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A**M
Another great camera with a wide viewing angle from Amcrest
I am currently running the free version of Milestones excellent XProtect software, amazing software and free for up to 8 cameras. I have currently got a mixture of IP cameras including two Hikvision (one being a doorbell camera) and three Amcrest. By far the Amcrest cameras I currently have run the best software out of all the cameras with an intuitive sleek looking interface. I was looking to upgrade a dome camera inside my garage with something that had a wider field of view so decided on the IP8M-T2599EW.Unboxing:The camera comes packaged in an Amcrest branded box with a pack containing a couple of screws and the connectors for the waterproof network connection. There is a template which is printed on a sticker so you can stick the template onto the surface you are going to install the camera on simplifying the installation process. The camera itself is very well packaged in shock absorbent material.Mounting:The camera was easy to install and adjust to the correct position owing to the way the camera body can rotate 360 degrees in the mounting plate as well as rotate when mounted vertically. I have every confidence you can get the perfect angle whether mounting horizontally or vertically with this camera. The waterproof network connection is easy to hook up and is a must if mounted outdoors, not a problem for me in this instance I was mounting inside my garage. Using the mounting plate with its sticker template to install the camera made installation very quick for a dome camera. Previous dome cameras I've had have had to be opened up to access the mounting points to screw to the wall but this camera requires no disassembly to install which means there is no risk of getting dirt or dust into the camera housing which could affect the picture quality once installed. I have the camera running from a POE switch after initially using a POE injector to test when mounting. The camera looks professional when installed.Configuration:The camera is IP and POE which for me is the best configuration for CCTV cameras. The camera comes configured to get an IP address from DHCP but setting a static IP on the camera was easy with the camera redirecting you to the new static IP address as soon as you hit save, very smart! The camera was running the latest firmware which was a nice surprise and a first for me. I was really impressed with the responsiveness of the web interface on the camera, it was very intuitive to use and clicking around the plethora of configuration options available was instantaneous. Remember to configure some NTP settings for the camera, it’s important to have the time set correctly when using CCTV as evidence or trying to playback specific times fortunately this camera supports NTP and configuration of daylight savings time. The SMTP configuration is best I've seen with the ability to select pre-defined SMTP providers including Google, Outlook.com, Comcast, Yahoo as well as manual configuration.NVR Configuration:The camera was added quickly and easily into Milestone XProtect using the network quick scan method. I have milestone configured to pre-record for 3 seconds and post record for 5 seconds after motion detection. It really helps with compatibility when the camera supports ONVIF.Video Quality:I have set one of my streams on the camera to be the highest quality it possibly can be, the video quality is fantastic I was really impressed. Night time quality is excellent using the built in IR lights and the footage is crisp and clear with no lens glare due to the IR lights being built into the body of the camera and not mounted inside the lens. The video quality is a step from the camera this replaced as it has an 8 megapixel sensor but the video quality wasn’t reason for replacement it was the superior viewing angle available from the 2.8mm wide angle lens which didn’t disappoint.Conclusion:This is a great quality camera which provides crisp, clear and wide angle video. The software is the most responsive I’ve found on any IP cameras that I’ve tried and is really intuitive to use also. It’s really nice that the video works natively in a Google Chrome browser with no additional software to install.This is another top quality camera from Amcrest with feature rich, fast and responsive software.
M**N
Pretty good AND works!
Shopped around so much for a small cctv camera that could be powered over ethernet and not wifi that could really be viewed and clips played back via a mobile phone without the need for any form of bulky recorder, (NVR) yet whilst retaining the capability to record an incident onto a micro sd card in the camera if anything happened....this does it all....Tried several other brands of similar camera, some were a little misleading claiming they could do the same BUT either triggered several false alarms, one even triggered every evening and night as the infra red sensors kicked in/ out which the company tried to tell me was acceptable, two false alarms per day..Another camera was great BUT it couldn't be armed/ disarmed via the phone and had to be scheduled with set times for being ready to record, this was pointless as every time left the house to garden, wash the car, nip to the bin etc it triggered with no quick and easy way to turn it on/ off, had to go to a desktop computer, into scheduled settings and amend them, to longwinded.This camera can be armed / disarmed from the app, has good picture quality and was easy to fit, it was recognized as soon as connected and I could view it.a great feature of it is that you can have up to FOUR colour coded detection zones, each with their own level of sensitivity adjustment, I have used two, lower sensitivity at the house border, increasing it to higher as the house is neared, so far with the settings I have it has been reliable and no false alarms.Only negative I have is that some of the instructions are clearly written by tech bods for tech bods, not simple plain explanations, I had to contact Amcrest support which is based in Texas and after a couple of days they came back to me with links, videos of what to do, helpful enough, not a quick or as simple as Reolink support was however their camera as above false alarmed twice a day. Plus some of the Amcrest support articles look a bit dated, written years ago, perhaps could do with a refresh and un-jargon,Amcrest seems to have several apps which I found a little confusing at first, I downloaded Amcrest Surveillance Pro thinking this would be all I needed for desktop Pc viewing and tweaking it but no, there is also Amcrest configuration Ip which does this so I also had to navigate my way through this, this is the one that allows the settings to be tweaked etc but why couldn't the two be bundled into one place I don't know, but they are relatively small points, if you persevere with the set up as I have once complete so far it hasn't let me down and that's what you want from a camera.SD card needed formatting as it didnt work straight away, initial support informed me that my sd card must be faulty from swopping it from one camera to this one, I knew it wasn't, it was a good quality class 10 Kingston card, once I received instruction what to do on the configuration app I formatted it and it worked.Happy with my camera now I've got it just about set up.
Trustpilot
1 month ago
2 months ago
