New HomeKit Video Doorbell Unveiled by Yobi

Just when you think little to nothing is happening when it comes to HomeKit enabled video doorbells, a company seemingly comes out of nowhere with just such a product. Yobi, based in the US, is taking pre-orders for a new video doorbell, dubbed the Yobi B3, that appears to be exclusively compatible with Apple HomeKit.

the B3 comes with impressive specs, including full HD 1080p video, infrared night vision, two-way audio speaker, PIR motion sensors, a 180º field of view, and is, of course, weather-resistant.

Currently priced at US$199, the company boasts many of the aforementioned features, stating that their Passive infrared sensors are “… provided by the top leading company Excelitas, use PIR pyroelectric sensors that give precise movement notifications by measuring body heat. This means that you will receive accurate notifications that are not triggered by false movements like cars driving by your house.”

The company also go on to mention a unique ‘facial backlight compensation’ function;

Take, for instance, it’s the middle of the day and the sun is shining in front of your house. As a result of this overflow of sunlight, an IP camera’s automatic reaction is to lower the exposure to compensate. This will give you extremely dark videos with absolutely no details. But Yobi is not like a regular IP camera. It’s a cool IP camera. And since we don’t want you to miss any small details of what goes on around your home, we made sure that it came equipped with smart backlight compensation. Yobi will automatically reduce or increase exposure so you to get the best surveillance video of your home.

There’s no detailed or explicit mention on the site as to how the device is powered other than the reference to AC in the specs, but it ‘seems’ there’s a proprietary connection on the back, from one image on the website, which would indicate it’s AC mains powered.

Specs;

• Colour – Gold and black
• Dimensions – Height: 5.98″ (152mm) Width: 2.44″ (62mm) Depth: 2.05″ (52mm)
  Weight – 250g
• Mounting Method Screws
• Ports – AC
• CPU – 600MHz
• Memory 1GB
• Resolution – 1920 X 1080 (1080p)
• Camera – Lens: F2.2 aperture, 2.7mm focal length
• Image sensor: 1/2.7″ CMOS
• Field of View – Horizontal : 124°  Diagonal: 180°
• Night Vision – 4 IR LEDs (850nm). Illuminates up to 29.6 feet (9m)
• Video – H.264 encoding
• Frame rate: 1– 30 FPS
• Audio – Built-in speaker and microphone
• Two-way audio talk
• WiFi – 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz (Does not support 5GHz network) Supports WPA and WPA2 protocols
• Connectivity Requirements – Upload speed 2.0 Mbps
• Integrations – Apple Homekit
• Operating Systems – Supports iOS 10.3 or later
• Operation Temperature – -4℉– 140℉ / -20°C – 60 °C
• Operation Humidity – < 75% at 104℉ / 40°C
• Weather Resistance – Waterproof

Whilst the gold finish might not appeal to some, hopefully, other finishes will be available later on, and given the very limited choice right now, it would be understandable to ignore the colour just to be able to get a homeKit enabled doorbell for around the same price as a decent security camera.

There’s no mention on the site whether the camera will be compatible with HomeKit Secure Video, which could be a dealbreaker for some, but for the price, it could be a winner.

more info available on the Yobi website – meetyobi.com

Thanks to Bing-Feng Yeh for the tipoff