SwitchBot Indoor Camera Review [Tilt Pan 2K] – Functionality with Personality

I was most excited about the SwitchBot indoor camera with tilt and pan as I already have SwitchBot devices in my house, including the SwitchBot Hub and switches that operate my old air conditioning unit and other devices when I need them to be manually operated. 

You can see more in my review of the other SwitchBot devices.

First Impressions

When I received the SwitchBot Pan/Tilt Cam 2K from SwitchBot for review, they sent me both the standard white unit, which is very attractive. 

In fact, it won a Red Dot Award in 2022. 

In addition to the standard white unit, which would fit into any house very easily and almost looks like a cute little Matryoshka Doll camera, they also sent me a limited-edition Pan/Tilt camera which has a very cute skin on it that not only looks like an animal but even has a hilarious tail over the charging port cable. 

If you have pets, then this makes an awesome addition to the house as it adds some fun to the monitoring of your pets just by the aesthetics of the camera. 

Hopefully, the HD photos in the gallery above give it a fair representation.

In Japan, there is a saying called kawaii. And in Japanese, kawaii essentially means cute and adorable.

There is no doubt that this limited edition Japanese special SwitchBot Pan/Tilt Cam is kawaii.  Much like your furbabies.

The little lens and black camera face almost do look like a little face coming at you from the hilarious and fun wrap.

Build quality

I’ve already said they look good, but they’re also very well made. 

They’re surprisingly light compared to some of the other cameras I have. But the quality of the lens and the operation of the motor is flawless so far. 

SwitchBot does promote this as a great camera for baby monitoring and pet owners.

As a baby monitor, it is very quiet. If you have babies you know you don’t want them waking up once they are asleep.

I can certainly see the attraction for those that have pets at home during the day to be able to interact with them through the two-way audio, but also keep an eye on things to make sure that they’re not eating the couch. 

Even if you’re not a pet owner, this is still a brilliant camera and looks really attractive. Just make sure you’re not sticking it in your Airbnb when you shouldn’t be. #scandal

Powering it up

When you first power it on, the operation is very quiet. The panning and tilting motion was surprisingly silent. 

While there is a little bit of noise, I was really impressed with how unobtrusive the motor in it is. 

It has a full 360-degree pan and a 115-degree tilt, which means that you’ve pretty much got a full view over all parts of the room. 

You can have it sitting upright on a desk or table or bench, but you can also use the included mounting bracket to install it upside down on the ceiling.  You’ll just need to change a setting in the app to tell it that it is upside down so that the view of the camera is reversed.

It plays well with others

You can pair it with other SwitchBot hardware, like a sensor, light bulbs, or even your SwitchBot curtain controllers. 

That means if a sensor somewhere in the house detects motion, the camera can very quickly kick into gear return to a stationary point that is pre-selected, and monitor a room. 

Of course, the camera itself also has a motion sensor built in. More on that in a minute.

In addition to its own controls and the ability to operate within the SwitchBot ecosystem, it also integrates with Alexa and Google so that if you do have a home hub or a show, you can request that it shows you a particular camera and you can integrate it with some of your other routines. 

One of those routines might be that when you leave home, the camera goes into monitoring mode, and when you come home, it goes into privacy mode. 

Privacy Mode

When the camera goes into privacy mode, the camera lens itself rotates downwards into the unit so that the camera is not actually out at all, which gives you a lot of peace of mind that no one could hack the camera and get access to viewing any part of your property when it’s in privacy mode.

Nothing worse than feeling like you’re going to walk through the lounge in your pajamas with the camera on.

Features

This thing is absolutely jam-packed with features. 

Not only do you have the pan and tilt functions, but you also have the privacy mode and the ability to have a live view mode.

You can enable or disable motion alerts so that if it does pick up motion, you can get alerts on your phone. 

And there is motion tracking where if you walk into view of the camera, it will follow you around as you move. 

In the video above, I demonstrate both cameras working together, tracking me as I walk around the room. This not only worked in bright light but also worked incredibly well in complete darkness using the night IR mode.

In fact, in the video, I could not see a thing. I was trying to walk around to demonstrate the motion tracking with night vision but was too afraid that I was going to stub my toe on something.

Night vision is bright and clear and the picture clarity is surprisingly good. There are also waypoints and patrol modes. 

Waypoints can be set so that if something happens the camera quickly moves to that position. E.g. If there is motion at the front door, the camera can quickly move from whatever it was looking for, at last, to focus on the front door.

It quickly identifies a point where the camera can move in the event of motion. 

And the patrol mode can rotate through your waypoints in a pattern to keep a full view of a particular part of the house, potentially like a lighthouse would operate.

There is two-way audio and voice control. 

The two-way audio would be perfect for pet owners that want to communicate. 

Or if you were to see somebody in the camera view that shouldn’t be there, then you can yell at them down the camera. 

I’ve used it to talk to my kids when they get home and I get a notification so I check in and say Hi.
There is also an alarm button in the app, which if you press it, makes an alarm noise.

Storage – Cloud or Local?

In addition to all of these great features and functions, there is also cloud or local storage, so you can insert an SD card, microSD card, and up to 256 gigabytes for local recording. Make sure it’s formatted correctly as per the manual.

You can pay for cloud storage which is extra. It’s not as cheap as it could be, unfortunately.

There’s a manual and setup guide that shows you where to put the microSD card, how to set up the camera, and all the features and functions.

If you already own a SwitchBot Hub and any other SwitchBot devices, it’s very straightforward. 

The controls from the smartphone are a lot of fun to play with. 

Controlling the camera to look around when you’re not in the room is surprisingly enjoyable. 

The video quality at 2K is really good and there’s a good color in the picture as well.

Included accessories

In the box, you get:

• the camera
• the mounting base plate
• a user manual
• pack of mounting screws, including masonry bits
• USB wall plug
• a micro USB cable which is 6 feet long
• Mounting guide sticker to help get it right if you are going to use the mounting base plate 
• Reset pin if you need to reset the device

Warranty

It’s worth noting that this is an indoor camera, and SwitchBot and WonderTech Labs give it a solid three-year warranty from the date of purchase. 

This is in line with all of the experiences I’ve had with SwitchBot, they’re such a great company to deal with.

Status lights

Just at the base at the front of the camera, there is an LED light which is either red or green, giving you different status information during setup and operation.  Each status of the lights is described in the manual.

What’s the verdict?

Considering how many cameras I already own, the SwitchBot Pan/Tilt Cam is probably the most fun and functional camera in terms of the features it has and the control that I have over it. It’s not as slick as the Ring software I have but it’s pretty good and has all the functions I need.

It doesn’t just give me alerts for motion, it also gives me the ability to control where the camera is pointing in real-time and also to track movement in real-time. Perfect when I’m away or if you have pets.

In some ways, it’s almost like my Roomba and VIOMI V3 robot vacuum cleaners which are addictive and hypnotic to watch. In the same way, the SwitchBot Pan/Tilt Cam is a lot of fun to operate. 

And it’s amusing to leave it in motion detection mode as it follows me around the room like a little WALL-E robot.

Simple setup, straightforward operation, good quality camera lens, and features to boot. 

At this price, SwitchBot Tilt Pan Cam has some competition in the market but for anybody looking for an indoor camera to either help monitor the home during the day with pets or just keep a good security eye out on their property it’s a good choice.

It’s especially good for those that want to integrate with an existing SwitchBot Hub and automations or with their Alexa smart speakers and Google Smart Home Hubs.

It gets a 4 stars as there is some lag to the tracking and the operation of the app didn’t always make sense to me. 

Some icons were clickable and others just worked – I’m talking to you little microphone icon.

This post was last updated on 2025-01-14 / Some images from Amazon Product API & some links may be affiliate links which may earn us a commission from purchases.