With the pandemic in full swing, 2020 saw a significant increase in online purchasing versus prior years. As such, package theft also spiked, particularly during the holiday season. There are countless security cameras available to choose from, with various features and capabilities. People tend to stick to familiar names, but there are great products to discover when you give them a chance. We’ve reviewed the Imilab C20 Home Security Camera to see how it performs and stacks up against the competition.

Unboxing and Features

The Imilab C20 camera comes in a small, plain box. Inside is the camera itself, USB cable, wall adapter, wall/ceiling mount kit, and instructions. Take note, as you have to supply your own microSD card. We appreciate the “no frills, ready-for-business” approach to packaging and contents. Size-wise, this camera is like a plum sitting on top of a brownie, but lighter in weight (only 259 g) and with a matte-white finish.

Notable features include 1080p HD resolution, human detection, motion tracking, sound detection, infrared night vision, and dual motors to pan/tilt. The packaging also lists sound-detection, two-way audio, and live view. For a camera of its stature, the Imilab C20 has sufficient hardware to perform well and get the job done. However, hardware is the easy part. The true test? That’s where the mobile app and human interface come in.

Imilab Home App (Android/iOS)

Setting up the Imilab C20 (tested on a Samsung Galaxy Note 9) is fairly routine. Download the app first to request a verification code for registration (email/phone input required). Expect to wait several minutes for the code to arrive before entering it in for full access to the app. Plug in the camera once you’re ready to set it up. You can browse the app while the Imilab C20 tests its motors and speaker. It’ll repeatedly announce that it’s ready to connect, which is why it’s better to wait for the code before plugging it in.

The app steps through the process of adding the C20 camera and directing it to your wireless network. This process takes about two to four minutes. It’s worth noting that this camera works only on 2.4 GHz (for those of us with dual-band routers). Once ready, all the app controls open up. Most of the app’s functions revolve around the camera itself. Outside of that, there are options to check/update system information, update personal information, and subscribe to Imilab’s cloud storage service.

Controls and Settings

From the app’s home tab, clicking on the camera opens up the live view (top half) and camera controls (bottom half). A four-way dial offers manual control over pan and tilt, either by tapping or a press-hold. The app’s controls allow the user to toggle SD/HD video quality, record/review photos and video, turn on/off the camera microphone, and talk through the camera’s speaker (i.e. a two-way intercom).

Accessible, via the three dots in the upper-right corner of the camera screen, are additional camera-specific settings: status indicator light, sleep schedule, timestamp, distortion correction, human detection/tracking, and recording mode. The included manual doesn’t expand on any aspect of the Imilab Home app. There is a FAQ within the app, but it only covers the basics. Thankfully, the app is easy to navigate with its clean, uncluttered layout. It’s surprisingly sensible and intuitive, which is something that many similar apps struggle with.

Imilab C20 Performance

Color reproduction, contrast, and video resolution on the Imilab C20 are all excellent. The infrared night vision is quite effective up to 30+ feet and doesn’t suffer from excessive grain. There is a short (approximately two-second) delay between controlling the camera and seeing the view change live in the app. Because of this, it’s best to tap (not hold) to adjust so that the camera doesn’t overshoot where you want to direct it.

Thankfully, the motors that control the camera pan and tilt are nearly silent. This is fantastic for observing subjects (e.g. kids) without drawing attention. The Imilab C20 offers a full 360 degrees of panoramic viewing, but not with a full spin (technically 359 degrees?). Either way, it provides visual coverage without the need for “perfect placement.” It helps that the pan and tilt speeds are sufficiently fast and snappy.

While viewing the live feed through the app, you can take image snapshots and/or record video. The app is responsive, immediately saving such manually-recorded content under ‘Album’ within the app. Motion/sound notifications arrive quickly too, within seconds of a triggering event.

Motion and sound

The triggers for motion detection on the Imilab C20 are practical. It’s sensitive enough to alert to people/pet movement and changes in lighting, even at the very edges of the camera’s field of view. It also ignores less significant events, such as branches swaying outside a window, images flickering on the TV, or a fun sphere floating across the room. Currently, there is no adjustment for more/less motion detection sensitivity. But the balance is good, and the camera pays attention to what it should.

The same practicality applies to sound detection/triggers. The Imilab C20 largely ignores normal speaking voices, television/music, robot vacuums, and so forth. Sound events trigger for irregular things like shouts or silverware dropping into a nearby sink. However, context is key. Shutting a door loudly won’t trigger a sound event against the backdrop of a noisy party with music. Overall, the camera’s microphone pickup is ok. The speaker (for two-way intercom conversations), located on the camera’s rear, is also just ok.

When receiving push notifications, the corresponding event shows up in the app. The entire (filterable) list contains dates, time stamps, and icons. Items under ‘Events’ are only image snapshots. However, the individual video clips associated with each are saved to the memory card. You can also view the video under ‘Playback’ or ‘Cloud’ (the latter which requires a subscription). Event timestamps are after the fact, so, when reviewing video, start at the event time and work backwards. Events can be deleted or downloaded, the latter which merely puts a copy under ‘Albums’ in the app.

Human tracking

The human tracking feature offers some conveniences when enabled, but with limitations. It works best on adolescents and adults. However, “human” is used loosely, as the Imilab C20 will follow practically any human’ish-sized object. For example, an 8-year-old can hide in a large cardboard box and scoot along the floor, and the camera will follow. Pets are ignored, but sometimes that same 8-year-old is also ignored when passing through the camera’s field of view.

There is a moment of delay between the time the Imilab C20 recognizes something to track and starts to follow. Also, the camera’s panning speed sometimes doesn’t keep up with its target. This means that the camera may not capture all the events you think it should. Someone (within 10 or so feet) entering the camera’s field of view from the right, walking at a normal/brisk pace, can be in the center of view by the time the camera starts moving. That person can be out of view (on the left) by the time the camera pans past that same center of view.

This feature can be helpful if you want the camera to cover a wide angle and pay attention to continuous activity (e.g. a warehouse with workers in it). This feature may be less useful for those interested in, say, monitoring package theft. The thief can be there and gone before the Imilab C20 even zeros in on where the “there” was. It really depends on how close the camera placement is versus the subject(s). The automatic tracking performs much better at a distance that lets it keep up and center on the subject.

Recorded content

The ‘Playback’ tab in the app contains the camera-recorded video. There is up to a ten-second initial wait to buffer. This drops down to about two seconds while searching through the video. Not bad. You can pinch to expand the timeline for finer control as you move the marker forward and back to navigate. Events are indicated as vertical bars of white (for the duration of the event) against the light blue background, which makes it easier to zero in on the important stuff. These events are what you find saved to the memory card.

While reviewing the ‘Playback’ video in the app, you can take still images or record sections as clips (with no apparent limit to duration). These are saved to ‘Album’ (where manual snapshots/recordings go). All content saved to ‘Album’ stays there until the user manually deletes it. As for the ‘Playback’ video, the camera continuously records until the memory card is full. At that point, it automatically overwrites the oldest data. A week of recording uses a little less than 30 GB of space.

Other than subscribing to the cloud service, the only way to export images and video is to copy them off of the memory card. The media, consisting of jpeg images and MP4 videos, is non-encrypted. Everything that the Imilab C20 captures is saved to the card in date-labeled folders, which appear to have a limit of 120 items per.

Room for improvement

Despite all the positive points, the Imilab C20 camera could benefit from updates. For one, the motion tracking notification setting won’t stay off once turned off (software bug). Two, there doesn’t seem to be a way to manually adjust the time. Our camera was stuck three hours ahead, showing as such in all notifications and video/photo timestamps. Every other important setting in the mobile app is readily accessible, so if time adjustment exists (as of the publish date of this review), Imilab totally wins hide-and-seek.

The manual camera control often triggers excess movement, which can be frustrating. Tap the control once to pan the camera view to the left (for example), it goes left. Usually. It may go left, then go left some more. Or it may go left and then go back to the right. Or it may go to the right first before going left. This happens with both pan and tilt, and it’s more often than desired (i.e. instances should be zero).

The sleep schedule function in the app feels lacking and unfinished. You wouldn’t know that it actually works, based on what you see in the app. It works, but the app doesn’t (as of the publish date of this review) provide the kind of sleep scheduling one expects, like setting alarms or timers.

There are a few improves we’d like to see in future updates: speaker volume adjustment (for two-way audio), motion/sound event sensitivity adjustment, and the ability to export video/images through the app (instead of rely solely on physical access to the memory card each time). That last one is key, as content saved to ‘Album’ in the app isn’t saved to a separate folder on the memory card. It’s a bit of a nuisance to flick through dozens of folders and hundreds of files to pick out that specific content.

Overall Impression

The Imilab mobile app puts all the important tools right at your fingertips, with additional ones just a few touches away. The interface does an excellent job at providing control, all without overwhelming the user or burying settings under excessive sub-menus. The app may not be fancy, but one like this doesn’t need to be when it covers most aspects pretty well. Combined with video quality and usability of the hardware, the Imilab C20 camera is a solid performer.

Although there are improvements that would benefit the user, it doesn’t feel like a deal-breaker to not have them. They relate more to the app and not the camera itself. This means that future updates could very well check off the whole list (and then some). Those reviews on Google Play? They don’t do the Imilab C20 proper justice, especially since the company appears active with updating the mobile app.

Worth it

At $US35 dollars, the Imilab C20 home security camera is a good buy. The value will improve so long as the company continues to update the mobile app. It’s a competitive market under the $50 dollar price point, especially with hardware specs nearly identical from brand to brand. It comes down to the user experience, and the Imilab C20 earns our appreciative nod.

Product page: Imilab

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Imilab