Imou isn't a brand that's crossed my radar so far, but if you're looking for one of the best outdoor wireless security cameras its new Cell Go smart camera may be worth considering. It's one of the cheapest solar-powered systems I've seen, and has a decent specification for the price.
The camera is available without solar panel for £69.99, and it's just £20 more to add the solar panel. According to IMOU "it takes only a few hours of sunlight" to provide sufficient charge to keep the camera operating continuously. That means you can get a camera you'll very rarely need to recharge for only £10 more than the non-solar Blink Outdoor.
Imou Cell Go Smart Security Camera: key specifications
The camera here is 3 megapixels with night vision of up to seven metres and a 96-degree field of view. It has up to 8x digital zoom, two-way audio and connects to Wi-Fi at a range of up to 50m in open space; the standards supported are 802.11b/g/n. There's an app for both iOS and Android, and it can connect directly to your phone's hotspot if for whatever reason it can't access Wi-Fi.
There's two-way audio here and a feature I don't think I've seen in a smart home camera before: a voice changer. According to Imou, it can disguise your voice "to make it sound deeper and stronger to deter intruders". I'm not sure that's going to work but I bet I could use it to annoy my dog.
As you'd expect from an outdoor camera the Cell Go is weather resistant. Certification here is IP65, which means it can withstand jets of water from any angle, but it's water resistant rather than fully waterproof. That means it's fine for the British weather but maybe best installed in an area where it can get some shelter from the worst of the winter.
The Imou camera has an SD card slot for local video storage and you also get a year's free cloud storage. When the year is up you can expect to pay around £69 for a year of cloud storage, which keeps your video for 30 days.
If you'd like to know more the camera is available now from Very and B&Q in both its solar and non-solar incarnations.
