Review on Amcrest UltraHD 4K Outdoor Security Camera with Night Vision and Vandal-Resistant Dome - IP8M-2493EW by Gilbert Pfaff

The image quality is excellent, especially for snapshots. Can be used offline/without internet. The CGI API works fine. You can set it to save both videos and still images on the SD card. I set it up to save motion events as videos and photos to the SD card once a minute 24/7. The frames are NOT frame captures of the video stream, but JPGs from the raw data that do not suffer from video compression. I will not use this with any of the Amcrest online services or phone apps. My camera is connected to an isolated DMZ with no internet access. All attempts to connect to the internet are blocked and I connect to the cameras locally from my laptop and home server. Yes, you can easily set it up locally from a PC via the integrated web server. Most of the configuration can be done without installing a browser plugin, but you need to use their plugin for some elements like motion zones, privacy masks, etc. By default, when this option is enabled, the camera tries to make these connections, but the camera does just fine when they are locked. I find it ironic that their attempt to connect to a cloud service is over HTTPS, but their "secure" connection attempt is over HTTP. TCP: config.amcrestcloud.com:443 TCP: amcrestview.com:12367 TCP: dh.amcrestsecurity.com:80 UDP: p2p.amcrestview.com:8800 UDP: google-public-dns-a.google.com:53 UDP :google-public-dns-b.google.com:53Amcrest vs Dahua: Yes, it's pretty clear that Amcrest is Dahua OEM camera hardware and firmware only. Amcrest IP8M-2493EW looks like Dahua HDBW4831E (exact model number not 100% sure). I have nothing against this business model, but I don't see much value in Amcrest investing in redesigning all interfaces. and firmware. I won't be using any of their cloud services, the only benefit I see is that Amcrest seems to be more consumer oriented than Dahua (both in sales and support). Some cons: Whenever you log in via the web interface, the camera automatically syncs the time from your computer to the camera, even if you have NTP configured, it takes as long as you have on your computer and use it. This cannot be disabled. If the time on your PC is slightly different, the camera counts the clock and will also be wrong until the next NTP update. SMTP with the "other" server option seems to be completely broken, there are several threads about this on the Amcrest forums. The mail test immediately fails and doesn't even attempt a DNS lookup, let alone a TCP SYN to the SMTP server. Amcrest's "user docs" are terrible. They appear to have hired a contractor to simply take the Dahua documents and "translate" them from English to English, replacing all company logos without providing any useful material. You can download Dahua User Manual to get more experience. On the back of the camera, the braid comes out almost at the side, not in the middle. The installation of this camera is not ideal. I bought one of the brackets (PFA136) that allows you to store all those cables. Some advantages: Syslog works, it logs perfectly to my home server. ntp works etc. CGI APIs work fine. Search the web for AMCREST_CGI_SDK_API.pdf and read it. It is identical (or almost identical) to the Dahua CGI API document. Some useful items from the SDK. You can get real-time still images from /cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi, which are very useful and have better quality than still images captured from a video stream. It took me several hours to write a shell script using wget to display the contents of a file. SD card and then restore all videos and photos to my home server. Relatively low power consumption, my switch reports 4W when IR is off and 6W when IR is on (at about 40ft, Category 6). Pigtail: Oh, that's almost a deal breaker. . What an awful braid. When you buy a PoE camera, you only expect one connection – RJ45. This thing has 5 ports and "waterproof" is only meant to connect to an ethernet network. Inside the camera, the other end of the pigtail is split into 2 connectors, a 6-wire connector with audio and alarm relays and a 9-wire connector with Ethernet, PoE, 12V DC and an alarm ground wire. look at my photos If you only connect RJ45 you can safely unplug the alarm/audio jack and even cut the 12V DC power cables inside the housing and then cut off the unused pigtails, leaving only the external RJ45 without risk of shorting outside the camera .