Nooie is back with some new products for their line of smart home security devices. We initially covered the company’s video doorbell that featured a great resolution and impressive performance. Especially, with all of the issues that have been plaguing brands like Ring as of late. Now, we have some recent additions that we have been playing with for around a week or so, including the Nooie Cam 1080p Indoor model, and the 1080p Outdoor model (sold separately). Both of which seek to extend your security system within the same platform/app, while keeping the price reasonable.
When the price falls into this kind of range, it’s kind of hard to fight the urge to toss a camera in just about every angle of your home possible. Competing with names like Blink or Wyze, the Nooie cameras come at a great price stage. Only $39 for the indoor model and $59 for the outdoor. So why not go crazy with them? Well, let’s take a look at what you get so you can decide for yourself.
Design
The design of the indoor model is quite simple. You have a thin plastic base, a single axis swivel point (back or forward), and the body of the camera.
On the front, you have your lens and microphone, while the backside contains a speaker and a small recessed reset button. Underneath it all is a micro USB port for powering the camera.
The side of the unit features a MicroSD slot for inserting a card into (local recording). Both of these models offer SD access, which is a great selling point as it doesn’t tie you down to using cloud subscriptions if you don’t want to go that route.
It comes with a USB cable with a decent length to it, which should be able to get you to (or close to) a nearby outlet and a wall adapter. You also get a double-stick pad in case you want to mount it against the wall somewhere for a higher-up approach (which also gives you more up/down swivel adjustment.
The design of the outdoor model is similar to a few bullet-style options in the market and features the USB cable built-in. It has a little more of a reach but you will still want to install it with an outlet nearby and out of the weather (under an awning or through the wall to the inside). It also features its own wall adapter.
Due to its design, it has a lot more swivel movement to help lock in the right angle. The movement is quite firm, therefore it should hold in the weather without adjusting any (with the exception of disastrous weather conditions).
The underside of the outdoor model features a cover that is secured with two small screws to help keep things watertight. Inside this cover is where you’ll find the MicroSD slot (again, for local recording).
Installation is a breeze as all you have to do is screw its base (via two screws) to where you want it installed. The camera then slides right onto the mount by placing it up against it and turning it clockwise slightly. You can then secure it further with a few screws to make sure it isn’t easy to rotate off and walk away.
Setup
This is where it lost a little score with us. The process of adding the cameras to the app is incredibly easy (in theory), and once you have the cameras added, they are a breeze to work with and very reliable. However, it’s just that initially pairing that we ran into trouble with.
You start by installing the app and registering with an account (if you don’t already have one). Then, when you choose to add a new camera, it walks you through choosing the Wi-Fi network you’d like to connect them to. They only support 2.4GHz, so you have to make sure you are choosing the right one. Then, it gives you a QR code that you place in front of the camera. This is how each camera obtains the Wi-Fi information as well as the account it is joining to.
It all seems so easy and should be as this isn’t the first time a company used this method (and this is how you join the doorbell camera as well). However, it took us multiple times with each camera to get them to join. It took 3 tries to join the outdoor camera to a network and 9 tries to join the indoor camera to a network. that indoor camera was coming close to us giving up on it. We wound up trying three different networks just to make sure we weren’t losing our minds.
Each network we tested them against was 2.4GHz with a solid signal running throughout the area with isolated channels. Other devices in the area read a full signal as well as generous speeds. Therefore, the Wi-Fi chip within the cameras is likely quite small. At least, that is our running theory.
Thankfully, they do connect (eventually). You just have to keep at it. If it doesn’t work, hit the reset button and try again. If it still doesn’t work, rinse and repeat until it does. Sometimes the reset button isn’t necessary if it times out and goes back to the right flashing light.
Once you do get each camera connected, everything is a breeze, as expected. You are able to modify the camera’s settings. Such as enable notifications (motion/sound detection), modify record settings, share access with other users, get it working with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant (screen models), and so on.
As mentioned, you have the ability to choose between a (paid) cloud subscription (the safest option) and using a MicroSD card for local recording (free). The only issue with the latter option is if someone managed to take the camera or the card, you’d lost all of your videos.
There is actually very little to set up since the cameras begin recording automatically. It’s the notifications you have to enable (where it notifies your phone when motion or audio is detected). The cameras will continue on recording either way.
Performance
With an MicroSD card inserted, they do record 24/7 like a DVR (unless you modify the record schedule to only work between two set times within each day. It records in 5-minute segments capturing everything going on (or not going on) in front of the camera. Therefore, you should never miss a thing. At least, until the card fills up and it starts replacing the oldest files (just like a DVR or dashcam). The size of the MicroSD card inserted will determine how far back you can look in the videos.
The cameras claim to be able to accept MicroSD cards up to 128GB in capacity. However, we dropped in a 256GB model that seemed to work just fine. Either way, 128GB or 256GB should give you a plenty of days to look back on since the files are so heavily compressed.
The videos are encoded and saved to the card or cloud (depending on which direction you take) in MP4 format, with a variable bitrate. All of which is quite compressed, while still showing off the full resolution of the little lens in each model.
The video quality isn’t going to be the greatest. Most security cameras aren’t, thanks to the harsh compression they usually implement in order to make live-streaming easy and with minimal connection latency. However, you are getting what you pay for and then some. The video quality is good enough for the price. Just look at the above image. We were able to paise the video while still getting a decent shot of a bird quickly flying by.
Now, let’s take a look at a timelapse we made from the outdoor model. We combined a number of the 5-minute long clips together and sped the video up in post-edit to create a timelapse from the content (15-seconds in length). The ending result gives a nice animation of the shadows cast on the ground as the sun heads toward setting behind the building across the way.
You can find additional demo footage in the unboxing video at the end of this review. It gives you sample footage from both cameras.
We did find that the motion alerts are highly sensitive. We’d recommend setting them to the medium or even low setting in order to minimize false positives. These cameras do not come with human detection and there is no telling if the option would be added in the future. Many companies have been integrating this into popular models. However, these models are typically more expensive (that development has to be profitable, after all).
We also found that the files these cameras create are really difficult to work with when it comes to editing. This didn’t affect the score any since most users wouldn’t be editing the videos vs simply playing them back on their phone or computer. However, it is still worth noting. In some cases, trying to encode anything using these files as source results in fatal errors (ie, Premiere Pro crashes immediately). A number of other tools resulted in jerky or broken files. After a series of trial and error, we actually wound up converting them using Vidcoder and then (since Premiere still wouldn’t take them properly) using Windows 10’s native Video Editor (part of the Photos app) to combine them into new files and then import them into the various applications we use for editing. A little goofy, but we were ultimately able to include them in our video content throughout this page.
The hard part is doing all of this while not affecting the quality of the content (you obviously want the sample footage to look exactly the way it does coming from the cameras). Again, though, this affects such a small number of users (like ourselves), so we didn’t bother taking any score away. Just a cautionary tip for the few out there looking to use the video online within edited content.
Our Conclusion
The number one thing we like about these cameras is their price. Their ability to save acceptable video content adds to this a lot. It isn’t the best as the video is highly compressed and the camera sensors aren’t the best. However, it all still matches well to the price being paid, the app is user-friendly (outside of the pairing process sadly), and you have the ability to save locally for free.
It’s just the pairing process that held the score down a little. If both cameras jumped onto the network on the very first try, we would have been quite impressed by everything. They still walked away with a great score in the end. It just could have been better and still could if this is something a firmware update could improve on.
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| Our Rating | Average Price* $39 (indoor) – $59 (outdoor) |
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
Video:
Additional Images:
Specifications:
Indoor Model:
- Size/Weight: 116.5 x 79 x 66 mm; 250g
- FOV: 101 deg
- Resolution: 1080p/15fps
- Night Vision (Distance): 10m (32ft)
- Wi-Fi Support: 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz (does not support 5GHz network)
- Storage Options: MicroSD Card (class 6 or above, from 4G to 128G) or Cloud (7 days, 15 days, 30 days) [*Note: We were able to use 256GB]
- Mobile App: Android 4.4+; iOS 8.0+
Outdoor Model:
- Size/Weight: 127.5 x 68.5 x 68.5 mm; 295g
- FOV: 107 deg
- Resolution: 1080p/15fps
- Night Vision (Distance): 15m (49ft)
- Wi-Fi Support: 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz (does not support 5GHz network)
- Storage Options: MicroSD Card (class 6 or above, from 4G to 128G) or Cloud (7 days, 15 days, 30 days) [*Note: We were able to use 256GB]
- Mobile App: Android 4.4+; iOS 8.0+
Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
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