ieGeek 2K 360° Solar Security Camera Outdoor with Color Night Vision, Battery Wireless CCTV Camera Systems, Wifi Wireless PTZ Camera, PIR Motion Detection,Siren Floodlight,Voice Intercom,Remote Access

I have eight older ieGeek cameras all running on the Windows HiP2P software and this one is superior in most respects. It still gets 5 stars from me for its functionality but, to get the things I don’t like out of the way, it is mainly white, big and plasticky. It’s attractive enough but I live in the countryside with no neighbours and I don’t want my cameras to be obvious, I have warning notices prominently displayed to deter baddies; the older black (metal) ones are much more discrete and are much more robust. I’d rather keep trespassers guessing where the cameras are so they can’t dodge out of sight or whack them off their mount and this model is, in my opinion, best suited to a town environment where being visible could be an advantage. But in my deeply rural setting it’s a disadvantage and I’ll install them in areas well inside my boundaries so baddies come across them after they have passed a few “invisible” ones and warning signs they couldn’t miss. My much smaller black metal cameras are very hard to spot, especially at night, unless you know where they are. This one jumps out yelling “I’m here”, especially as it’s white.But this is in my situation and I appreciate most people will likely prefer the deterrent of a security camera being obvious so my rating reflects that.Very easy to physically mount and set up with the HiP2P software if you are familiar with it (use the latest version!) although the terminologies take getting used to and some settings are unintuitive and hidden, most importantly the “quality” setting which is on “minimum” by default – it makes a huge difference. The wi-fi range is excellent, this camera works perfectly in a location I previously struggled with using one of the older ones. The image quality looks better to me although it is seemingly the same resolution.Where this camera really scores for me is the pan/tilt/zoom. Forget the zoom, it’s digital, not optical, so would lose definition if used (it doesn’t seem to work anyway on the HiP2P software) but the pan and tilt are excellent. It’s billed as 360° but in practice, unless it can see round corners, it’s 180° if it’s mounted on a flat wall, still perfectly adequate. I haven’t tried the auto-tracking yet but intend to thoroughly check this out in time as automatically covering a wide area with a single camera will be very useful to me.The night vision is very good too, again seemingly much better than the older models. I won’t be using the colour option for the same reasons as wanting my cameras to be unnoticeable.We get some ferocious weather here (in France) so I’ll have to wait and see how this lightweight plastic camera fares. Hopefully it will be just fine, the older but metal models have stood up well.This is a relatively inexpensive camera so I’ve taken that into consideration. It is remarkable value for money and I can’t fault its functionality.The main thing is, it works very well and I’m very pleased with it, so much so I will buy a couple more for areas a fixed camera couldn’t cover adequately. I have areas that have power from 3 different houses and it’s impractical to run network cable and impossible to use CPL, so the wi-fi range is a significant plus.Optional information… one thing I have disliked about ieGeek cameras is their inability to record in e.g. AVI format that can be shared and viewed with normal software, instead using a proprietary 264 format that nothing except the HiP2P application reads. You CAN convert from this rubbish to a useable format using the mobile app but even their customer service (very good by the way) couldn’t find a way round this on a Windows PC. Well, there is a way! You can’t from the files stored on an SD card but you can save video as AVI if you save direct to a hard drive in a PC (the SD card still works). The problem is of course, the computer has to be on to do this and gobbles up disk space but if it matters (and it does to me) it is possible. I wish I’d known this before because with (now) 9 cameras each with a 128Gb SD card at 22€ or so each, that’s 200€ I could have saved, enough to buy 10Tb of dedicated external drives. Also, saved to my computer the recordings are safe and readily available rather than going through the slow and clunky HiP2P application.

The camera is easy to set up and fix to the wall. The power cable can be easily extended if required, either with extension lead or by cutting it and adding extra cable in between the 2 cut parts if required and soldered back together again. Also if the cable is cut, it makes it easier to pass through the wall and only a small hole needs to be drilled in the wall, then solder the wires back together. The other two cables, reset and ethernet can be tucked inside the unit to get them out the way, if you don’t want to use those. You can do a basic reset by unplugging the power to the unit from inside the house.The video quality is really good, even at night in black and white nighttime IR setting. I have mine set to the automatic setting. Its very quick to respond to pan and tilt changes from the phone. The “tracking mode” seems to work well, I’m not sure if I will leave that on all the time though.This is my second camera from ieGeek. I used the app I already had on my Samsung phone, CamHipro, which is free from the play store.It was easy to setup. I just clicked the + symbol, top right of screen, choose IP camera, selected New Device, powered on and reset (using small push button on end of white wiring loom) and chose the “not connected to the network cable” option. Then on the next screen I chose “AP distribution network equipment” option. This then asked for the wifi password from my router and that’s about it. Camera connected. I haven’t installed a memory card inside the camera as I wanted to connect it to my Synology Disk Station (NAS). This is running a free program called Surveillance Station. This then records movements and stores them on my hard drive in the NAS. I have been doing this for over a year with my other ieGeek bullet camera, a non PTZ version and that has been brilliant, hence getting a second camera for my home system.I like ieGeek products and the customer service people were helpful last year when I needed some info on fixing brackets for my other camera. They are not just a sales team, they are helpful also.I think for the price the camara is great value for money and will recommend it to my friends as I know its easy to set up and from a reliable supplier.