Background:I have bought a total of 4 of these cameras, and I have a lot of prior experience with ip security cameras of various vintages. I have declined the free camera offer to post an actual review instead of a fake positive one and jeff doesn’t give me anything for that except to keep pulling my reviews down. Beware of all reviews for that reason. also please to note that the instructions are written for a phone. If you have a pad you must hold the camera about a foot away from the pad image to connect.
Pros: very easy setup, inexpensive, the android app works reasonably well, but its not perfect there are a few bugs in the power management section….state of charge is not reliable for example. The camera image is reasonably good when you switch it to uhd mode. Motion detection works well.I use them as wildlife cameras and I have 3 of them mounted fully outdoors about 150 ft from an outdoor AP. One of the three was pointed up towards the sky and and in spite of meticulously sealing the rubber gasket, it was ruined by water so beware of that apparently they cannot be pointed up fully outdoors. I have not attempted to get a replacement yet. The other two are pointed level or slightly downwards on a pole and have survived several downpour thunderstorms and are still performing fine. One is powered by a solar panel and the other is powered by an external battery. Viewing for a few minutes at a time several times per day the internal battery will last only a few days. With my external 5v battery supply I get a week or so between battery changes, and a 10 watt 5v output solar panel will run it indefinitely if it gets a few hours of direct sun a day. It has an audible alarm function which is also useful I use it to scare off birds from the fish pond. The two way audio also works well. Note: On the 4th camera I bought they have changed the connector on the camera for some reason.
Cons: This is not like your typical ip camera with an ip address and web browser interface. This camera uploads everything to the internet and therefore unlike my lan ip cameras, the internet has to be working in order to view the cameras real time. This is great for those who want to easily view their cameras remotely off property, but for me with starlink, every time we have a thunderstorm I can’t watch these cameras while all my lan ip cameras keep working fine, which is a definite negative. You can only talk to the cameras via the app. For me I have these focused on the forest, but given that all your video is going up to the internet, I would bet it’s all being scraped by the CCP or the highest biddder. I have no proof of that but I suspect that to be true. You pay a low price in return for showing the CCP how you live in the USA something like that. Privacy Schmivacy dont believe any of it that’s all I’m saying. They can scrape the squirrels and birds all they want though. I have not used the micro sd slot so I can’t comment on that.
Summary: I bought 4 of them so either I am a good mark or I must like them at least a little bit. They are by far the cheapest waterproof cameras I have found and they work reasonably well for me. The infared night images are super. That was the clincher for me the night vision works really well. I can now watch all my deer friends at night in total darkness up to about 200 feet from the camera.
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