Review on 📷 Amcrest ProHD 1080P WiFi Camera 2MP (1920TVL) Indoor Pan/Tilt Security Wireless IP Camera IP2M-841B - Black by Dipp Samrock

I've been using the Amcrest 720 for a few months and recently added the 1080. Both cameras have worked well and are doing an excellent job. These cameras offer a very good solution for home surveillance or do-it-yourself surveillance and the feature set is very impressive (especially considering the price). The cameras are packaged very well and come with a bracket (if you want to mount them on the wall). , a fairly long power cord, an ethernet cable (which I no longer needed since the wireless setup), a software CD, and instructions. The guide is well written and very easy to follow. In terms of installation, some reviewers report problems or complain about software confusion (more on software below), but in my experience, the initial installation was straightforward. You have several options, the most common of which include a wired setup (use the included Ethernet cable to connect to your router) or a wireless setup (via WiFi). I used the WiFi setup for both cameras with the Android app. The process is to simply add the device to the app and scan the QR code (printed on the base of the camera) with the app (or enter the serial number manually), then name the device, your WiFi credentials for the device specify and you're done. As for the software, I found it a little confusing to understand my options when I was first introduced to the camera. Here's what you have:* Lite and Pro versions for Android mobile devices. I've installed and used the Lite and Pro versions and they both work fine, but the Pro version gives you some extra features (one of which is push notifications so you can get notifications about events like motion detection on your mobile phone). The Pro version was not free in the past, so two apps. But now that it's free, the Pro version is the best choice.* Amcrest IP Config - This app allows you to configure many settings of your camera including ports, basic video surveillance settings, video encoding (quality) settings for your main stream. and an additional stream (the camera can record on two separate streams, giving you the flexibility to monitor with one stream and record with the other) and firmware upgrades. Also, with the IP configuration tool, you can launch the browser-based configuration tool to get even more settings and features. Although multiple browsers are supported, I use Chrome and Chrome requires the Amcrest app (free from the Chrome App Store) to be installed. Just install the ActiveX plug-in in IE when viewing the camera's IP address for the first time. The browser-based configuration tool (Chrome app or IE) contains many configuration options and the user interface is very user-friendly. This is my preferred method for surveillance, configuration and playback/viewing.* Amcrest Surveillance Pro - This app includes most of the same features as IP Config and browser apps (e.g. the Chrome app). I started with this app when I set up my first camera, and while it has all the features you need and allows you to set up events and other settings, the interface is really non-intuitive. You must spend some time to get the most out of this tool. As far as I know, Amcrest is developing a new application which would be welcome.* PC-NVR is an NVR software (PC) application that allows you to save video to your PC. I don't use this feature.* You can use other apps as well (most of them support Amcrest (Foscam) cameras. Blue iris is a popular choice. Other options are also available for mobile apps (like the TinyCam monitor, which is good works). Storage then for now I only save to SD cards in each camera. From the documentation I saw that the biggest capacity is 32GB so I have that in each camera. By default the oldest files will be recorded in a loop deleted when disk space is full. You can set this up if you'd rather be notified when disk space is full (rather than being overwritten.) You also have a choice of NAS or FTP. Amcrest offers free cloud storage for one camera, but this only includes 4 hours of storage (only 4 hours, not 4 hours of recorded video, so it's really of very limited value). If you don't pay a cloud service subscription to Amcrest, you need an FTP server. Oracle from Dropbox, Google Drive and others are not supported (you need a cloud storage solution with FTP functionality). You have many configuration options for recording, including motion detection, audio detection, and various alerts (video hacking, SD card error, network error, camera masking, etc.). Motion detection works really well and is easy to set up (allowing you to set motion detection zones and adjust sensitivity as needed to avoid false alarms). The cameras also include night vision and this works pretty well (even in a very dark room or room). A note about mobile app push notifications (a feature that allows you to receive notifications based on events such as motion detection). Until recently, there were problems with the reliable operation of push notifications. I'm having some issues but just recently the Android app was updated to fix this issue and push notifications are working great since the update. If you have a problem, just remove and re-add the camera to the mobile app, then enable/save the push notification option again. Finally, something for support. I only had to contact Amcrest once (for a simple issue I had to resolve myself) and found them very responsive and helpful. Their tech support rep (Alex) quickly resolved the issue.