The IMILAB camera brand has been exceptionally successful in recent years for a very simple reason: its cameras do not need an available power source. The EC2 tested by us 3 years ago was not the first, but it offered an attractive price and a long usage time. Since then, several successors have already arrived on the market, including EC4 which continues to be sold, but here EC5 has also arrived and this time it seems that the company has decided to change direction – it is giving up the battery. However, it really does not give up advanced features that do not exist in the previous models.
Don’t look (just) at the box
IMILAB EC5 is no longer a small camera hidden in the dishes. This time it is a physically large camera. The shape is elliptical and wide with the lens in the center and a pair of powerful LED lights on the sides. Two fixed antennas are located on the sides and this is what gives it a strange look, really strange, but for a good reason: it moves on an axis that allows rotation to the sides by 350 degrees and up or down by 100 degrees.
The body of the camera is made of white plastic, but it is intended for use outdoors, even in the rain, as it is waterproof and dustproof to the IP66 standard, while the cable itself is also equipped with a dedicated cover in the connection area to seal against liquid penetration. It is attached to the arm by means of which it can be hung on the wall or on the ceiling, and this is also perhaps its disadvantage because it is not designed to be placed on a table for example. In the package there is a kit for hanging and a transformer that comes with a relatively long cable that is 3 meters long.
EC5 allows recording on a memory card up to a volume of 256 gigabytes when it is hidden in the lower part of the camera under a waterproof cover. To remove the cover you need a screwdriver (not included in the kit). A reset button is also hidden under this cover, just in case. Another important feature is support for a network cable, so for those who have an available connection, this is certainly preferable to WiFi connectivity. However, it would be really nice if there was support for Power Over Ethernet technology which would save the external transformer for those who have a network infrastructure available.
Lots of features
IMILAB EC5 is equipped with a 3 megapixel sensor capable of shooting video in 2K quality, or a resolution of 2304×1296 pixels, with the lens offering a relatively wide field of view of 110 degrees. It has a built-in microphone and speaker that allows you to use the intercom function and talk to whoever is on the other end. You can also turn on the lighting manually if necessary.
But one of the more intriguing features that EC5 brings to the wall is the ability to recognize and track characters on the move. It is possible, for example, to place the camera overlooking a large yard, and in the wee hours of the night it will be able to detect if a suspicious figure passes in front of it, turn on the lighting strongly and continue to follow it until it goes out of sight.
IMILAB is under the auspices of Xiaomi and therefore operates on the company’s home platform, Mi Home. This is also the application through which the camera is controlled, and the one through which the initial connection is made. First you connect the camera to electricity and activate the application and within a few seconds it recognizes the device and asks to add it. If this does not happen, and the identification does not occur after pressing the plus button in the application, you can scan the QR code on the camera. It is also important to note that since this is a Chinese version, it is required that the application settings be directed to the servers of Mainland China.
The main screen shows the image captured by the camera’s eye, with a navigation button in the center that allows you to move the camera in all directions. A nice addition is a central button with which you can predetermine three fixed positions of the camera’s movement, which saves you having to long press the various navigation buttons every time.
At the bottom there are buttons for switching to notifications, continuous recording, making a call, an album of saved videos and photos, and shortcuts. An inconspicuous button located in the corner, with a bulb symbol, is used to turn on the lighting. In addition, there is also a button to change the streaming quality, an alarm button and the audio from the camera during live viewing.
also record to the cloud
The IMILAB EC5 security camera can record all the time as long as it has a memory card inside. The maximum capacity, as mentioned above, is 256 gigabytes and when the card is full the camera should overwrite the oldest content. To save space, you can set recording only when an event occurs, instead of continuous recording as it is set by default. This way you can reduce the storage volume and remove unwanted sections after a period of time.
Moreover, IMILAB provides up to 7 days of free cloud backup for all events captured by the camera. This means that even if the memory card is full, it continues to save the segments taken according to the notification settings. However, through the application it is not really clear what is actually saved in the cloud and what is locally on the card.
Watching the recordings is through the shortcut Playbak, and you can go back in the timeline. What is more important to remember is to set the notifications, and in the Monotoring window you can view them and reach events easily by date and time. It is possible to set a photo and/or alert to the mobile phone in cases of detection of general movement up to identification of people. The camera is very sensitive to movement, and it is possible to set that a notification will be sent only when a figure has been detected on the camera, otherwise the amount of notifications that will reach the phone will be enormous.
What is mainly disturbing is the slightly slow reactivity of the camera to operations such as receiving a video signal or changing its position with the motion controller. It is not clear whether the reason is that it is connected to the Chinese servers or WiFi reception problems.
shoot in 2K
The photography quality of EC5 is definitely surprising for the better. A resolution of 2K provides high sharpness to identify even distant details in the image and the colors are good and relatively accurate. What is just as important is the quality of the photography in the night mode and here EC5 does not show the same quality as the day mode, but it certainly satisfies. The image is clear, the figures or objects are visible in the distance.
The built-in LED lighting provides night mode with an additional capability known as ‘full color night mode’. When this is set, the lighting is turned on and the resulting image is in full color rather than black and white. In addition, you can choose the degree of light intensity from 4 different levels according to the need.
The standard operating mode for night photography is ‘Smart’ mode. In practice, this is a normal night shot and as soon as the camera detects movement, it turns on the lighting automatically and then switches to a full color shot. Thanks to her ability to differentiate between people and just the movement of leaves blowing in the wind, she activates this mode only when she does recognize suspicious characters.
The bottom line
IMILAB EC5 is a security camera that is suitable for use at home or outdoors. It provides a good photo quality of 2K, is able to shoot well day and night and allows a wireless or network cable connection. What it lacks is the ability to operate in places where there is no electrical infrastructure, which is a bit of a shame, but on the other hand, it brings quite a variety of options.
Elicitation is not very friendly and sometimes its reactivity is also slow, and the alerts coming from it are quite a few when the camera’s sensitivity setting is high. Therefore, it also requires a little more technical understanding and is not suitable for beginner users.
The price of IMILAB EC5 is 79 dollars (about NIS 270), but in the company’s official store a discount of 17 dollars will be given to those who enter the coupon code TGSPOTEC5, a total of 63.99 dollars, which is about NIS 220. The coupon is valid until the end of the month.