wasn't quite ready to go to market and I shouldn't have to pay for that 'privilege'. Barring significant improvements in the next few weeks I plan to return the camera and use the $170 to buy a few more Wyze Cam v3s with solar panels and still save a few bucks. I'll be irritated not having them tied into my security system but I can get more cameras for the same money, that work better overall, and offer features your products are lacking that I've now realized I want/need.