Kami (Yi) Smart Home Security Review

It's clear early on that YI Technology's Kami Smart Security system isn't trying to compete with more established DIY home security systems like SimpliSafe, Frontpoint, or Ring Alarm. Instead, its main competitor is Wyze Home Monitoring—a set of sensors that you can use with Wyze security cameras.

Kami's equipment is affordable and has a great selection of security cameras, but it lacks basic smart home support and doesn't sell additional sensors outside its starter kit. It also doesn't match the backup monitoring capabilities of the best DIY security systems.

Check out our in-depth review below to learn how affordability can both help and hurt a security system.

Kami's plans place a big emphasis on cloud video storage. This means the security system doesn't benefit from a paid subscription unless you shell out for an additional Kami camera or pay the highest price to access its emergency service. The $19 monthly price is too high if you don't have cameras, so you're better off with a competitor like Ring Alarm or SimpliSafe.

But we had a hard time with the cloud video storage options in the app because the prices don't match the ones on YI's website. Whether this inconsistency is intentional, YI is charging more for mobile app users to sign up in the app than folks who visit the company's online store.

There are also fewer plan options in the app. Some users might never know that there were $5 and $19 monthly plans if the app was their only interaction with this company.

Kami uses E911 services from a company called Noonlight to help you contact the police when an alarm goes off. You can use Noonlight like a text messaging app to relay information without calling 911 directly. It also sends emergency responders details like location to speed up their arrival.

This is surprisingly similar to regular home security monitoring at first glance but lacks the cellular backup and battery backup that make traditional services worthwhile. This means you're out of luck if your power or internet goes out.

While most Kami plans record short clips based on motion activation in a camera, the company also sells video storage that records 24/7. Continuous storage costs about $8 a month per camera, making it slightly more expensive than the Entry plan but cheaper than the Standard plan.

We don't think continuous storage is a good value, but it's a nice alternative that doesn't leave you wondering what happened before and after a video clip.

Aside from its low equipment starter kit cost, Kami isn't heavy on features that distinguish it from other DIY security systems. Here are a few things (good and bad) we found during our research.

The Kami Home mobile app is compatible with every YI home security camera (including all Kami models). That's 15 different cameras falling in these categories:

• Fixed-view indoor security cameras
• Pan-and-tilt indoor cameras (like the Yi Dome Camera)
• Outdoor security cameras
• Baby monitor
• Video doorbell

While not all of the cameras are available (some are older models while others aren't for sale yet), we’re still impressed at the wide selection.

Even more impressive is that most YI cameras cost less than $100, but this does mean the cameras don't quite match the quality of mainstream brands like Arlo, Google Nest,† and Ring. YI lacks the advanced AI software that makes these brands so good.

In our YI Home Camera 3 review, we also discovered that the cameras sometimes have unstable Wi-Fi connections, leading to poor quality with streaming live video. But as budget security cameras go, YI is one of the better options alongside our favorite cheap camera brand: Wyze.

At first glance, the Kami Home app isn't too complicated for setting up and controlling cameras. You can customize alerts, review cloud footage, and arm your system without much trouble.

Kami's equipment is its biggest weakness for two reasons: equipment selection and availability. The sensor selection is as basic as it gets in home security with a base station, a motion sensor, and an entry sensor that monitors doors and windows.

In contrast, most brands have plenty more sensors for detecting problems at home, like smoke detectors, flood sensors, and glass break sensors.

The other issue is availability. Aside from Kami's cameras, which are easy to buy separately, the company doesn't sell extra sensors outside its starter kit. So if you want more than the four sensors that come in the package, you'll need to buy an additional kit with a base station you'll never use.

One base station supports unlimited sensors and up to four Kami Wire-Free cameras.

This brand is still quite new, so it's possible that its equipment selection will improve over time. But it's off to a rough start by not providing a way for folks to expand their systems easily.

The Kami app guides you through the DIY installation process with some helpful video tutorials that show every step of the process. Each device comes with a QR code that makes it easy to add to your system using the Kami Home app. Thankfully, the process for installing is so simple that the videos are enough, because there isn't much information beyond these videos.

It takes around 10–15 minutes to set up the base station, connect the sensors, and place equipment. Each Kami sensor comes with an adhesive backing that makes them easy to place on a wall, door frame, or window frame. You can also use screws to mount the sensors for easier removal (sensor adhesive can be hard to remove). According to YI, the batteries in the detectors will last up to a year.

YI's customer service seems to be all over the place. When we looked at the company's support website, we found some decent information about Kami Smart Security, though it was incomplete.

For example, we couldn't find any information about smart home compatibility or the 24/7 Emergency Response service on the support website. After some digging, we found this information in the YI Community Hub, a forum for customers to ask questions.

The community forum is more helpful than the support page, but it's also incomplete. This disorganization makes for frustrating troubleshooting unless you have a razor-sharp focus to know what you're looking for. We can only imagine how that affects regular customers wanting help if seasoned security experts such as ourselves have trouble finding solutions.

YI's equipment comes with a one-year warranty, which is pretty standard among technology companies. If you need help with your devices, we suggest posting in the community forum or sending an email to customer support. The company's phone support was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SimpliSafe and Ring Alarm have battery and cellular backups that work when the power and internet go out, making them better systems for 24/7 monitoring. They also have more sophisticated monitoring than the Noonlight plan offered by Kami, especially for detecting environmental hazards like smoke and carbon monoxide.

While Kami has more affordable equipment than most other DIY security systems, Wyze Sense edges it out with a cheaper starter kit and the option to buy additional sensors on Wyze's website for less than $10 per sensor.

The Wyze starter kit also includes a security camera that doubles as the base station when connected to the Wyze Sensor Bridge. Wyze is monitored through Noonlight (the same provider that Kami uses).

Wyze doesn't require a subscription to store 12-second video clips (like Kami's 6-second clips). But it offers a service similar to Kami's cloud storage for $1.49 a month per camera to remove the time limit on motion recordings. Wyze keeps videos for up to 14 days—twice as long as Kami's Free and Entry plans.

As for the quality of the monitoring, Ring Alarm has the edge at $10 a month. Ring's monitoring service also includes hefty 60-day video storage for unlimited cameras and an extended warranty to help it outperform other DIY systems, making it the best deal overall.

Ring has excellent security cameras, and Ring video doorbells are the best value around.

SimpliSafe has affordable monitoring that costs $21.99 a month. You can also skip the professional monitoring fees and try to self-monitor your SimpliSafe system. But we think it's worth paying around $31.99 for SimpliSafe's top-tier plan, which gets you video alarm verification—a rarity in the home security industry that Kami certainly doesn't provide.

Like Kami, Kangaroo Home Security offers basic home security equipment at affordable prices. But Kangaroo has Kami beat on monitoring prices. You do have to pay for a full year up front with Kangaroo, but the monitoring price works out to just over $8 per month. 

Kami Smart Security is up against some fierce competition and manages to stand out with affordable equipment and a massive selection of security cameras. But it isn't for folks that want an expandable security system without buying excess base stations to do it.

For this reason, we only recommend Kami Smart Security for small homes and apartments where the included sensors provide enough coverage. To learn more about taking the reins of your apartment's security, check out our review of security systems for renters.

For this review, we searched through Kami’s tech specs, YI's community support forum, customer reviews, and information about its emergency service partner: Noonlight.

Once we had enough information, we compared Kami with other DIY security systems we've used to see where it fits among the competition. We leveraged our home security expertise to give Kami a score reflecting its place in the industry. See our full methodology to learn more about our research, testing, and ranking practices.

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