The Mi 360° Home Security Camera 2K Pro looks good — on paper. And it certainly lived up to its specs. Images are sharp, low-light videos come in colour, and it can pan, tilt, and zoom to cover the entire room. But it was woeful at completing the most crucial task for a security camera — notifications were delayed, and the motion-triggered videos included plenty of false alarms.

Setting this Xiaomi camera up with the Mi Home app (on iOS and Android) was a breeze. Basically, you scan the QR code at the bottom of the camera using the app and you're good to go. However, the app interface could be more intuitive. It was not obvious to me — as a first-time user — where to find the settings for the camera. But the busy app design is probably because it controls all of Xiaomi's smart home devices. It's not just a dedicated security camera app. For example, you can set up home automation rules for the Mi camera, and make it work in tandem with other Xiaomi smart home devices, like its robot vacuums.

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Where the Mi camera failed miserably was its motion detection feature. Even with the sensitivity set to Low, I still had many motion-triggered videos that captured nothing of importance — no person or even any motion in the video. The app notifications, too, were much delayed. I would get them within minutes, instead of seconds, after the camera detects a person. And it's even more annoying when they then turn out to be false alarms. Now, security cameras usually lets you denote the area that the camera should focus on, like a doorway. Having such an “activity zone” feature, which is missing on the Mi camera, would have helped to reduce false alarms.

Motion-triggered videos can be stored on a microSD card in the camera. The camera also uploads them to the cloud, where they are stored for up to seven days. I have no complaints about the video quality nor the audio. The camera's low-light performance was good, too. And there was just a slight delay while watching the real-time video feed. The camera was also fairly responsive when I tried to pan, tilt or zoom the real-time video feed. A privacy feature rotates the camera into its casing to block its view.

At its discounted S$60 price (usual price S$99), the Mi 360° Home Security Camera 2K Pro is relatively affordable. But I can't recommend it when its motion detection feature is wonky and liable to give false alarms. It's a shame as everything else works pretty well. Perhaps a future firmware update will fix this issue. It's available on Lazada and Shopee.

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Note: Review unit provided by Xiaomi.