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Review on Amcrest SmartHome ASH43-W: 4MP Outdoor WiFi Bullet Camera with Night Vision and Built-in Mic by Satish Greener

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Robust 2k security camera, good value for money, takes up little space

I have an Amcrest IP5M-B1186EW 2k 5MP camera and an Amcrest 4 POE+ switch and this 2k camera is a great addition. It's really small and light, and the physical installation is easy. In my opinion it's more ideal for an internal camera as it needs to be powered by the included AC adapter. It has a long cord, that's good to know. Sure, it's IP67 weatherproof, but it's going to be difficult to find a plug anywhere outside if you have bricks. This is why I prefer POE cameras as a single ethernet pass delivers data/power. So I'm currently using it as a living room camera/nanny monitor. When I am at home I use Amcrest Surveillance Pro software to monitor my cameras and on my mobile device I use Amcrest Smart Home. I love how the app notifies you when it detects a person/motion and sends you notifications when you're out of town or on vacation, but yes you can turn them off or they can get annoying. The build quality of the camera is very good as you would expect from Amcrest and they really make setup very easy. If you are using the mobile app, just scan the QR code, follow the steps and you're done. When adding Amcrest Surveillance Pro, just manually add it over IP. As always, be sure to use a 256GB High Endurance MicroSD card like the Sandisk SDSQQNR-256G-GN6IA, a great card for less than $40. I typically get about 10 days of video storage on my outdoor camera in a high traffic area. One great piece of advice I can give you is that you should choose either Ethernet or Wi-Fi, you cannot try to do both. If you're trying to connect to Wi-Fi, you'll need to unplug the Ethernet cable or it won't connect. And once you've connected via Wi-Fi through the app, you can plug in an Ethernet cable and connect it to the Amcrest Surveillance Pro software. In addition, if its IP address changes, the mobile app will update and show you in the device information that you are now connected via Ethernet and let you know that it has switched. It has a good wide angle lens and the h.265 format keeps the clip size small. The built-in microphone is only good for listening, which is always nice of course, but two ways is the best way, especially for an outdoor camera like in the garage, front door or back door. That's why it's more suitable for indoor use, but of course use it where you want or need it. As previously mentioned, bringing the apps together would be a huge win for Amcrest. If you want to see the night/day vision quality, check here another reviewer who posted day/night shots. I can say mine looks exactly like this. Really good color rendering and excellent night vision. All in all, a very solid budget Wi-Fi camera solution if you need an indoor camera or an outlet somewhere outside your home that's still close enough to connect to your router. Only 2.4GHz instead of 5GHz so you get a little more wall penetration with little loss of speed, but even at my 10/100 Poe+ switching speed there's never a problem with these little guys.

Pros
  • SECURE VIDEO BACKUP TO THE CLOUD. Amcrest Smart Home's optional remote cloud video storage subscription service allows you to automatically save video away from the office to third-party storage hosted and secured by Amazon AWS. This way, if something happens to your local PC/NVR/SD card/NAS, the footage will be safely recorded.
Cons
  • Available in white only