Geeni Lighthawk Smart Floodlight Camera – 3MP Ultra-HD Video, 1800 Lumens, Motion-Activated Security Light, Two-Way Audio, & Built-in Siren – Hardwired Outdoor Surveillance – Dual-Band 2.4/5GHz Wi-Fi

Good smart cam/floodlight with lots of options and ability to store video without a subscription
This review is of the Geeni Lighthawk Smart Floodlight Camera.The Geeni Lighthawk is an excellent value with a moderately bright motion activated security light coupled to an average quality smart camera that can store many days’ worth of video on a local microSD card or, optionally, on a subscription-based cloud server. Its Wi-Fi receiver isn’t the most sensitive which can be problematic with it being mounted on an exterior location.The Lighthawk is easy to install over a standard four-inch circular electrical box. All the hardware is included. If your electrical box is a five-inch type, you will need an adapter to step down the size of the box. To use the Lighthawk as a motion activated security camera requires leaving it powered on at all times. If the electrical box is controlled by a switch, you will need to leave the switch on all the time, which means other lights on the same circuit will have to be continuously on as well.Using the Lighthawk requires installing the Geeni app on your smartphone, creating a free account, and connecting to the Lighthawk over Wi-Fi. As long as your Wi-Fi signal is strong, this isn’t a problem and, indoors, the app automatically located and registered the Lighthawk. Outdoors, with the Wi-Fi signal having to travel through exterior walls, I was only able to get a reliable video stream about half the time and I’ll probably have to install a signal booster.The two floodlights are moderately bright. Geeni claims they emit 1800 lumens which might be a bit on the generous side. I measured the energy consumption of the light and at its maximum brightness it uses 17 watts, equivalent to a typical 1600 lumen A19 bulb. Via the Geeni app you can dim the light to as low as a 5% duty cycle which only uses 2 watts. The two lights rotate and swivel to allow you flexibility in where they’re aimed.The smart camera has a resolution of 2304 x 1296. The image quality is typical for a security or trail cam which means it is okay, but nowhere near as sharp or saturated as a cell phone’s video. There is a color camera for good lighting and a black and white camera which is utilized in low light situations. Unlike most security cameras, there are no IR LEDs to provide night vision. Instead, in darkness, the motion sensor turns on the white lights for 1, 5, 10, or 15 minutes which provides illumination for the camera. In darkness with the white lights on, the camera will sometimes utilize the color camera and at other times the B&W, you have no ability to select which images you get. If you force the lights off, the camera can’t see anything in the dark.The Geeni app is rather powerful. It allows you to control the light and its brightness, manually save video or take stills, or set up the camera to automatically take video in response to motion or at scheduled times. You can also listen and talk to the Lighthawk from the app.Like other Geeni Smart Cameras, the Lighthawk has a slot for up to a 256GB microSD card (not included) for video storage. That is enough for several days of continuous recording and much more if you only have it triggered by motion detection. You can retrieve those videos from anywhere with Internet access. You also can subscribe to Geeni’s cloud service, but unlike Ring or Nest, you aren’t forced to do so to save video records.The Geeni app integrates with Alexa, and you can use it or voice commands from an Echo device to turn the floodlight on and off, but you don’t have any control over the camera other than viewing the live video. For full functionality you must use the Geeni app.For the price, this Smart Camera/Floodlight is an excellent value. I do wish the camera was a bit more consistent in its picture quality and that its Wi-Fi reception was a bit more sensitive.