Part of Roku's growing lineup of home security products, the Indoor Camera 360° SE ($39.99) offers 1080p recordings, remote pan and tilt abilities, and local and cloud video storage. The indoor security camera is easy to install and responds to Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands as well, though its lack of support for IFTTT and HomeKit limits third-party integration options. It's a good value if you have other Roku devices and want to control everything from a single app, but the more affordable Wyze Cam Pan v3 ($33.99) remains our Editors' Choice winner thanks to its weatherproof build and IFTTT support.
A Swiveling Tower Design
The Indoor Camera 360° SE looks similar to the original Wyze Cam Pan, which is not surprising given that Roku partnered with Wyze to build its smart home devices. The camera has two parts: a white mini tower that measures 5.0 by 2.2 by 2.2 inches (HWD) and a small motorized base that provides 360 degrees of panning motion and has a micro USB power port. The tower, which offers an additional 93 degrees of tilt maneuverability, houses a glossy black camera assembly. Note that this is strictly an indoor camera; if you need pan and tilt capabilities to monitor the outside of your home, consider the IP65-rated Wyze Cam Pan v3 instead.
Below the lens, there's a light sensor and a status LED. The LED glows solid red when you view a live feed from the camera or it is recording, flashes red when something activates the siren, glows solid blue when the camera has an active Wi-Fi connection and is working properly, and flashes red and blue during the network connection process.
The back of the tower features a speaker, while the bottom has a microphone, a Setup button, and a microSD card slot for storing video recordings locally. The slot supports cards of up to 32GB, but you have to supply one. In the box, you get a 6-foot USB-A-to-micro-USB power cable, a USB power adapter, and a setup guide.
The camera captures video at 1080p with a 120-degree horizontal field of view. It uses six infrared LEDs for black-and-white night vision and can record color video at night if it detects enough ambient light. Internally, the device includes a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio for connecting to your home network, a Bluetooth radio for pairing with the app, and an 80dB siren.
The 360° SE sends push alerts and records video to an SD card when it detects motion or sound, but you need to subscribe to a Roku Smart Home Plan to unlock person, pet, vehicle, and package detection. A subscription also gives you access to 14 days of cloud-based video history, unlocks the ability to filter events by type, and removes the five-minute recording delay between events (something non-subscribers can't get around). A single-camera plan goes for $3.99 per month (or $39.99 per year), but you can also pay $9.99 per month (or $99.99 per year) to expand support for up to 99 cameras. If you don’t pay for a subscription or insert an SD card, the camera provides only still images of motion and alerts of sound events.
This Roku cam works with Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands, as well as supports streaming to smart displays for both platforms. Apple HomeKit and IFTTT aren't options, but Alexa routines at least give you some flexibility. You can also pair the camera to a Roku streaming device such as the Roku Ultra and use Roku voice commands to cast a live feed to your TV.
Roku Indoor Camera 360° SE App Experience
The 360° SE uses the same Roku Smart Home mobile app (available for Android and iOS) as other devices from the company, including the Outdoor Smart Plug SE. Each Roku device in your smart home appears in a dedicated panel, along with a power switch.
Tap the camera's panel to view a live feed from it. Various buttons and a dial for pan and tilt maneuvers sit below the playback screen, though you can also use your phone's touch screen to reposition the camera's view. Here, the Function button lets you mute the sound, manually record a video clip, take a snapshot, and initiate two-way talk. Tap the More button to enable additional features such as Motion Tracking (in which the camera follows the moving object), Motion Tagging (in which the camera frames the moving object with a green box), and Pan Scan (in which the camera automatically pans the room using four preset waypoints, stopping for 10 seconds at each one). Additionally, you can configure and view Time Lapse videos (requires an SD card), view saved albums of videos and images, and turn the camera on or off.
To access the camera settings, tap the gear icon in the upper right corner of the screen. Here, you can adjust the motion and sound sensitivity, enable event recording, select intelligent detection filters, enable notifications for all or specific events, and toggle audio-based smoke and CO alarm alerts. Advanced settings let you enable microSD card recording, format an SD card, turn on night vision, adjust the panning speed, and set panning waypoints. Tap Rules to create recording schedules, enable location triggers, and build rules that involve other Roku smart devices.
Back on the main screen, there are three buttons at the bottom. The Home button takes you to the home screen from anywhere in the app. The Events button lets you view a log of recorded events, complete with thumbnails. You can view, download, share, or delete any of these clips. Finally, use the Account button to edit your account name and email address, update the firmware for all of your Roku devices, link Alexa and Google accounts, view and update subscriptions, and browse support articles.
Quick Setup, Smooth Movements
I got the 360° SE up and running within minutes. I already had the Roku mobile app on my phone, so I tapped the plus icon in the upper left corner of the Home screen, selected Add Device, and chose the Indoor Cam 360° in the Cameras and Doorbells section. I plugged the camera in and, when the LED began flashing red, I pressed the Setup button on the bottom of the camera and verified that I heard a “Ready to Connect” prompt. I tapped Next, entered my Wi-Fi details, and used the camera to scan the QR code that appeared on my phone. I waited a few seconds for the camera to connect and gave it a name to complete the installation.
Daytime 1080p video clips from the camera show accurate color and lots of detail, but I noticed a touch of barrel distortion around the edges of the frame. Black-and-white night vision recordings also have good contrast, though color night vision videos aren't very vivid.
The camera’s pan and tilt movements were smooth and responsive; I didn't have any trouble with either the dial controller or the touch controls. Motion alerts arrived instantly and correctly picked out a subject type, while motion tracking and tagging features functioned as intended. Two-way conversations sounded loud and clear. The siren was loud enough to hear throughout my house but sounded faint from outside in my backyard.
A Good Value for Roku Owners
With the Roku Indoor Camera 360° SE, you get responsive mechanical pan and tilt controls to monitor activity in all corners of a room in your home. A 1080p sensor, motion tracking and tagging features, and voice controls are also all strong points in its favor. The main downside is that you must pay for a cloud subscription to unlock intelligent subject detection as well as remove the time-based recording limitation. It's still a worthwhile choice despite those drawbacks if you are planning to buy other Roku smart devices, but the Wyze Cam Pan v3 costs even less, offers IFTTT compatibility, and sports a weatherproof design. As such, it remains our Editors' Choice winner for indoor security cameras.
