Electronics are not normally what I blog about, but I just got the best affordable security camera under $50! I honestly didn’t even think it was an option to find something that low, but we were in the market for one a couple of weeks ago and Jon asked his tech savvy friend, Anthony and he gave us the perfect solution, the Yi Dome Camera that is currently $34.99 on Amazon!

I was in the hunt for a security camera, because I’m planning on renting out desks in my studio space and I thought it would be nice to be able to check in when I’m not there and make sure all is right. We ended up setting it up in our family room to see how it worked and now it’s become an obsession. It’s so fun to check in and see what Jon and the boys are up to if I’m out for the day. I can talk thru it as well so, if the boys are doing something naughty I can actually speak up and tell them to stop jumping on the sofa. Asher loves it when mommy is in the camera. He is always asking me to move it around, because you can control it thru the app.

You can see it here for scale. There is a thin cable that you use to plug into the outlet. It can also be mounted.

Set up is pretty easy. You just need to download the YI Home Lite app on your phone and it walks you thru setting up your wifi information once that’s done you click on add a camera and a QR code shows up and you just show it to the camera so that it syncs.

Once your camera is installed when you click on the app you will see the camera right away in color. It also has night vision so you can see in the dark.

One of my favorite parts is that you can add additional cameras and see them all in the same app. My grandmother still lives in Colombia and we don’t get to see her a lot. My parents go at least once a year and since they are currently there we decided to set one up in her house and see if it worked. We tried it out this weekend and it worked. They sent me an invitation to view the camera from their app and now I can see into the first floor of my grandma’s house. It’s been so fun! Especially since you can chat with it. My grandma doesn’t use a computer or have an iphone so we don’t ever get to face time.

The microphone button is what you push in order to talk via the app/camera. It works like an intercom. You can also go into settings and switch to to call mode and then it’s hands-free where both parties can talk without having to push a button. On the camera end you don’t see push anything ever. Just speak.

You can view the image on SD or HD. I find the quality on SD to be really good so, I leave at that, because HD slows down the feed a bit. Also you can enlarge the image with your fingers.

You can even view the image in landscape and get a bigger image.

I literally have not been able to stop talking about it. So much in this little camera for only $34.99! When you first get it set up it does become a bit of an addiction. I was checking in to see my grandma every couple of hours, but now I just check in some mornings and get to see my parents having breakfast with my grandma and get to say hello to all. Since this is a security camera it does have activity alerts that you can get sent to the app and you can add a SIM card to the camera to record the activity or sign up for Yi Home Lite’s Cloud subscription to get all of the footage saved. My needs are not that fancy so I haven’t done either.

Thought this might be helpful for others if you are in the market for a security camera, but don’t want to splurge on a Nest.