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  • About the Eufy Security SoloCam L20

  • What we like

  • What we don’t like

  • Privacy

  • Should you buy it?

  • About the Eufy Security SoloCam L20
  • What we like
  • What we don’t like
  • Privacy
  • Should you buy it?

Pros

  • Ideal for small outdoor spaces

  • Good battery life

  • Works with Alexa and Google Assistant

Cons

  • Some false alerts

An ideal camera for nooks and crannies that need some extra security.

Eufy’s smaller camera has its flaws, notably that it serves up false alerts on occasion. But it provides a lot for its price point, including free local storage, color night vision, support for Alexa and/or Google Assistant, and pretty good battery life to help you keep tabs on high-traffic areas.

About the Eufy Security SoloCam L20

The contents of the Eufy SoloCam L20 on the table.
Credit: Reviewed / Rachel Murphy

The Eufy SoloCam L20 comes with a mounting bracket, screws, and a charging cable.

  • Price: $149.99
  • Colors: White
  • Connectivity: 802.11 b/g/n @2.4GHz
  • Power source: Built-in 13,400mAh rechargeable battery
  • Resolution: 1080p
  • Field of view: 130-degrees horizontal and vertical
  • Audio: Two-way audio with noise cancellation
  • Lighting brightness: 600 lumens (adjustable)
  • Smart assistant support: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant
  • Operational temperatures: -4 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit
  • Dimensions: 4.53-inches H x 3.15-inches D x 4.53-inches W
  • Weight: 1.21 lbs.

The Eufy SoloCam L20 comes with a charging cable and bracket mount for installation. (You may need to charge the camera for up to four hours after unboxing.)

Setup is completed in the Eufy Security app for iOS or Android. This is where you can finetune features like the camera’s sensitivity, the brightness of the lights, and other home security settings. Physical installation is also simple enough: the base of the camera screws onto the mount, and I had no problem installing the setup on my fence using my cordless drill.

A person installing a home security camera outdoors
Credit: Reviewed / Rachel Murphy

Physically installing the camera using the included mounting bracket took less than five minutes.

The camera includes built-in local storage (up to 8GB), a nice alternative if you don’t want to upload your recordings to the cloud. Eufy’s cloud storage plans include up to 30 days of event recordings starting at $2.99/month. The camera also includes a 90-decibel siren and flashing spotlight alarm for added security.

What we like

A compact camera that’s bright at night

The SoloCam L20’s 600-lumen light ring around the lens illuminates when motion is detected (similar to how a smart floodlight camera works), but it takes up much less real estate than Eufy’s Floodlight Cam 2 Pro or Google’s Nest Cam with Floodlight since it has fewer lights. Not everyone needs thousands of powerful lumens, which makes the scaled back lights on the L20 appealing for lighting up small spaces around the outside of your home.

The L20’s stout and square design makes it easy to place outdoors. While the light isn’t as powerful as what you’ll find on Cam 2 Pro or Nest Cam with Floodlight, the L20 had no problem illuminating most of my 10-foot-by-20-foot patio in the dark. You could easily place a few of these around your property to brighten the place up at night if you don’t want to invest in full scale floodlight cameras. Controls for the light’s brightness levels and color temperature (warm and cool whites) are available in the Eufy Security app.

It plays nicely with Amazon Echo and Google Nest smart displays

Amazon Echo Show 10 and Google Nest Hub Max smart displays sit next to one another on a white table.
Credit: Reviewed / Rachel Murphy

The Eufy SoloCam L20 is compatible with voice assistants Alexa and Google Assistant.

Eufy’s L20 camera supports both Amazon Echo and Google Home ecosystems (but not Apple HomeKit). To unlock the camera’s full smart home capabilities, you need a smart display like Amazon’s Echo Show 8 (second-gen) or Google’s Nest Hub Max. There’s just not much you can do with a home security camera and a smart speaker, making a smart display a wise investment so you can easily live stream the view from the L20 camera.

Two-way talk is not available between the display and the camera (only between the app and camera), but you can listen to the camera’s audio directly from the display.

It took my Google Nest Max Hub slightly longer than the Echo Show 10 to pull up the camera’s live stream and I did experience some buffering while streaming on the Show 10 (but only for a few seconds). These minor hiccups aren’t out of the ordinary and didn’t hinder my smart home experience with the camera much. (Web viewing is also available via the Eufy website.)

Good battery life for busy streets

The great thing about battery-powered cameras like the Eufy SoloCam L20 is that you can place them anywhere with a Wi-Fi signal. The downside is that the battery will eventually die and you’ll have to take the camera down to recharge it. The L20 camera runs on a built-in 13,400mAh rechargeable battery that Eufy estimates should last you about four months. Keep in mind that the battery life will vary greatly depending on the device’s settings and daily usage.

Overall, I’m impressed by the battery life, which decreased by about 30 percent during the three weeks I spent testing on the “Optimal Surveillance'' setting. When this setting is enabled, the camera records motion events for up to 60 seconds to capture as much as possible.

Full disclosure: I set the camera up in my backyard, where my two kids frequently play pretty much every day of the week. The camera captured upwards of 99 events some days. If you’re new to home security, that’s a lot of daily events and most likely more than you would experience (unless you place the camera in a high traffic area). At that rate, the battery would last me about 10 weeks before it needed to be recharged, which isn’t so bad given the traffic.

Other settings like “Optimal Battery Life” record clips for up to 20 seconds but occasionally cut off part of the video clip. You can also create custom recording settings that let you tailor the video length and motion detection periods. Just remember that the longer and more frequently your camera is recording, the quicker the battery will drain.

It has color night vision

Home security footage captured at night.
Credit: Reviewed / Rachel Murphy

Color night vision is available on the Eufy SoloCam L20.

Color night vision is feature you won’t find on many popular outdoor security cameras, but you’ll find it on Eufy’s SoloCam L20. It isn’t a make-or-break feature for me (black and white usually get the job done just fine as long as there’s enough light), but it might be for some. There are some instances in which color helps clarify what’s going on.

Better weather rating than competitors

The SoloCam L20 camera is rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, meaning it should keep out dust very well and can even withstand being submerged in water for short periods. For comparison’s sake, Google’s indoor/outdoor Nest Cam is IP54 rated and Ring’s Spotlight Cam is IP55 rated, meaning they have slightly lower dust resistance and are water resistant to splashes, but not fully waterproof.

Living in Florida, I can’t speak for how the SoloCam L20 performs in the snow or deep freezes, but it’s functioned well throughout numerous heavy downpours, a handful of chilly mornings, and baking in the direct sunlight for eight-plus hours at a time. I’ve never run into weather-related performance issues with any outdoor security cameras I’ve tested, but it’s nice to know that Eufy’s is strong enough to survive a variety of weather conditions.

What we don’t like

Some false notifications

The Eufy Security app for iOS and Android users.
Credit: Reviewed / Rachel Murphy

Eufy's app makes it easy to flip through the calendar and view events on a particular day. The app is also where you can refine the battery's settings.

Eufy claims the camera analyzes previously recorded events (and the camera’s current environment) to help improve motion detection accuracy by up to 99 percent. But Eufy’s artificial intelligence sometimes struggled to accurately detect motion events for me.

I received several alerts that “someone has been spotted” when no one was there. The camera appeared to be triggered by a few lizards that crossed the camera’s view, confusing the tiny reptiles for actual humans. That’s not to say Eufy fails every time, because it does accurately detect when a person appears, but it sometimes mixes up other objects for humans. Home security cameras are prone to false alerts from time to time, but Eufy’s on-camera artificial intelligence could use a few tweaks to better decipher what’s really there.

In the Eufy Security app, you can help curb false notifications by creating activity zones, adjusting the camera’s motion detection sensitivity, and choosing which smart alerts you want to receive. It’s not a fix for mixing up lizards and people, but it can help eliminate common causes of false triggers like shadows and trees swaying in the wind.

It’s worth noting that, unlike Eufy, Google Nest and Arlo outdoor cameras can break down motion events by person, animal, package, and vehicle. You may not think you need that level of detail in your everyday life, but the more accurate the alerts, the more informed you are about what’s going on at home.

Privacy

In June 2021, Eufy experienced a privacy breach that exposed the video feeds of Eufy cameras to 712 random customers. Eufy said the incident occurred due to a software update performed on its server and was corrected within an hour after the engineering team deployed an emergency update. Since then, Eufy claims to have made upgrades to its network architecture to improve the security of its devices.

The Eufy Security app offers optional two-factor authentication, which adds an extra layer of protection to your account by alerting you if an unknown user attempts to log in. Despite Eufy’s past security breach incident, it’s nice to see that 2FA is available to help keep your smart home safe and secure, since not every smart camera does.

The Eufy Security app is also where you’ll find controls for enabling/disabling the camera, audio recordings, and microphone. There’s also a status LED light on the front of the camera that illuminates when the camera is live streaming or recording (but you can shut this feature off in the app, too).

Should you buy it?

Yes, if you need a compact outdoor camera with lights

The Eufy SoloCam L20 hangs on a wood fence.
Credit: Reviewed / Rachel Murphy

The Eufy SoloCam L20 is one of the best outdoor home security cameras.

There are plenty of reasons to buy the Eufy SoloCam L20: it has color night vision, support for smart assistants Alexa and Google Assistant, good battery life, and a higher IP weather rating than other top contenders. The camera's compact size is also a selling point, with an appropriate number of lumens to light up small outdoor spaces in the dark.

It’s not as bright and full of features as the larger Eufy Floodlight Cam 2 Pro or Nest Cam with Floodlight, which are better options for larger areas like above the garage or the side of your home. But it does a similar job on a much smaller scale, with roughly 600 lumens instead of upwards of 3,000 lumens—and at roughly half the price.

The camera is ideal for back porches, balconies, sheds, greenhouses, and other random nooks and crannies outside of your house where you need a little extra light and security. While Eufy’s AI could use a few modifications for more accurate notifications, the SoloCam L20 is still one of the best smart outdoor home security cameras you can buy.

Meet the tester

Rachel Murphy

Rachel Murphy

Editor, Home

@rachel_murphy

Rachel Murphy is Reviewed's home editor. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Central Florida. Prior to joining the team, she worked as a freelance writer for publications like Insider and Mashable, and as an associate editorial producer for Good Morning America. Aside from smart home tech, her interests include food, travel, parenting, and home renovation. You can usually find her sipping on coffee at any time of the day.

See all of Rachel Murphy's reviews

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