Ryobi is a power tool manufacturer brand that is sold exclusively through The Home Depot. Their target market is the homeowner. As far as I am concerned, Ryobi is the only brand that I feel a homeowner should invest in. They make great power tools, with professional features and they don’t charge you an arm and a leg. I know what you are thinking, what does a camera have to do with power tools? Okay so let’s jump into the Ryobi garage camera review.
Ryobi Garage Camera Review – Overview
Back in 2016, Ryobi created a product that was out of left field. A product that no one had on their radar, a garage door opener system. Not only does this garage door system open and close your door, but it’s modular. So the big box that would sit in your garage now became more than an opener. You could attach a fan, Bluetooth speaker, cord reel and more. Well, now Ryobi created a new and much-needed accessory, the Ryobi garage camera.
Ryobi Garage Camera Review – Features
One of the best features is installation. Installing the camera is very easy. Just plug it into an open space on your garage system, pick your wifi, enter your password and scan an IRQ code. Yes, it’s really that easy.
The camera records at 720p and allows the user to store videos on a provided memory card or cloud storage for $50/year fee.
To view the camera, just open your Ryobi app and click on the camera. In the camera feature, you can have two-way communication to whoever is in your garage, which can come in handy.
Ryobi Garage Camera Review – Performance
So how does the Ryobi garage camera perform? If you take into consideration that the camera only cost $100, you will be happy with the camera. While other more expensive systems record at 1080p, the 720p is still decent and does a good job.
The night vision and certain lighting scenarios, it does a great job. I did notice that if it’s bright outside and I walk into my garage, it will not focus on me and my face. The outside light will be too bright and overtake the shot.
When I look back at recordings, I noticed it seems to be recording a lot even without movement. Not sure if it picks up noise and starts recording or why it decides to record?
One item I would love to see changed is the recording. I love that I can look back at various times and I can watch the video with sound. When I look through previous times, it has bars for every 15 minutes. I would love to see Ryobi take this one step further and add positions for when the garage was open and closed. For me, these are the important times. I can quickly see who entered the garage and who left and what was in their hands.
Some might complain about the speed and lag of the video, but I think it has more to do with your connection than the camera. I have two routers. When I set it to one router, there was a ton of lag. Once I moved it to my more powerful router, it really made the video more real time. While there is still a little lag, it’s the same as my Ring Door Bell system, so I am sure it has to do with my router.
Ryobi Garage Camera Review – Value
So is this worth a purchase? For me, I think a $100 is well worth the money. While there are things that could be improved, to have the peace of mind for a $100, well worth it.
Also, I love the fact that Ryobi only charges $50 per year. I see so many companies try to make a killing off cloud recording. Over the years cloud costs have dropped by a lot. $50 a year isn’t bad to be able to have long term backups.
Ryobi Garage Camera Review – Final Thoughts
Why I think Ryobi can add a couple of features to make this a great system, I have to remember it’s only a $100 to know who is entering and leaving my garage. The quality isn’t the best I have seen, but definitely, not the worst. I can make out people and if something ever happened, I could feel confident that the police could get a really good description of the intruder. I think this is a great addition to the already cool Ryobi garage door opener system.
