Wyze’s $30 security camera adds motorized panning

In the crowded security camera category Wyze’s products aren’t so much amazing as they are amazingly cheap. Take last year’s simply named Wyze Cam. There was nothing about the product that set it apart from the likes of Nest or Canary or the Netgear Arlo — beyond, of course, that crazy $20 price tag.

Announced this week, the Wyze Cam Pan is 50-percent more expensive than its predecessor, bringing the cost up to a whopping $30. With that bank breaking price, however, you get the titular panning feature, which gives you a 360-degree remote view of a room, on-top of the built-in 120-degree fish eye. It’s able to scan a full circle in around three-seconds, according to Wyze.

Panning is accomplished through the app with a swipe of the screen. The app also features motion tracking, an improvement over the first generation device, panning the camera as it spots moving objects.

The camera shoots 1080p video at 15 fps and can do up to 8x digital zoom. There’s also two-way audio and night vision — both relatively standard features on security cameras these days, but everything kind of feels like a bonus when the device runs $30. That price also includes up to 14 days of free video storage on AWS, a nice addition that a number of significantly more expensive competitors no longer offer.

Again, this isn’t world-setting-on-fire stuff here, but those who have been balking at pricier competitors don’t have a lot to lose here.