When you live in a development tucked away in the middle of a forest, you quickly learn that your yard doesn’t just belong to you! There’s a whole world of wonder right outside my front door, and with the Panasonic HomeHawk, I can now spy on it when ever I want! Of course, I can also use it to see who is at my door before opening it, but spying on nature is my favorite thing to do with it!

Read on for my review of the new HomeHawk™ by Panasonic KX-HN7000 Series of HD cameras to find out if it’s right for you! Spoiler alert: it is!

Panasonic HomeHawk Front Door HD Camera Review

*Heads up, I received a complimentary Panasonic HomeHawk Front Door camera kit in exchange for telling you about it. All opinions are my own.

The Panasonic HomeHawk Front Door Camera is pretty much what it sounds like: a weather-resistant camera that mounts on your front door. Use it to keep tracking of who is coming and going, find out who’s at your door before answering it, or do what I do and spy on nature!

Before we get into what I personally think of the camera, let’s check out some features and tech specs, shall we? Then we’ll talk pros and cons (because even the best products have a few drawbacks).

Features of the Panasonic HomeHawk

The Panasonic HomeHawk Front Door camera system comes with the HD camera and the Wireless Access Point.

• The HD camera itself has a super wide, full-color view. It can see up to 172-degrees, from top to bottom and left to right. Obviously, if you have a wall next to your door like I do, that will affect what the camera sees, though.
• Check out the world beyond your front door in full color, both day and night. During the night, full-color is a bit limited, so if you want to see further, you can turn on the monochrome feature.
• The camera is 100% wire free and communicates with the Access Point over your Wi-Fi network.
• The Access Point is the only thing that needs to be plugged in. The camera has a rechargeable long-life Panasonic battery.
• If you install a microSD card into the access point, you can record video to view later. A 4GB card holds up to about 9 hours of video.
• NO CLOUD SERVICE REQUIRED (this is a major pro that we’ll talk about below).
• View it from anywhere, anytime.Once you register the camera to the app, you can view your front porch anytime, anywhere. You can also register it to more than one app. My mom views it on her iPad while I check it out on my iPhone.
• Two-way talk, so you can talk to visitors before letting them in. Or, if you’re a crazy cat lady like me, use it to talk to the feral cats outside your front door! It kind of freaks them out, though.

Now that we have a good idea of the main features of the Panasonic HomeHawk, let’s check out my thoughts on it, as well as the pros and cons. 😀

Pros of the Panasonic HomeHawk

I like to start with the positive first, so let’s talk some of the many pros of the Panasonic HomeHawk Front Door HD Camera!

• No cloud service required! This is a MAJOR pro, as I mentioned above, because so many home security cameras require a monthly fee just to use them. With the Panasonic HomeHawk, you ONLY need to buy the camera and included access point to access full functionality. If you want to record, you’ll need the microSD card, but you don’t need it for the camera to work.
• Weather resistant and sturdy.  As a front door camera, it needs to be weather resistant, so that’s kind of a given. However, this baby is also pretty sturdy. I dropped it from about 6 feet off the ground when I was installing it. Panic set in, I thought for sure I broke it. Nope! Still perfectly fine!
• Covers almost as far as the eye can see! The wide-angle camera really does see just about everything from my front door all the way to the end of my driveway.
• Two options for night vision. View your front porch and record in either color or black and white. I live in a very dark area, there are no street lights. Color sees just to the middle of my porch, so I turn on the monochrome feature to see a bit further.
• Zoom in for a closer look. One of my favorite features is the ability to zoom in for a closer look, especially since I’m using the camera mostly to check out the wildlife that visits my porch. I can get closer to the feral cats, birds, and even the raccoons and opossums at night than I’ll ever be able to with just looking out my window.

Can you see the opossum? Here’s a hint: look at the food bowl in the middle of the porch!

• Long battery life. The rechargeable battery can last a month or longer on a single charge. Beyond that, your app will tell you when something that you’re doing is using more battery power than usual, so you can make changes to extend the life.
• Totally customizable experience. Using the Panasonic HomeHawk app, you can customize your experience by changing the sensitivity of the motion detectors, creating “activity zones,” and more. You can also change things like when it records, for how long, and when it alerts you to motion.
• Add up to 16 cameras to one app, so you can monitor every inch of your home and property.

Cons of the HomeHawk

There aren’t many cons to the HomeHawk, in my opinion. Just a couple of little things logistical things I want to mention so you’re prepared.

• Access Point needs to be connected to your router via Ethernet. While this doesn’t seem like much of an issue, I only have one extra Ethernet spot in my main router. My extenders do have two spots each, so I had to move the Access Point to another room.
• You need to mount it on your door with screws. Again, this isn’t an issue for most people, but I rent. I also have a metal door that is very difficult to screw anything into.

I got creative with installing it, though! We mounted it onto a piece of wood (a ruler, actually), then used an over-the-door hanger to hang it on my screen door (so I could see better). I originally tried those Command hooks, but they snapped even though they were rated for up to 8 pounds (that’s when I dropped the camera), and the camera is a bit too heavy for magnetic tape.

Those are really the only two cons I can think of, and they won’t be an issue for everyone. I can’t really think of any cons to the camera itself! Where to buy it

For more information, visit Panasonic.com; and follow Panasonic HomeHawk™ on Instagram and Facebook.

Get the Panasonic HomeHawk on Amazon with free shipping!  Pricing varies depending on which package you buy. They have a few different options with different types of cameras in each package. The KX-HN7001W model, which is what I talked about above, includes 1 front door HD camera and wireless access point base to ensure that your home is fully protected.

Enjoy 5% off on the HomeHawk™ security camera system on Amazon.com until the end of July with the coupon code 5OFFHOMEHAWK.