Hands on with the Netvue Orb security camera: great image, motion detection with pan and tilt control

The Netvue Orb 1080p security camera is designed for monitoring indoor spaces in your home. It is not as solidly built as the Netvue 1080p Vigil camera I looked at, but it is not designed to be waterproof, nor go outside. It is lighter than the VIgil at 9 ounces.

This is a go-anywhere camera that you can stand on a surface, or mount on a wall. Like the Vigil, inside the box, the Orb has a power adaptor to power the camera with a 6ft power lead to connect it to the power source. The Orb is also not battery powered.

The camera has a paper drilling template, wall plug anchors, screws, mounting bracket, and the camera. The mounting bracket is flimsy and nowhere near as well made as the Netvue Vigil. However, the Orb camera, at $34.99, is $12 cheaper than the Vigil at $46.99.

The Orb camera has a FHD 1080px camera with a 100 degree field of view. The camera will rotate through 300 degrees to cover a wide area of the room to be monitored.

The camera is simple to set up. Add a micro SD card  into the slot (up to 128GB – not included with the camera), and plug in the power lead to start to record and store videos on the SD card. AWS cloud storage will provide up to 30 days cloud storage if you subscribe to the service.

The camera connects to the same app as the Netvue Vigil and is simple to install using the QR code from the user guide, or by searching for Netvue camera app in the app store.

To add the camera to the app, use the QR code on the camera and walk through the steps required. The camera bleeps to confirm successful connection (2.4GHz only) and confirms the connection process at each step.

The Netvue Orb has 10 x 850nm infrared LEDs which can see up to 32 feet away at night – even without moonlight. Image quality is excellent – even when zoomed in to the image. The Orb has 8x digital zoom capability.

You can change the night vision setting from ‘always day’, ‘always night’ or auto. You can also also set zones that the Orb will not track – to avoid any false positives.

The camera uses two-way microphone so you can talk – and hear anyone in the room being monitored with excellent sound quality.

Eileen Brown

Netvue markets the camera as a dog monitor, for you to talk to your pet when you are out. This feature works well – although the disembodied voice coming from the camera in a darkened room does tend to spook pets somewhat.

The app shows what the camera can see – and will alert you if motion has been detected. You can then tilt and rotate the camera for a better view.

If there are any motion detected events the video is written to the SD card, and accessed via the phone app. The video can be downloaded to your mobile phone.

Like the Vigil camera, you can set motion alerts, and sensitivity, schedule when you want monitoring  to occur, or set 24 hour continuous recording. You can purchase cloud storage for $19.99 per year (there is a free option to use storage for the first 14 days after turning the camera on).

All in all, for under $35, the Netvue Orb 1080p security camera is easy to connect to the app, has remote control and two-way microphone, and a cloud storage option. 

If you want to interact with your pets, or monitor your home when you are out – this is the camera for you.