This is an Dome IP camera. It doesn't move, and communicates only using an ethernet network. This isn't a "consumer" camera, with iphone apps, and "cloud" services. It's an IP camera, and it's just about the cheapest IP camera I've seen yet that is geared toward the professional & DIY market. They disclose their imager and chipset (HI3518+OV9712), it's OnVIF compliant (and the OnVIF functionality actually works for what I've tested so far). I've only just got it hooked up today, so I haven't done longevity testing... but so far, this is a really good, really cheap IP camera.
So should you buy this? Well here is the test: Are you looking for a single nanny cam, or a dog cam to use with your iphone? Or perhaps a single camera to watch your driveway? If the answer is yes, then you probably want a consumer IP camera product like a drop cam, or a Momentum camera.
However, if you do any work with real security cameras (or want to), you know how to work with ethernet cables, and you know what the following things mean: "NVR, VMS, DHCP, OnVIF, Ethernet, IP Address, Port number" and you are looking for an inexpensive decent IP camera, then yes, buy this right now, then come back and continue reading.
This camera is designed to work (like most real IP cameras) with NVR software that runs on a computer (or sometimes a NAS). Examples of such software (of wildly different quality levels) might be Milestone, Exacq, Lenel, Salient, Digital Watchdog, Blue Iris, GeoVision, NUUO, and many others. The OnVIF functionality helps to make the camera relatively compatible with those various software packages. My testing referenced in this review is being done on Milestone (they have a free version).
Here is what you need to know to set it up, instructions are non-existant:
Default IP: 192.168.1.10 (this can be changed or switched to DHCP, but only do this if you can manage your DHCP server to assign a non-changing IP address to the camera)
Default Login and Password: admin (with a blank password)
It is an h.264 720p camera that defaults to the OnVIF Hi Profile, but can also use "Main" and "Baseline" through the setup.
**The OnVIF port it uses is: 8899 (This is important, and had to be entered into Milestone for it to properly discover and use the camera)
The camera is not PoE, so you will need passive injectors/splitters, or real a real PoE switch and a splitter to feed the standard 12VDC barrel plug.
You can do most of the setup via OnVIF using a tool you can download from the internet called "ONVIF Device Manager". If you want to modify the OSD, or update user accounts however, you will need to log into the web interface. (the tool normally can do user accounts via OnVIF, but that function wouldn't work) To use the web interface of the camera, you MUST use Internet Explorer, and you must load their scary Active X plugin. Inside there you have a variety of nice features where you can change to customize the behavior of the camera should you want to do so. At first I deducted a star for the Active X plugin, but then thought... "You know, this is a $31 Chinese IP camera that actually works correctly, and the video looks good. They all have the stupid Active X thing." 5 Stars It Is)
The summary here is that the night vision is good, it has a nice wide angle view that isn't really distorted. The camera 720p video quality looks quite good, and the video stream is rock solid and reliable so far. If this were a $200 camera, I'd be giving it a much more harsh review... but this thing was $31.00 shipped with prime. Sold and I'll probably be purchasing more.
