Untrustworthy Company (Edit: they seemed to have learned a painful lesson, maybe)
Edit: 25/09/21. Unbelievably the app update on 24/09/21 has reinstated most of the functionality that they removed, so maybe watching your new business model sink your entire company was the jolt they needed. Apart from the returning functionality, once you tap on the camera to watch the live feed it seems to be much more snappy & not having to back out & tap on the camera again to actually get the live feed, so well done there also. Two things of concern, they haven't reinstated the video bitrate display on the camera feeds & also because the video search scroll is smaller the time markers definitely need to be darker (black) to aid visibility/readability & the video footage indicator marks should be a darker colour (red). I'll give them credit for reverting back to something approaching functional, but it should have never got to this appalling stage in the first place. Talk about self sabotage. I've changed my rating to three stars, if they continue to make real & helpful improvements I will go to five stars, but we'll wait and see because they've lost a LOT of goodwill with a huge amount of their customers. I'll start by saying that I've purchased 13 cameras from Yi over the preceeding years, all from Amazon but I've also purchased cameras directly from Kami (sub brand of Yi) I've liked them, had the odd software bug here & there, but just part of any modern device these days. I've mostly purchased the outdoor cameras & a couple of indoor ones. All these cameras use the Yi Home or Kami Home app, basically the same app & interchangeable between the camera brands (Yi & Kami), but either app is vital for the functionality of all these cameras I'll start by saying that I've purchased 13 cameras from Yi Technology over the preceeding years, all from Amazon but I've also purchased cameras directly from Kami (sub brand of Yi) I've liked them, had the odd software bug here & there, but just part of any modern device these days. I've mostly purchased the outdoor cameras & a couple of indoor ones. All these cameras use the Yi Home or Kami Home app, basically the same app & interchangeable between the camera brands (Yi & Kami), but either app is vital for the functionality of all these cameras. Now it states one star above but because of the business practices of Yi Technology this should be ZERO. They "upgraded" the software at the beginning of September 2021, now an upgrade to my mind is adding functionality or fixing known bugs in the software, this "upgrade" took away multiple critical functions for the use of the cameras & also made the app next to useless in an ease of use way. I'm an Android user, so if you need any confirmation just look up the app (Yi Home) on the Play Store & read the endless one star reviews since their "upgrade" I'll presume it's the same on the Apple Store. What they've done is basically sold their cameras with certain functionality, which people have made their decision to purchase their products, now they've taken away those functions & hidden them all away behind a subscription pay wall, which renders the cameras useless particularly for security. It's hilarious reading the copy & paste responses to some of the recent poorly rated reviews on the Play Store, "oh dear, we're going to look in to your problems & fix them" basically. They know exactly what they've done & why! taken a perfectly good app updated it, and striped out all the included functionality & added a nice amount of bugs, now you have a device that does not give you the features that you based your decision to buy. They have ZERO respect for customers & the decision for this latest app "upgrade" is purely to rip - off their customers..... The other word to describe what they've done, can you guess?? GREED. I'm pretty sure selling a product to consumers based on certain features & then removing those features later is not legal and definitely not ethical & opens up this company to what is called a Class Action in the US. Like I mentioned earlier, Yi Technology have ZERO respect for their customers. I recommend you do not purchase any Yi devices. A disgraceful & untrustworthy company who deserve to be treated as badly as they have treated their customers. Absolutely terrible. Zero Stars Side note: Since posting a review on Amazon.co.uk as many others have all Yi Cameras & Kami cameras have mysteriously vanished from sale. The cameras were mostly sold by a specific third party seller & all fulfilled by Amazon. If you look on Amazon.de the cameras are still for sale by the same company as of 7/09/2021.