Hive View Outdoor Camera Overview

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There are several smart home devices in the Hive ecosystem. We’re reviewing its outdoor security camera, simply called Hive View Outdoor.

Price and availability

The Hive View Outdoor Camera can no longer be purchased in the UK from Hive itself, although you can purchase it from a different retailer. Hive has made the decision to discontinue support for existing Hive View Outdoor cameras on August 1, 2025. This means that if you have already purchased a Hive View camera, it will no longer work from now on.

Check out our roundup of the best smart security cameras for some of the alternatives.

Design

The design was inspired by their earlier Hive View smart camera. In fact, like the View, it was also created in collaboration with designer Yves Béhart and looks almost the same, but in a slightly larger body.

The clean design is very welcoming. However, what you don’t see from the outside is that this camera has been designed to withstand the elements and the weather. This outdoor camera is IP66 weatherproof and can withstand dust, rain and temperatures as low as -20°C.

From what we can see, the camera inside the Hive View Outdoor case has not changed and is still 1080p HD like its smaller indoor brethren. Along with a 130° wide-angle lens and 8x digital zoom, it also has features such as night vision, human detection, and two-way audio. We’ll look at some of these features in more detail later.

Hive View Outdoor uses a smart magnetic ball mount that attaches to the outside of your property and can be easily adjusted in any direction. It uses a USB cable for power, which is 7.5m long and small enough to fit into a 12mm thick wall. The USB cable also acts as a security wire that attaches to the camera with a security screw and is designed to prevent someone from just running away with it.

We haven’t tried to test how durable the USB cable actually is, but we don’t assume it can stop anyone if they tug the camera hard enough. Therefore, placing it out of easy reach would be our recommendation. But Hive assumes a height of 2.2m.

Mounting

You have the option to install the camera yourself or for an additional £89 you can have Hive professionally install it for you. Just be aware that you will need a spare wall outlet within 7 meters of where you want to place the Hive View Outdoor Camera.

We also recommend that your Wi-Fi signal is strong enough where the camera is located, especially if you plan on using the highest settings for 1080p HD video. Because the camera has no internal storage or memory card slots, video streaming depends on a wireless signal. Therefore, it would be a good idea to set it up and test it first before drilling any holes in your home.

If you are going to install the Hive View Outdoor camera yourself and have already decided where it will live, the Hive app has a very handy step-by-step installation guide to help you with the installation.

You will need to drill through the wall to secure the screw and hang the magnetic mount on it. The camera then simply snaps onto the mount. To feed the USB power cable inside, you will either need to drill a hole or find an existing hole. We decided to feed it through the window as a temporary measure, since the cable is thin enough to allow the window to close… just.

Of course, a clean install will require a bit more work, so it’s nice that Hive includes accessories such as screws, dowels, nails, cable clamps, grommets, and even a small screwdriver in the box.

Once you’ve installed your Hive View Outdoor Camera, it’s time to connect it to power and the rest of the Hive system. First you need to download the Hive app and create an account if you don’t already have one.

If you own other Hive products, you just need to open the Hive app and add a new device. The Hive View Outdoor Camera is currently not supported by the Hive Web App, so you will need an Android or Apple device.

Now just follow the step by step instructions in the app to set up your camera. Our installation only took a few minutes, and after a firmware update and a reboot, we had the Hive View Outdoor Camera turned on. Like Hive View, the Outdoor View Camera has a lot of options that you can play with and customize to your liking in the app’s settings menu.

Performance

We placed our outdoor camera in the front garden, which meant that every time a car passed by or a tree branch moved, it would trigger an alert. So we toggled the setting to only alert us if a person is detected instead.

It seems to work pretty well. However, the camera was scammed several times during the month we installed it. Once upon a time, a pair of car taillights that looked somewhat like a happy face. As well as steam coming out of the ventilation pipe of the boiler in the wall.

We found that the camera’s 1080p resolution is good and will be enough for you to be able to see some detail even at low magnifications. However, since this appears to be a digital zoom only, we’re not as optimistic about the claimed 8x zoom. Things start to get pretty blurry pretty quickly.

Night vision mode can be used again, however when you zoom in it becomes very pixelated and you won’t see any details.

Keep in mind that there is a monthly charge for additional cloud video space. A Video Play Membership subscription costs £3.99 per month and comes with 30 days of storage.

Otherwise, you can rely on a free service that keeps videos for 24 hours. Of course, you can download any video clip recorded by the camera and then play it on your mobile device.

Verdict

Overall, we think the Hive View Outdoor Camera is a good addition to the rest of the Hive security product ecosystem.

The design looks solid, withstood both rain and frosts down to -4. However, if you buy it now, you will only be able to use it until August 2025.