Logi Circle Camera Review

Our Verdict

The Logi Circle is small, attractive and like shooting fish in a barrel to fix up and use — but isn't really meant to be used as a security camera.

For

Very piece of cake to set up
Tin can be placed nigh anywhere
Intercom characteristic

Confronting

No tech back up or user's manual
Distorted zoom feature
Non compatible with older phones or tablets

Tom'south Guide Verdict

The Logi Circle is small, attractive and easy to ready and apply — just isn't really meant to be used as a security camera.

Pros

+
Very easy to ready
+
Can exist placed well-nigh anywhere
+
Intercom characteristic

Cons

-
No tech support or user's manual
-
Distorted zoom feature
-
Non compatible with older phones or tablets

UPDATED Sept. 1, 2016, with news of Circle Safe deject-storage plan.

The $199 Logi Circle Portable Habitation Connectedness Photographic camera is not designed to be a security camera. Instead, it'due south positioned as a "dwelling connection camera," meant for capturing video of babies and birthday parties rather than of burglars and raccoons. The Logi Circumvolve is simple to set up and a lot of fun to employ, only information technology currently can't salve recorded video for more than 24 hours, which limits its usefulness. [Logitech added a subscription-storage plan on Sept. ane, 2016. See below.]

Pattern

My first impression of the Logi Circle is that it'south the ideal camera for the not-and then-technologically savvy. Its aqua-and-majestic packaging is bright, funky and, in some ways, makes the unboxing and setup fun. One tin can choose between black units or white units.

Standing at merely nether three inches tall, the Circle is compact and piece of cake to conceal, and has some weight to information technology at 9 ounces. It records video at 720p resolution at 30 frames per second. [Editor's note: A firmware update has enabled 1080p recording.] The Circle will non take up much infinite, merely it is a sturdy, well-made product that won't topple equally easily as some of the featherweights at this toll.

Credit: Jason Carpenter — (Image credit: Jason Carpenter)

The bottom of the Circle is magnetic, which secures nicely to its circular charging base; however, in that location are plenty of other means to display your camera. There's an adhesive strip and so that you can mount the base (and photographic camera) to just virtually any surface, and at any bending — and a helpful graphic on the bottom of the base showing where to adhere the strip for best results. One time the base is attached to a wall, yous tin can insert the photographic camera and accommodate the lens to whatever angle suits the room.

The Logi Circumvolve is the ideal photographic camera for the not-then-technologically savvy.

An out-of-the-ordinary choice would be to use the magnetic bottom of the camera itself. I was impressed that the magnet was strong enough to hold the camera vertically on a metal floor lamp.

The camera'southward rechargeable battery lasts well-nigh 12 hours and lets you mountain the camera on nearly any surface in your home — or in the dorsum thousand or past the pool. Yous can experiment with where to put the camera, and decide whether the base of operations is necessary. The power cord, which lets the photographic camera take continuous power, is 10 feet long, but obviously limits your options for placing the Circle.

Installation and Setup

Five minutes after I opened the box, my Logi Circumvolve photographic camera was recording my dog sprinting around the living room as I watched from my smartphone down the hall.

Setup is easy: Download and open the Logi Circle app, turn on Bluetooth when instructed, enter your email address, create a password and yous're done. It's almost shocking how simple the setup of the camera and its app actually is.

One downside of the setup process is the lack of support bachelor from Logitech. There is no manual packaged with the photographic camera, nor i available on the Logitech website. I was able to find some posts mentioning the Logi Circle in Logitech's support forums, but I was never able to blazon in a question and get a useful answer. You can't even log into your app-generated Logi business relationship on a computer, and the account you lot do create does non translate to a valid Logitech account. [Editor's note: Admission from desktop web browsers was added in mid-2016.]

MORE: Best All-In-One Security Software

In response to our questions, Logitech representatives told us that the mobile app contained most of the instructions and troubleshooting tips that a manual would contain, and that the visitor was working on creating a defended support site for the Logi Circumvolve.

V minutes later on I opened the box, the Logi Circle was recording my dog sprinting around the living room as I watched from my telephone.

The Logi Circle app requires a Bluetooth Low Energy-enabled handset, which rules out many Android phones or tablets made before 2013. Yous'll need to run at least Android 4.4 KitKat or iOS viii.1; all Apple devices going back to the iPhone 4s, 3rd-generation iPad and fifth-generation iPod Touch should be compatible. Almost other cameras nosotros've reviewed work with any Android 4.0 device that has Wi-Fi.

Features

At the end of each mean solar day, you lot can open up the Circumvolve smartphone app and touch the "Day Brief" round icon for a xxx-2d highlight reel of everything captured by the camera in the previous 24 hours. You tin can't look back at by Day Briefs, merely the one pertaining to the current calendar day, so y'all'll want to call back to review footage daily. Yet, you can get dorsum and watch any of the fully recorded clips accumulated over the previous 24 hours.

If yous want to save a clip, y'all need to click on its timestamp in the smartphone app, and so tap the downward-facing arrow on the left side of the window. From there, you can choose to send the clip as an email attachment or MMS bulletin, or save it to iCloud, Facebook or even Pinterest.

The 135-caste fish-eye lens covers quite a wide view, and will likely frame even more than y'all expected.

One cool feature is that y'all can control the angle and view of the photographic camera using the mobile app. You tin can rotate the camera view 180 degrees along a straight line using the app, and when coupled with the 360-degree manual rotation of the camera on its base of operations on a different axis, you essentially can view a room in its entirety. No matter the bending you choose, the 135-caste fish-center lens covers quite a wide view, and will probable frame fifty-fifty more than you expected.

Whether you are watching a alive feed or a previously recorded video, you lot can zoom in up to 8X. Taking the fish-heart lens into business relationship, the more yous zoom in, the hazier and more distorted the picture becomes. A white lite appears at the top of the lens when the camera is powered up, and when the Circle is recording, the white light flashes.

Like the Nest Cam, the Icontrol Piper NV or the Canary, the Circle has a ii-style talk-and-listen "intercom" function. When yous want to be heard in the room the camera is in, you lot press down on the rather humorous "talking head" icon on the bottom left corner of the mobile app.

The audio is extremely clear on the smartphone side of the equation, and the built-in microphone is sensitive enough to pick up voices from the area effectually the camera — and even the rooms surrounding it. While I was remotely viewing my living room from a different floor of the house, I was able to hear a cablegram going off on my kitchen stove.

The audio quality on the camera side of things is decent, but can go distorted if the person speaking from the smartphone terminate is a lilliputian excited — equally would be anyone who saw an intruder in their home.

The Circle lacks one disquisitional feature: the ability to view or save recorded content that'due south more than than 24 hours old.

The Circle also has night vision, powered by an array of infrared LED lights that let the camera see upwards to fifteen anxiety in total darkness. Night vision switches on automatically in the dark.

Night vision would come in handy if it were to exist used every bit a security photographic camera, just at the moment, the Circle lacks one feature that nearly every IP security camera possesses: the power to view or save recorded content that's more than 24 hours one-time.

More than: All-time Wireless Dwelling house Security Cameras

You simply don't have the selection to save video, other than by emailing or messaging clips to a non-Logi account. Logi representatives said that paid longer-term viewing options would become available in early on 2016.

Given the Circle'south 24-hr reviewing limit, the camera might be useful equally a security tool on a solar day-to-solar day basis. But correct at present, information technology won't be of much assistance to someone going on vacation unless the user had a reliable Internet connection during his or her travels and planned to review the 30-second recap clip every day.

[On Sept. 1, 2016, Logitech added a subscription video-storage plan chosen Circle Safe. It costs $10 per calendar month, or $100 per twelvemonth, per camera, and includes the past 31 days of footage.]

Smartphone App

The carte options inside the Logi Circumvolve mobile app are elementary and straightforward. The menu is comprised entirely of visual icons that are easy to identify and understand. Depending on the icon, y'all can flick on the camera's night-vision characteristic, turn the sound recording on and off, add a 2d camera to your account, remove a camera from your account, download the latest version of the app, turn push notifications on and off, and more.

The main screen of the smartphone app is also where you command the photographic camera's two-style talk-and-listen feature. Y'all can listen to what'southward going on in the room where the camera is, brand an proclamation to an intruder or say howdy to your dog. The quality of the speaker sound is boilerplate. Speak also loudly and the intruder (or dog) won't exist able to clearly sympathize what you're saying, because the sound can get a little bellow-y.

Performance

The more you zoom in on the live-video feed, the more distorted the picture becomes, which isn't ideal. Yet, when viewing the feed without whatever zoom, the picture and audio from the Logi Circle are remarkably clear. Even while using an unreliable Wi-Fi connectedness over a period of a week, I received only one notification that the camera had disconnected. Even then, it reconnected automatically when the indicate became strong enough.

The photographic camera'southward motion-activated notifications are not overwhelming, and one time a person enters the field of view and starts moving around, you get only an initial notification to warning y'all that someone has entered the room.

More than: How to Use Your Android Device as a Security Photographic camera

The Circumvolve chop-chop learns habits, and if someone is watching Goggle box on the couch, changing position every once in a while, the photographic camera determines that this is not a "new" movement later on the outset few alerts. Hence, fewer buzzes or dings, and less (or zero) annoyance as a result. The next notification will come only when that person gets upwards, or someone else enters the room.

Bottom Line

The Logi Circle is modern, cute and effective. It tin can capture a view from virtually any angle you lot choose. Not simply does the camera provide peace of heed from a home-security perspective, it gives you the real-fourth dimension opportunity to yell at intruders or tell your kitty you'll be abode soon.

The intuitive processes opens this photographic camera to a wide range of people who may have idea in the past that Wi-Fi cameras were also avant-garde for them. Still, we've come to expect the ability to store or salvage clips with cameras in this cost point and genre, whether the camera's marketed as a security tool or not, but the Logi Circumvolve does non offer this feature — at to the lowest degree not yet. We're looking frontwards to the added features due in early on 2016. [Editor'south note: 1080p video, cloud video storage and desktop access were all enabled as of Sept. 1, 2016.]

Truth be told, a lot of people can look by the drawbacks of the Circle, and see the value of a fun, useful and interactive gadget — fifty-fifty if information technology's non quite fix to be used every bit a security photographic camera.