Think twice about buying Eufy S120 Solar Wall Light Camera Black - my experience / warning

Tumtitums

I bought this last year and it was fine until autumn /winter came and then it started to have problems charging, Eufy were of no help and it was out of warranty. The issue is that around this time of year i.e.  November the strength of the sunlight is not enough to charge it therefore it automatically shuts off leaving you with no camera function.

 

It does have a usb charging port but  you need to unscrew the camera to reach the port. Sadly eufy decided to use what i can only assume are the tiniest screws known to man. This means that if you drop them,  you need to have very good eyesight to be able to find them . In addition i bought this item because it was advertised as a solar powered  security camera. I did not buy it to have to usb charge it every few weeks. 

The same issue has not happened again  ie its November and the camera  has switched itself off on the basis that there is not enough sunlight to charge it. This is really annoying as i do not think the UK is a particularly dark country. In my opinion you shouldn't buy this item as in my experience there are a few months of the year where it will not function correctly.

kinger101

Could it be positioning?  I know you need it where you want to capture images, but if you're in a dark spot that doesn't get much/any direct light, that might be the issue.  

The product isn't going to work in all scenarios.

Not had an issue with mine so far.

As for the screws, screwdriver with magnetic head might help.

One option might be to mount a separate solar panel on a site which does get sun.  You'd need to find one delivering correct power, and use a flat connector.

I guess there is the factor of how frequently it is triggered as well.  I'm at the end of a cul de sac.   

Tumtitums

kinger101 said:

Could it be positioning?  I know you need it where you want to capture images, but if you're in a dark spot that doesn't get much/any direct light, that might be the issue.  

The product isn't going to work in all scenarios.

Not had an issue with mine so far.

As for the screws, screwdriver with magnetic head might help.

One option might be to mount a separate solar panel on a site which does get sun.  You'd need to find one delivering correct power, and use a flat connector.

I guess there is the factor of how frequently it is triggered as well.  I'm at the end of a cul de sac.   

As i say it has worked perfectly well all year up until November . Eufy said something about frequency of triggering but its in my back garden and the only thing thats triggers it is cats and foxes  however im aware that  it doesnt always pick up when there is an animal in the back garden which is another issue i have with it.  There is nothing obstructing the solar panel

oldagetraveller1

Looking at that model, the solar panel is integral with the camera body. Therefore if the camera is installed in a position that doesn't receive sunlight/daylight then it will not charge sufficiently.

I have two cameras at the rear of the house, not Eufy which have a better chargibng solution. The solar panel is separate, with a long u.s.b. cable which means the panel can be installed in a more favourable location to catch maximum light.

At the moment, even with a dull day, they show as "charging" and their charge is at 75%.

The above, is of course of no help, but does highlight that their location is key for efficient charging.

Ectophile

The UK weather isn't good for winter solar.  We often have several days in a row of heavy cloud.  Our eyes can adapt to the low light, but that weather is useless for solar charging.

Other countries at a similar latitude tend to be colder than the UK, but with a lot less cloud.

QrizB

Ectophile said:

The UK weather isn't good for winter solar.  

Yes, this.

Even for rooftop solar panels, winter generation is often as little as one-fifth of summertime generation.

Outdoor solar powered things either need much larger panels than you'd expect, or simply won't get enough charge from November to February.

Some reviews mention an adapter for an additional solar panel; adding a much larger panel somewhere that it'll get full sun all day at this time of year might help.

(The integral panel seems to be about 17x6 cm which makes it about 2 watts. An external panel rated at 20+ watts might be enough, depending on the capacity of the internal battery in the device.)

Tumtitums

oldagetraveller1 said:

Looking at that model, the solar panel is integral with the camera body. Therefore if the camera is installed in a position that doesn't receive sunlight/daylight then it will not charge sufficiently.

I have two cameras at the rear of the house, not Eufy which have a better chargibng solution. The solar panel is separate, with a long u.s.b. cable which means the panel can be installed in a more favourable location to catch maximum light.

At the moment, even with a dull day, they show as "charging" and their charge is at 75%.

The above, is of course of no help, but does highlight that their location is key for efficient charging.

There is nothing wrong with the location as it charges perfectly well until November. The purpose of the camera is to view the whole back garden and its in the most optimal position for this .  I find it disappointing that the only solution is to buy a solar panel for this 

powerful_Rogue

Tumtitums said:

oldagetraveller1 said:

Looking at that model, the solar panel is integral with the camera body. Therefore if the camera is installed in a position that doesn't receive sunlight/daylight then it will not charge sufficiently.

I have two cameras at the rear of the house, not Eufy which have a better chargibng solution. The solar panel is separate, with a long u.s.b. cable which means the panel can be installed in a more favourable location to catch maximum light.

At the moment, even with a dull day, they show as "charging" and their charge is at 75%.

The above, is of course of no help, but does highlight that their location is key for efficient charging.

There is nothing wrong with the location as it charges perfectly well until November. The purpose of the camera is to view the whole back garden and its in the most optimal position for this .  I find it disappointing that the only solution is to buy a solar panel for this 

There clearly is a problem with the location as it's not getting enough winter solar to power it.

LightFlare

powerful_Rogue said:

Tumtitums said:

oldagetraveller1 said:

Looking at that model, the solar panel is integral with the camera body. Therefore if the camera is installed in a position that doesn't receive sunlight/daylight then it will not charge sufficiently.

I have two cameras at the rear of the house, not Eufy which have a better chargibng solution. The solar panel is separate, with a long u.s.b. cable which means the panel can be installed in a more favourable location to catch maximum light.

At the moment, even with a dull day, they show as "charging" and their charge is at 75%.

The above, is of course of no help, but does highlight that their location is key for efficient charging.

There is nothing wrong with the location as it charges perfectly well until November. The purpose of the camera is to view the whole back garden and its in the most optimal position for this .  I find it disappointing that the only solution is to buy a solar panel for this 

There clearly is a problem with the location as it's not getting enough winter solar to power it.

Agree - in the winter the sun sits a lot lower in the sky so although to the naked eye it may look reasonably light the panel may be getting nothing at all

oldagetraveller1

This is a panel attached to one of my cameras. It is 140mm x 80mm in size.

It's sunny at the moment and the battery is showing 91% compared to the 75% yesterday

QrizB

Just to build on my previous post about the UK not being a geat place for outdoor solar powered kit, per Eufy's own web site the S120 has a 5.2Ah battery. that's about 20 watt-hours.

And it states that it needs 2 hours of diect sunlight to power it for a day. With my previous estimate of a 2 watt panel, that's 4 watt-hours per day, and a 5-day battery life with no sun.

In a 30-day month, then, it's going to need 120 watt-hours.

There's a handy EU-funded website here that lets you see the average monthly energy generation for solar panels pretty much anywhere in the world. Let's see how a 2-watt solar panel manages in various places.

In Shenzen, China (where Eufy is headquartered) it looks like this:

200 watt-hours, pretty much every month, all year round. More than enough to run the light and camera.

What about in New York? New York is further north than Shenzen, so it has longer summer days but shorter winter ones.

In New York, in December, you're down to maybe 140 watt-hours on average That's still more than the 120 watt-hours per month weve estimated, so with the battery to buffer it you're probably going to be OK.

So how about the UK? We're further north again than New York. Here's the chart for Birmingham.

Oh.

March to September looks pretty good. October is really marginal, with barely 120watt-hours all month on average. November through February here's practially no chance of the light working 24/7; best case, it'll operate for part of the time on days when we get sun.

And that's why it's not going to work here, unless you add an mains charger or external solar panel.

Regarding esternal solar panels, Eufy's own product the T8700 is only 2.6 watts and is far too small to make up the difference duing a UK winter (as well as being eye-wateringly expensive). You might want to look elsewhere. This one for example is 6 watts and might be big enough; ideally you'd be looking for larger again, at least 30x20cm. (Lots of eBay listings for solar panels are blatant lies; check the area of the panel, the max output from a small panel is about 200 watts per square metre.)