Nooie 360 Cam 2 Review
A high-res upgrade to the original pan-and-tilt camera
Verdict
A low price, full 360-degree coverage and some neat tracking features make the Nooie 360 Cam 2 stand out from its budget camera competition. If you want a camera that you can use to look around your home while you’re out, it’s a good choice. The lack of a default home position and the fiddly playback interface makes it less ideal for those that want to monitor one location for security.
Pros
- Excellent value
- Motorised pan-and-tilt
- 2K video resolution
Cons
- Hard to download saved clips
- Camera doesn’t have a ‘home’ position
Availability
- UKRRP: £69.99
- USARRP: $66.99
Key Features
- TypeThis is an indoor security camera with motorised pan-and-tilt, giving a full 360-degree view of a room.
- Recording optionsYou can record to the cloud (subscription required) or microSD card.
Introduction
Fixed cameras, particularly indoors, can be rather limiting. Somehow, the important stuff always seems to take place just out of the frame. Building on the original, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 aims to give a wider view of what’s going on with a full 360-degree motorised pan and tilt.
A low price, offline recording and automated tracking make this a neat little camera, but it needs a few extra options to make it flawless.
Design and installation
- USB powered
- Works with 2.4GHz networks
Looking a little like the silhouette of a Minion, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 looks neat as far as security cameras are concerned. Nooie has kept the same basic shape and size as the original Nooie 360 Cam. I don’t mind that, as the neat and small body is easy to place anywhere.
The camera just needs to be stood on a bookshelf. Where you place it isn’t particularly important, as the motorised pan and tilt mean that you can move where the camera is looking.
There’s a USB power cable in the box, which plugs into the rear of the base. The cable’s round connector sits neatly in place, securely connecting.
Although there’s a cloud camera service, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 has a microSD card slot underneath the lens, which can take cards up to 128GB.
Features
- Full 360-pan and motion tracking
- No ‘home’ point
As with the original, the standout feature here is the motorised pan and tilt. There’s a 355-degree pan option, which, combined with the lens’ 101-degree field of view, means that the camera can take in a full 360 degrees.
Tilt is 94 degrees, equally split between up and down. Again, this range of movement makes it easy to look right up at the ceiling or down to the floor, taking in everything.
Diving into the app, there are a few ways to move the camera around. I could swipe my finger on the screen to move around or use the on-screen joystick instead. I found the camera reliable and quick to respond to movements, with little delay in the live feed.
From the live view, I could record a video, save a still clip or use the quality two-way talk option to chat with anyone on the feed.
As this is a security camera, one of the Nooie 360 Cam 2’s main jobs is to detect and record motion. There’s only basic motion detection built-in, with no people detection. To help reduce the number of alerts you get, the camera lets you set activity zones, and adjust the motion sensitivity.
That’s good in theory, but the Nooie 360 Cam 2 suffers from the same issue as many pan-and-tilt cameras: it doesn’t return to a home position automatically. Nor does it let you save favourite positions for easy recall, as the EZViz C8W Pro does.
If I went into the live view and moved the camera, it meant that my activity zone was then covering the wrong area, potentially meaning that I’d miss future alerts.
This is an issue that is accentuated with the motion tracking feature. With this turned on, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 will automatically follow detected motion, which is great for seeing what’s going on. However, when motion stops, the camera remains pointing at its last position, which can mean that future events are missed. A default home position the camera returns to after a set time out would make life much better.
Alerts can be scheduled, with three schedules available. When out of schedule, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 will still record, it just won’t send a notification. The camera can also be turned on and off from the app if you want privacy, but I couldn’t schedule this to happen automatically.
As well as recording video, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 can listen out for audio, with a special option to detect babies crying. However, general sound detection often proves annoying, sending alerts frequently. Again, noise alerts can be scheduled, although the camera still records when notifications are silenced.
Video clips are saved to the SD card or, if you subscribe, to the Nooie cloud. Services include 24/7 recording with 30-days of history for a reasonable €4 a month (€48 a year) or 30-days of event history for €6 (€72 a year). I stuck with the SD card option.
Nooie still hasn’t made finding clips very easy. It’s possible to filter by date but to find a specific clip I had to scroll through the fiddly timeline, which oddly lists times with A and P suffixes, rather than AM and PM.
There’s not actually an option to download video clips. Instead, I could use the record option to record a clip to my phone’s library, which means watching the video in real-time in the app. I found it easier to remove the memory card from the camera and insert this into my PC.
Live video feeds can be viewed on a compatible smart display using the Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant Skills.
Video quality
- QHD video quality
- A little dark but sharp video
- Quality night vision
While the original Nooie 360 Cam had a Full HD video sensor, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 has a QHD sensor, recording video at 2304 x 1296. That extra bit of detail gives the image a sharper appearance than with the original.
I found that during the day, the video was a little on the dark side, particularly when the camera was pointed towards my office doors. However, there was plenty of detail in the frame and it was easy to see what was going on, with individuals easy to recognise.
At night, the camera switches to IR mode automatically, shooting video in black and white. This makes the image more pixelated, but I could still clearly see what was going on, and individuals were still easy to identify. The range of the IR lights is good, lighting up my entire test room.
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Should you buy it?
If you want a cheap camera with decent video quality that gives you a full view of a room, then this model is a good choice.
If you want a proper security camera with easier access to video clips and the ability to always monitor one area, look elsewhere.
Final Thoughts
For the price, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 offers a lot of features, and its video is very good quality, outstripping many other budget cameras. Lacking the option to return to a home position, the Nooie 360 Cam 2 suffers a little, as it can often be out of position, making it difficult to recommend as a pure security camera.
If you want something cheap that will reliably send notifications, the Ring Indoor Cam is a better bet. However, if you want a camera that you can use to monitor your home remotely, seeing what’s going on, there’s a lot to like here. My guide to the best indoor security cameras has more choices.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every security camera we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main security camera for the review period
We test compatibility with the main smart systems (HomeKit, Alexa, Google Assistant, SmartThings, IFTTT and more) to see how easy each camera is to automate.
We take samples during the day and night to see how clear each camera’s video is.
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FAQs
Resolution: the Nooie 360 Cam 2 has a higher 2K resolution, compared to the original’s 1080p resolution.
It has a 101-degree field of view, but the 355-degree pan means that the camera can move moved to see all around a room.
Full specs
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.