Birdfy Smart Bird Bath Pro with Stand review

Bird lovers don’t need to head into the unforgiving wild to observe their quarry. Now they can plonk this Birdfy ‘smart bird bath’ with a built-in camera in the back garden, pair it with their smartphone via a free-to-download app, and observe videos from afar of visiting feathered friends.

Netvue is already known for its outdoor security cameras, so this seems like a great use and adaptation of its existing expertise and technology. It’s a simple idea – essentially a security camera perched atop a bird bath – but it’s one that works.

As with any device involving outdoor use, where it will be subject to extreme heat variations, my initial concern was regarding the Netvue Birdfy Bath Pro with Stand’s long-term durability. Calming my mind a little, its manufacturer states it’s UV resistant, plus a two-year warranty is offered with the product.

Since this is a product that needs to make its home in the environment, it’s also environmentally friendly, to a limited degree. The claim is that 20% of the upper basin unit is made from recycled ABS hard plastics.

The fact that it is mainly plastic is concerning, however. So, I’m interested to see how it holds up on a windy day in the UK. Fortunately, the central pole and base for the stand are metal, and adding water and a few stones for birds to perch on adds more stability still.

Growing up, we had a traditional stone bird bath in my parents’ back garden. Since leaving home, however, I’ve never once considered buying my own. Could this Birdfy example, made slightly more interesting via its inner tech, make me a true ‘twitcher’?

Specifications

Features

The single camera unit provided with the bird bath gives us dual views – both wide angle landscape plus a closer-in ‘portrait’ aspect – all from the one device. Unlimited free cloud storage is provided, albeit with a 30-day image retention in place. It’s also possible to get a monthly round-up of which birds have visited the bath and how many times, should such info appeal – and I’m lucky enough to get multiple or repeat visits.

Unsurprisingly as it’s being placed next to water, the provided camera is waterproof, here to a stated IP66 level, meaning that it will withstand rain and getting splashed by avian visitors.

And once the camera has been powered up for around 10 hours via the mains, the solar panel atop it theoretically helps maintain the charge of the unit’s 9000mAh integral battery. I say theoretically because I was testing the unit on short, dull December days in the UK, when it was most often overcast rather than sunny.

The twin lens/ view setup within the one camera provides close-up portraits at 2K resolution and regular wide-angle views at 1080P. And it isn’t just for daytime observation either, as a built-in white light activates if motion is detected once it gets dark.

I don’t need to worry about the cold either, as Netvue claims the working range is from -10°C to 50°C. There’s no built-in slot for microSD card storage, however, as all video alerts are sent to my phone handset. This provides the possibility to download these short clips via the installed app to my phone’s memory, if anything of note transpires.

Setup

As with other Birdfy products, including its Feeder 2 Duo bird feeder camera, this observational bird bath option is designed to operate in conjunction with a free-to-download Birdfy app, available for Android and Apple devices alike.

Upon opening the large product box, you are greeted by a large printed QR code. Once installed on a smartphone, the app allows for live observation of birds feeding, or, as is the intended case here, bathing. Real-time alerts and instant notifications pinged to my phone every time a bird visits should satisfy the most curious ornithologist. Yet the constant alerts when a nearby leaf moves, never mind a bird’s wing flaps, quickly become distracting.

Apart from downloading and installing the app so it can be paired with the camera element – which slides in and out of the top basin via a raised side panel and features a 1.9-watt solar panel on top – I’m next implored to charge the camera itself for a whopping ten hours.

Pairing the camera with my smartphone involves a password creation, logging on to my home Wi-Fi router, holding down a button on the device itself for three seconds, and then pointing a second QR code at said camera. If this has worked successfully – and thankfully it only took me two attempts – a dispassionate female voice informs us: ‘Paired successfully. Enjoy your birding life.’

Irritatingly, the setup was soundtracked by a constant beeping/ trilling sound from the camera. So, I was grateful when the device was finally paired, a process that took me 10 minutes, and the noise stopped.

Set up would have been much quicker if I already had a Netvue account, had my home Wi-Fi password to hand, and didn’t have to scramble around to find it. Unfortunately, the quick-start user manual provided explains none of what’s needed in advance, so it’s a case of following the app’s prompts in the moment.

Once the camera unit has quietened down and is left charging, the next task is to assemble the stand and attach the basin for the bath.

This involves screwing a separate solar panel that powers the water fountain into the centre of the basin, connecting one of four different nozzle attachments to direct its spray, and then affixing the robust metal pole to the basin at one end and the metal stand/base at the other, again with the aid of provided screws. Instructions are IKEA-like in their simplicity, so it probably took me a further 20 minutes to get everything ready before adding water to the basin.

Again, this would be much quicker if I’d assembled one before/ had more detailed instructions provided.

Design

My Birdfy Bath Pro with Stand unit arrived in a sandy beige, as pictured. However, a visit to the official website reveals a couple more colourways. There’s also eggshell blue, or bright white if you really want something that stands out.

First impressions are that the plastic-y device is quite toy-like, compared with purely ‘analogue’ bird baths. And that’s despite the premium feel price charged for ownership. It does, however, arrive in a large and sturdy box with bright graphics that indicate I’m getting something substantial in exchange for my cash.

Once the camera is lowered into place, it adds extra heft to the hard plastic basin, metal stand, and base, while several users have commented that it’s worth adding a few small rocks or stones to the basin. Not only for extra stability, but also for birds to perch on/feel more at home. The manual does not officially advise this, but apparently, birds like to have a sense of how deep or shallow the water is.

More of an issue was that my partner didn’t like the look of the new bird bath I’d freshly installed in the garden. From a distance, it resembles a bar stool or occasional side table, so it stands out from the general vegetation.

In terms of ‘footprint’, the basin has a generous diameter of 41cm and a depth of 4.2cm. To the naked eye, it appears relatively shallow, despite its claim of a 3.5 litre capacity. It suggests it’s better suited to visits from smaller birds, such as robins and finches, than parakeets, pigeons, and magpies. On a positive note, it took me mere seconds to fill the basin with water until it was level with the edge of the central solar panel and fountain attachment. Further research taught me that birds like clean, clear water, so maintenance and cleaning are further chores to bear in mind.

The supplied pole has a height of 45cm, though with stand, basin, and camera housing, it sits a little higher still at 76.5cm – essentially around waist height. This feels about right, being high enough that passing birds should be able to spot it from the air. The combined weight of the setup provides stability, while it’s light enough that I could move the basin, available without the stand if that’s your preferred option, to try for a better spot, even when already filled with water.

Performance

My back garden is more of an urban yard, measuring a compact four-by-three metres. Nevertheless, I’m blessed to have birds come visit, the most common being magpies, pigeons, robins, and parakeets. Would installing the bird bath attract the same, or a wider variety, and would, ultimately, the Netvue Birdfy Bath Pro with Stand be worth installing?

The first thing to say is that the camera’s motion detector is sensitive. Very sensitive. The first dozen alerts to my phone stating ‘Birdfly Bath Pro is bustling!’ revealed precisely nothing, leading me to reason that any tiny leaf fluttering in the wind gets mistaken for the beating of a bird’s wing.

Considering some online users have stated it took almost a month for a bird to try out the bath, I wasn’t expecting to be cooing at my phone screen like Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan anytime soon.

Also sensitive is the built-in microphone. Although I’d positioned the bath some four metres from the house, it picked up the clinking of glasses in the kitchen inside. The fact that the audio is loud and clear isn’t necessarily a bad thing either – if the device is recording what you hope it would.

Since the unit’s camera is active 24/7, it meant I was receiving notifications of activity on my phone around the clock – even at 4 am. So, I muted my phone overnight. I could either watch the motion-activated video clips it sent me or switch to a ‘live view’ mode to see what is going on in and around the bath.

The latter uses the full landscape ratio width of the phone’s screen to offer a combined view from both portrait and wide-angle cameras as a split-screen image. Tapping my smartphone screen allows me to pan the portrait camera left and right to a limited degree – it will also do this autonomously if a bird arrives – while a red ‘record’ button in the same live view mode pleasingly allows me to exert manual control over what the camera captures. The clarity of the feed, no pun intended, is impressively clear.

Initially, results were disappointing. My local birds refused to take a dip, or even a quick drink. Of my 28 video notifications received over the first 48 hours of the bath’s installation, none contained footage of actual birds, although nearby bird song could be heard on the audio. Evidently, you can bring a bird to water…

Frustrated, I did what any bird lover would do. I cheated.

On the morning of the third day of no activity, I sprinkled the central solar panel with a handful of bird seeds and waited.

Four hours later – success! A flurry of notifications to the phone app flagged up fresh activity, which for once wasn’t a false alarm; the onboard AI identification correctly nailed my seed-swiping culprit as an ‘Eurasian magpie’.

An earlier attempt at identification with the video just prior gave me the generic ‘birds’. But I was very happy that any bird at all had visited. It’s surprisingly quick how potential observation can become an obsession when there is a long fruitless buildup. And, given that some users have reported having to wait weeks for a bird to visit their own installed bath, I could not complain. Good things can come to those who wait. And wait.

The 20-second wide-angle MP4 format video clips caught with the aid of motion detection deliver a 5MB file size, meaning they’re of a size perfect for sharing between smartphones or online. The better resolution close-up ‘portrait’ camera gives a tighter crop and a file size of 9MB, which is still suitable for email attachment or social media sharing. Should you wish to, and have a YouTube channel, there is even the option to live stream.

If I’m picky, the built-in cameras display typical video-feed like artefacts, including purple pixel fringing, upon close inspection, while the built-in audio amplifies any gust of wind, plus any scrape or scratch of birds’ feet or beaks as they interact with the device. But these are very minor gripes.

Verdict

If you want to attract and observe birds in your garden, get a bird bath or bird feeder – that’s been the case since time immemorial. In the digital age where we want to seemingly share every aspect of our lives to attract comments and ‘likes’, of course, it makes sense to add a camera to this basic concept and – hopefully – capture the kind of images once the preserve of wildlife documentarians.

Video quality via the waterproof camera is impressively clear – forget about the grainy security camera footage of old, which should allow for precise identification of visiting birds and a more pleasant experience using the product all round. While initially frustrating as regards the setup and waiting for feathered friends to arrive, it’s ultimately fun once they do. In this way, the Netvue Birdfy Bath Pro with Stand might just be a metaphor for life itself.