Amcrest4K Outdoor POE IP Camera, UltraHD 8MP Security Camera, 3840x2160P Resolution, IK10 Vandal Resistant Dome, 2.8mm Lens, IP67 Weatherproof Security, Cloud & MicroSD Recording (IP8M-2493EB)

To see back yard.

Good camera but IR LIGHT FOR NIGHT VISION Reflects off glass making it hard to see

I purchased this camera as a security camera for use at the end of my driveway. The camera powers up and works at 10Mbps using a TP-Link PoE Injector over a long cable run.The camera can’t be mounted without removing the security dome. The dome and the base of the camera have packets of desiccant which will absorb water and keep the water from condensing on the camera dome. It is probably not a good idea to leave the dome off the camera base for a long time or the desiccant will be used up. I mounted the camera to a small block of wood so I could mount the wood block without the dome removed from the camera base. The hole through the plastic housing that weather proofs the Ethernet cable connection isn’t big enough to pass an Ethernet connector with over molded plastic. Most pre-made Ethernet cables have over molder plastic. This means the weather proof housing can’t be used on most pre-made Ethernet cables. Once the camera assembly is mounted and connected, it is time to remove the security done again so final adjustments to where the camera is pointed can be made. With the dome off, the black camera body can be moved around in two axes plus the spin so the camera can be pointed in the right direction. There isn’t an indication of the way the picture will be orientation on the camera body so a phone with the Amcrest app will be needed to get the camera pointed where you want. If the camera body is adjusted to close to the edge of the dome there will be glare from the night vision LEDs. Of course you won’t notice this until the camera goes to night mode.Compared to older Amcrest cameras, the motion detection has a major flaw. Recording doesn’t start until after the motion detection event. Older Amcrest cameras with lower pixel counts would buffer the video and record the video before the motion was detected. This camera, per the setting, doesn’t start recording until 10 seconds after motion was detected. In reality, if the motion detection time is set to the minimum of 10 seconds, the camera will sometimes record video a little before the motion detection event to well after the motion detection event. I want to read license plates of cars entering my driveway. Sometimes the camera completely misses the car because recording started too late and the car is already out of camera range. If the car is moving fairly fast after making the turn into the drive, maybe 10 to 15 mph, the video is blurry enough that the license plate can’t be read. The camera is mounted about 5 feet above ground and at the edge of the drive so the license plate is maybe 10 feet away at the closest.I suspect the image processor chip in the camera didn’t keep pace with the higher pixel count of the image sensor and the very wide field of view of the camera. The camera is missing features older Amcrest cameras have like inverting and mirroring the image. Logging directly into the camera from a PC using the camera IP address is disappointing compared to older Amcrest cameras. In Live View it takes several seconds for the picture to appear and the camera doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with the frame rate. Error messages will be quickly shown at the bottom of the video and then the video may stop or switch to the low resolution Sub Stream. After a few minutes of monitoring the video, sometimes the connection will time out and go back to the log in prompt. Compared to older Amcrest cameras, Playback of recorded video works poorly or not at all. When it does work, it takes a long time for a recorded video to start.The Amcrest Android app works well with the camera and as long as the phone is on the same network as the camera, the app doesn’t have the problems I mentioned above. If it is a different network then the app can be slow but it almost always works.Pros: • The camera dome is easy to clean. • Amcrest View Pro app works well on an Android phone and video quality is good. • PoE works well with a TP-Link PoE Injector.Cons: • Multi step process to mount the camera body and point the camera. • Weather proof Ethernet cable housing can’t be used on most pre-made cables. • No indication on the camera body, the part you need to move around, of how the picture will be oriented. • Image processor chip, or something, didn’t keep pace with the higher resolution of the camera. • Recordings are blurred if something is moving through the video quickly. • Works poorly when logging directly into the camera using a PC.

I had high hopes for this camera, but after receiving, I spent hours trying to set it up. The hardware/physical install is unnecessarily complex. After powering the camera, there is no indication that the camera is on and connected, but i tried using the 'view pro' app to connect to it, and it did work.however, 'view pro' is easily one of the worst apps I ever used. It feels like an app from 10 years, and I'm sure that it has not been updated since 10 or more years. Obviously this is not the case, since the app is new, but what they did was simply translate an app that looks like a windows app from the 90s into an iphone app.This is really lazy from armcrest, as instead of building an iphone app they just ported an old, clunky windows application to the phone. This approach does not work, and when there are so many competitors with much better apps, they have no chance of succeeding.Trying to use the app is an exercise on frustration, as most features do not work well, are not intuitive (as an iphone app should be), and I quickly ran out of patience for spending so many hours trying to get this to work.I have over 10 camera in my property, but this is the first 4K I purchase, and that was the main reason for trying Armcrest.Now I regret purchasing it, and it simply cannot compete with the ease of use and apps from other manufacturers.I'll simply wait for others (like wyze, blink, zumiwall) to release 4K cameras.The camera itself maybe ok, but the software side of things makes it unbearable to live with,

I'm blaming myself on this one, but just to be clear, I found that this camera can not be panned and tilted by software control. In addition, the camera is expecting a 12v splitter to extract from a PoE connection.