- Joined
- May 18, 2004
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I hadn't really heard of Amcrest until recently, but about a year ago I was fortunate enough to start being sent some of their products to evaluate. Whilst I don't know the ins and outs, they seem to be related in some way to Foscam who are obviously a big name in the IP camera world as the following can be found on their website:
as can
Amcrest appear to have a base in Texas, USA and offer UK, USA & Canada based support to customers.
This product, then, is the IP2M-841B Wireless Indoor IP Camera.
It's very much a familiar design in terms of similarity to other products on the market, but the box suggests some fairly decent specifications such as:
1080p 30fps
10m Night Vision Coverage
Pan/Tilt
2 Megapixel CMOS sensor
802.11b/g/n sensor
iPhone, iPad & Android Apps
Cloud Recording
90 Degree field of view
It retails for £89.99 on Amazon and is available in Black or White.
It arrived, well packaged, and I was quite impressed. A nice box, which gives the impression of a really premium product. The way that the camera and accessories are packaged inside the box clearly give the feeling that much thought has gone into presentation. You get the camera, instructions/CD, Power Cable and also, unexpectedly, a wall mount.
I was nervous about setting this up – having tried an IP camera in the past, configuring the thing beat me – unable to get the device to work outside of my home network. I also purchased some Netgear Arlo wireless cameras which are excellent – and idiot-proof to set up and access anywhere. If you need a simple to use, easy to set up home CCTV setup then I suggest these are considered. If, however, you are a little more ICT literate and need/want additional features and control then continue reading.
I plugged this camera in and downloaded the app. A light on the back of the camera flashes green, and using the camera on my iPhone I scanned the QR code to connect to my Wi-Fi. Unsuccessful.
Reading the manual, it appears that for some reason, if your router broadcasts at both 2Ghz and 5Ghz bands simultaneously you cannot connect without plugging an Ethernet cable in to the camera and configuring manually. It was a while ago now that I tried set-up this way, so the firmware on the camera may have been updated to eradicate this issue entirely.
I got the camera on the Wi-Fi eventually and managed to get the footage on the app with my iPhone. The app is fairly decent, and allows for full control of the camera – you can Pan, Tilt & Zoom by swiping the screen so it’s fairly intuitive. The app appears to be updated regularly, and there is a separate iPad version which works equally as well.
What did take some time was working out that in order to access the camera outside of my own LAN I needed to set up IP Forwarding. This is fairly straightforward on my Virgin Media Superhub 2AC but I did have to google and work out what I needed to do. I also needed to reserve an internal IP address to prevent it being allocated a different address each time I plug it in. If you’re buying an IP camera, then you probably know that you’ll need to do this anyway.
The cloud service is much easier, however. It provides most functionality that you would need and is much easier to set up and appears to be more 'idiot proof' like the Netgear cameras. Create an account on the Amcrest Cloud website, add your camera serial number and ensure it’s connected and then you can view the live stream and set up recording schedules. Easy.
Amcrest kindly provide 4 hours of cloud storage free of charge with the camera. The Amcrest Cloud app will give you push notifications straight to your iPhone and allow you to review both recorded and live footage. If you don’t want to pay for cloud storage, the camera has a Micro SD card slot. You can also use Surveillance Station on a Synology NAS to record footage round the clock, these two devices will happily talk to each other all day long.
In all, an excellent camera. The video quality is truly excellent. Very, very impressed.
Some other nice features that this camera offers:
- Motion Detection
- Remove areas from the motion detection area
- Time/Date Stamp
- Text Overlay
- Recording Schedules
- Two way audio (Can speak into the phone and sound comes out of the camera)
There are a few things I don’t like too:
- Initial set up procedure not simple
- There can be quite a bit of lag when Pan/Tilting remotely
In all, an excellent camera with more features than I understand or have time to write about. If you need a fully featured IP camera that is excellent in both build & picture quality then I’m pretty sure this is an excellent choice.
We actually use this camera in our nursery looking down on my the cot. The camera quite happy sticks to the wall with some 3M command strips and provides footage in a MUCH higher quality to purpose built baby monitors that you see online.
Some photos:
as can
Amcrest appear to have a base in Texas, USA and offer UK, USA & Canada based support to customers.
This product, then, is the IP2M-841B Wireless Indoor IP Camera.
It's very much a familiar design in terms of similarity to other products on the market, but the box suggests some fairly decent specifications such as:
1080p 30fps
10m Night Vision Coverage
Pan/Tilt
2 Megapixel CMOS sensor
802.11b/g/n sensor
iPhone, iPad & Android Apps
Cloud Recording
90 Degree field of view
It retails for £89.99 on Amazon and is available in Black or White.
It arrived, well packaged, and I was quite impressed. A nice box, which gives the impression of a really premium product. The way that the camera and accessories are packaged inside the box clearly give the feeling that much thought has gone into presentation. You get the camera, instructions/CD, Power Cable and also, unexpectedly, a wall mount.
I was nervous about setting this up – having tried an IP camera in the past, configuring the thing beat me – unable to get the device to work outside of my home network. I also purchased some Netgear Arlo wireless cameras which are excellent – and idiot-proof to set up and access anywhere. If you need a simple to use, easy to set up home CCTV setup then I suggest these are considered. If, however, you are a little more ICT literate and need/want additional features and control then continue reading.
I plugged this camera in and downloaded the app. A light on the back of the camera flashes green, and using the camera on my iPhone I scanned the QR code to connect to my Wi-Fi. Unsuccessful.
Reading the manual, it appears that for some reason, if your router broadcasts at both 2Ghz and 5Ghz bands simultaneously you cannot connect without plugging an Ethernet cable in to the camera and configuring manually. It was a while ago now that I tried set-up this way, so the firmware on the camera may have been updated to eradicate this issue entirely.
I got the camera on the Wi-Fi eventually and managed to get the footage on the app with my iPhone. The app is fairly decent, and allows for full control of the camera – you can Pan, Tilt & Zoom by swiping the screen so it’s fairly intuitive. The app appears to be updated regularly, and there is a separate iPad version which works equally as well.
What did take some time was working out that in order to access the camera outside of my own LAN I needed to set up IP Forwarding. This is fairly straightforward on my Virgin Media Superhub 2AC but I did have to google and work out what I needed to do. I also needed to reserve an internal IP address to prevent it being allocated a different address each time I plug it in. If you’re buying an IP camera, then you probably know that you’ll need to do this anyway.
The cloud service is much easier, however. It provides most functionality that you would need and is much easier to set up and appears to be more 'idiot proof' like the Netgear cameras. Create an account on the Amcrest Cloud website, add your camera serial number and ensure it’s connected and then you can view the live stream and set up recording schedules. Easy.
Amcrest kindly provide 4 hours of cloud storage free of charge with the camera. The Amcrest Cloud app will give you push notifications straight to your iPhone and allow you to review both recorded and live footage. If you don’t want to pay for cloud storage, the camera has a Micro SD card slot. You can also use Surveillance Station on a Synology NAS to record footage round the clock, these two devices will happily talk to each other all day long.
In all, an excellent camera. The video quality is truly excellent. Very, very impressed.
Some other nice features that this camera offers:
- Motion Detection
- Remove areas from the motion detection area
- Time/Date Stamp
- Text Overlay
- Recording Schedules
- Two way audio (Can speak into the phone and sound comes out of the camera)
There are a few things I don’t like too:
- Initial set up procedure not simple
- There can be quite a bit of lag when Pan/Tilting remotely
In all, an excellent camera with more features than I understand or have time to write about. If you need a fully featured IP camera that is excellent in both build & picture quality then I’m pretty sure this is an excellent choice.
We actually use this camera in our nursery looking down on my the cot. The camera quite happy sticks to the wall with some 3M command strips and provides footage in a MUCH higher quality to purpose built baby monitors that you see online.
Some photos:
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