Amcrest IP5M-B1186EW-AI-V3 Outdoor PoE Bullet Security Camera

Wow, is the software bad.

First the good - these cameras are very well built and feel reassuringly solid. No plastic crap here. The picture (eventually) is very good, both in normal and low light. The only thing in the reviews I read before buying these that gave me pause was that some people seemed to be having a difficult time getting them pointed in the right direction. No problems there at all - the mounting has a full range of motion. My only hardware gripe is that there doesn't appear to be a way to remove the pigtail for the power cable if you aren't using POE.

Now the bad. TLDR, don't buy these if you want fast and/or easy set-up. These have a web interface, but it rejects traffic until you've changed the password on the camera. The RTSP streams are also unavailable using the default credentials. The "Quick Start Guide" it came with and manufacturer website refers to this as "IP configuration", but as far as I can tell that's not what it is - all it's doing is having you set password.

The first thing I did when I plugged in the camera was find the address my router assigned to it via DHCP and open it in a website. I'm doing a Frigate install and have no intention of using an untrusted phone app. Nope, 403 error. So I pull out the quick start guide and it's almost completely useless because everything is a short description of the thing you want to do followed by a web link. I found the section for "Local Desktop Access Using A Web Browser", which says "we recommend using Internet Explorer" (HUGE red flag), lists a bunch of other browsers it claims compatibility with, and points you to a website for setup instructions. The link leads to a manual for their desktop software, which I have even less intent to use than the phone app.

After trawling around their website for over an hour I gradually came to the determination that the only way to configure this camera was to install their software. This is SUPER sketchy when their browser recommendation was deprecated by Microsoft in 2016. So I go to the download page and it's available for Windows 7 (IKR?) and Mac OS. I use neither of those, so I had to spin up a Windows VM on the network (probably a good idea anyway for software like this) and install the thing. No cameras detected.

So I spend another half hour checking cabling, firewall and network settings, and every other thing I can think of that would affect connectivity. Nothing. So after all of this, I FINALLY break down and install the phone app, figuring I can just delete it when I'm done setting the camera up. Run the camera scan in the phone app. No cameras detected.

Next, I figured I'd make sure the hardware itself was working and connected in PTP mode, which worked instantly and had me change the password when I connected. So I scanned for cameras over the network again. No cameras detected (while I can literally see myself messing with the thing over the PTP feed). At this point I was intending to return it, so I went back to the desktop to start that process and figured I'd check the IP in the browser one last time beforehand. This time it asked for credentials, and when I gave the password I set up over PTP it gave me a feed.

I don't know if these shipped with old firmware or what's going on, but none of the setup is documented well, very little of it actually works, and it's definitely not what I'd describe as plug and play.

Good price, good product

Initial setup was super easy to do, installing it in its spot was easy to do. Putting it on a IP camera software was challenging but eventually figured it out. Overall a super nice camera. No complaints at all.

Good for the price, but...

It is small, easy to install and aim. Image quality is very good and works well with the mobile app. It is a bit slow in the web client for connection and setup compared to other Amcrest cameras I have used. The only issue I really have with it is 1 year and 2 weeks after purchase the lens fogged up. It is a one year warranty. I will replace it with a like version given it is a good value. Hopefully it will last longer as I have other outdoor Amcrest turret cameras going on 5+ years without issue.

It's Aerospace Grade

This camera can take the heat, if you know what I mean.

0:36

Herman Merman

October 7, 2023

Great camera at a great price!

My first impressions opening the box were good. The actual device feels solid and of good quality. It feels well made. The mounting bracket and the camera unit are made of metal. It came with some small papers for getting started as well as a reminder to change the default password (good to see this suggested right away for security). Mounting hardware was included as well as a waterproof enclosure for the ethernet plug.

There are a few options for how you can set it up depending on your needs. I wanted to use it with my existing 3rd party app so I did a manual setup. I logged into the web interface, was prompted to set a new password for security purposes (good on them for forcing this), and was immediately shown a realtime live view of the camera. The web interface is an insane upgrade from my previous cameras that required Windows and Internet Explorer. It's clean, fast, and works with modern browsers cross-platform. I was especially impressed with how low-latency the video is.

From other reviews I read I was hopeful for good video quality but I was pretty blown away. It's completely dark out yet this thing's sensor is sensitive enough to be lit up enough to look like it's dawn. With a little bit of light pollution bouncing off some clouds tonight it's able to operate at night in full color. When it's even darker its night vision infrared lights illuminate the area really well, much better than my older cameras. I've attached a comparison picture of my old vs this new camera, installed just a couple feet apart, taken at the same time tonight. About 15 minutes later it got a little darker and it switched to nightvision mode (also shown). The nightvision is so sharp and bright too.

Overall I'm pretty impressed by the quality I got for a great price. Both the hardware and software are well beyond my other cameras. I'm probably going to be replacing a bunch of cameras soon and this camera and/or the 4K version are my top contenders most likely. I'm very happy with this so far.

Dave D

November 29, 2022

I really like this camera

This camera makes the 8th Amcrest. All of them have been outdoor types. This one, just like the rest, was very easy to install and program into my system. I really like the night vision. Some of the camera, I don't even use the IR light. The street light presents me with a much better scene. Of course, day scenes, are beautiful. My oldest Amcrest is over 2 years old. So far I have not had a problem with any of them. We have had power outages, a SUPER cold winter a couple of years ago and brutal heat in summer. They just keep working. As my ancient Logitech cameras go out inside the house, I will replace them with Amcrest too.

One Feature Short of 5 Stars

These camera's are AWESOME. I bought two to monitor my yard because the new neighbors' kids are always sitting on my stuff. The cameras worked perfectly out of the box and I couldn't find a single thing to complain about during testing.

Warning, the next paragraph is very technical, if you want to see what I didn't like go to the last paragraph.

I am very weary of what IoT devices make it onto my network. I wanted to use these cameras because they were so cheap, but I did not plan on ever accessing them from Amcrest's cloud service. I prefer to have them only accessible from inside of my private network. To accomplish this, I am using an open source DVR software which connects to the camera's feeds to be viewed there. I set the network up in so that THE ONLY way to get to those computers is by going through the server that runs the DVR software. Even from my admin machine (which has access to everything in my network), I cannot directly access the cameras without going through the server.

There was one thing I didn't like, and one thing I wish they'd do better. The almost dealbreaker came with the mount, and I found two issues with it. The only adjustments it has are up and down. You can't pan it to the left or right unless you spin the mount around. If you do that, then you can pan left and right but not up and down. Suffice to say that it took a lot more work to aim these than it should have. The second issue is that it did not come with anywhere to hide the wires. It has a little rinky-dink plastic case to cover either the CatX wire you ran to the camera, or the power/coax cable. It does the job, but depending on where you mount your camera, someone could just walk up to it and unplug it. I resolved this by putting the wire behind U-Guard and putting the connectors in an outdoor electrical junction box mounted next to the camera. I didn't like that either so I put the entire wire and connector behind the U guard. As long as their wire connector protector is water tight, I think it'll be fine. Only time will tell on that front.

Excellent POE camera from a reliable brand

Having used many Amcrest products in the past, I have always been very satisfied by the quality in relation to price. Safe to say I wasn't disappointed by this one- the picture in both daylight and night vision is very clear, and the 20fps feed feels very fluid. While the viewing angle is somewhat smaller than the UltraHD dome lineup, it was a perfect fit for my narrow side yard.

Screws and anchors came in the box - I mounted directly to masonry using 1" (cable hole) and 1/4" (anchors) carbide-tipped bits. After hooking it up via Cat6 cable to a POE Switch, it fired right up and grabbed an IP address. I tried it in Amcrest's NVR and my Blue Iris server- setup took less than a minute on both.

Overall, this is probably one of the best values right now compared to other IP bullets in this price range. I would highly recommend this product to anyone looking for a hardwired POE camera.

It could be better!

The overall of theses cameras and NVR are good. Well lets add that this NVR does not come with a reset button. It bothers me that if i need to reset the system to make it working back again, theres no other way then contacting the call center.

Hmmm. Now i needed to add 2 more cameras, and reposition 2 out of 6 cameras in a specific place to enhance range.

So all the cables need to be replaced in the back of the NVR then 3 cameras suddenly did not worked.

But i couldn't pretend this to be easy. Well i thought so!

Then, 56 minutes over the phone to solve it with Dale.S a very patient tech guy from the Amcrest support helped me out.

Easy! Piece of cake! i just needed to go al put the ladder under each and all of the 6 cameras and reset one by one in a very little tiny reset button, under the plate screwed in the bottom of the cameras to make sure everything could work again.

Thanks for the online support of Dale.S for helping me out to put it all back to work! Great support! Very patient and reliable! 5 stars support!

Very Impressed

I am very impressed with this camera, especially for the price. I use it with iSPY and am able to get a crystal clear image. IF maxed out at 2592 x 1944p, the cameras will get 10-15 fps in iSPY. I dropped it to 1800x1200, which is still very clear and the camera gets 20-30 fps with no frame drops. I paired this with a 10$ 50ft cat5 cable and a POE injector - ran the cable through the wall and plugged it in. Connect the camera with an ethernet cord from the camera to the POE injector, then run a short cable from the POE injector to your modem / switch. Boom - now the camera is on your network and is easily searchable in 3rd party programs (like iSpy) to add the camera. For $45, this is a steal - granted because I already had the POE injector and cables. You can get a POE injector for 10$ anyway so its not bad. I will definitely be buying two more to replace the icamera2-c's that were left here by comcast.

The camera doesnt have a microphone and no two way speaker, but that is fine as they werent needed for what I wanted - and I didnt expect the camera to have these features at the price point. All around great purchase

Great nearly 4K video camera

The camera feels well made and is easy to mount. Image quality is great. Almost as good as my Amcrest 4K cameras but at nearly half the cost. Night vision works great. Motion detection is pretty sensitive so it requires some patience tweaking it and may require you to block out zones that you don't care about motion. I usually don't try to get the motion detection settings perfect since I don't have time for that but I try to make basic tweaks to minimize the amount of false positives and it does help reduce the number of detections significantly.

Unlike the dome cameras, the Amcrest bullet cameras usually don't have a mic, which is important if you want audio. That is the only feature I wish it had but I got it at a great price which was hard to pass up. Setting it up with my Amcrest NVR was simple. I usually just log into the camera's web interface first to change the basic settings and then add it to my NVR but you could simply just add it directly to the NVR first before changing all the settings.

I don't use the cloud functionality since I like having my cameras on my private network which has no Internet access for security reasons and these cameras will function offline on their own network just fine. For the more technical users, it is nice that the cameras have an API which can be utilized to control the cameras with scripts and other software.

UPDATE: Best Bang for Your Buck

UPDATE2: I have upgraded my review to 4 stars based on having them in operation for a month. I am thus far very happy with the performance of these cameras, the image width, depth of field and clarity earn high marks for a reasonably priced camera. After I discovered how to manipulate the mount so I can point the camera where I wanted things went smoothly. Originally I thought the lens hood was too short but it seems to work well enough although I still think they should lengthen the adjustment another half inch. My install was very detailed and time consuming because I wanted to make this clean and maintenance free, I used quality solid copper cabling and PoE switch, made sure there was no exposed wires and am testing out open source NVR software to complete the setup. Amcrest has a good tool for installing or configuring the cameras (Amcrest IPconfig) but I would like to see them update their surveillance software and include various methods for configuring access via the web in addition to any of the paid subscriptions model they might have or come up with. In short this project has been fun, I still have 2 more cameras to install but am sure that will go just as smooth as the others, just be sure to use good wire and PoE switch. I posted a pic to show how it looks installed, they arent obvious at first glance, it took my neighbor a while to notice they were there and they werent too pleased which was the cherry on the cake for me.

UPDATE: Prior to returning these I sat down and gave these a good looking over to see if I could use them as planned. Well after a little investigation I found that if you do the following you can gain greater flexibility on camera positioning.

1. Remove the set screw from the white sleeve (attaches base to camera ball) be sure to hold the camera head as it will get real loose

2. Slide the white sleeve towards the camera, you will need to manipulate the camera so that the sleeve has max extension

3. Once you have done that you will notice the base rotates (you may hear or feel clicking)

4. Adjust base to the required position then slide sleeve back to original position and insert set screw

5. The sleeve has a rubber gasket which you may or may not see depending on amount of travel of the sleeve, just make sure when putting back together the gasket is in place

6. Now install camera and make your final adjustments and tighten set screw

I bumped the rating up 1 star because I feel so far that the camera appears well made but the lack of instruction on how to fine tune positioning is not documented (or that I could find) and was a cause of frustration and wasted time looking for alternatives.

First the bad:

1. Unless you are planning on putting this camera dead square on your target area dont expect any level of adjustment other than up and down (maybe). If you are planning placement at a location off center from your monitoring area the ball mount DOES NOT allow for horizontal and vertical alignment to center up your viewing area so you will have blind spots.

2. If you have to manipulate the orientation to get the correct adjustment you run the risk of having the cable chase within the ball joint pointing up which would allow for rain and snow to collect and make its way into the unit or mounting box.

3. The cutout in the base to accommodate the cable also limits the position in which this can be placed. Again if you align the slot in any position other than down you will most certainly get water and snow into your camera or junction box.

4. The sun shield is way to shallow, its next to useless.

5. These do not connect at gigabit speeds which means each port on my costly GB switch which these would connect would be a waste of resources. I suspect part of the video lag is a result of slow line speed.

The good:

1. If you are one of the few who are lucky enough to be able to place the unit dead center on to your target area without adjustment consider yourself fortunate.

2. The units are heavy and constructed of metal and SEEM to be made well.

3. I only powered up one camera before realizing the poor design quality noted above but the picture seemed clear BUT with a noticeable lag.

David C. Harris

July 4, 2021

Too wide ???? Great price for quality

The lens on the camera gives a very wide field of view; too wide for many uses/areas, but if you need a wide view, I'm not sure you will find better for the price. This is my 5th Amcrest camera and I am having no problems with any of them. If I run 3 or more in Wi-Fi at the same time, the NAS I use to record and the Wi-Fi signal gets unreliable. I bought a Netgear POE switch to power the camera and get the data and this POE camera solves all of the issues; I just need to find a way to get the data line to the camera location instead of the power line that I needed before.

Crisp Clear Image

I got this camera for my use in the driveway so I could monitor people coming and going from our home based office. I also wanted to keep an eye on customer cars parking where they shouldn't. I was expecting the image to be similar to my other PTZ cameras. So, I was very pleasantly surprised when I found that not only was the image super clear, but I could zoom in (digitally) using the Amcrest Surveillance Pro software to about 300 feet away, and still recognize who people were.

Because the camera uses the POE connection I did not have to run power supply wires along with old coax cable to the cameras. I simply hooked the camera to my Network switch with POE power, and not only did it send the power to the camera, but it delivered the video to my NVR recorder over the secure network. This means no cables run al over the house / office and no worrying about how I was going to route a cable across and down calls and ceilings. Another great thing about the POE system is that I don't have to worry about people outside of my private network hacking into WiFi Camera signals.

The chassis of this camera is even more sturdy than I expected. From looking at the camera on the internet I just assumed the body would be all plastic. I was happy to see that there's some weight to the camera, and it felt like a solid build.

Another advantage to this camera is the ball swivel mount bracket. The camera can be moved Up, Down, left and right or even rotated as necessary because the ball mount gives it a full 360 degree of movement. My other PTZ cameras and wifi fixed cameras can't do that.

The only negatives about this camera would be, 1 - it doesn't have a microphone. I would have liked to been able to listen to the sounds around the camera and 2 - the sun shade hood on the top of the camera could stand to be a little longer, or move forward just slightly more. This way it could block a little bit more of the long sun sets during summer time. However, this is easily fixed with a little adjustment in placement.

If you have a network and you want an excellent quality camera with a great picture, I would recommend this one for sure.

Quality Camera with Excellent Picture

I have set up over 20 Amcrest installations, and about 10 installations of other types. I prefer the Amcrest for picture quality, build, and durability. I have included some pictures taken with the UltraHD 5MP Outdoor POE Camera 2592 x 1944p during both day and night, in an environment that showcases the camera's quality. Both the day and night footage is exceptional.

These camera support native POE, with the ability to get power using a wall-wart. They include necessary hardware to water-protect the cat5 cable. The Camera case and base are made of cast metal, and has a single Allen bolt that allows easy positioning of the camera. Once the bolt is tightened, the camera will not move, even in 40mph winds. (no vibration) The NIGHT Floodlight does not have a red glow, like my older "Vandal Proof" Amcrest; so it is invisible at night unless you know where to look. The lens and the light share a common optic, but the lens is against the glass which removes ghosting caused by internal reflection. Also, the wavelength of this light does not seem to attract insects. As the picture shows, the Night vision almost looks like far infra-red. Both pictures were taken from a screenshot of the video, night time, was taken in the rain.

The Crispness of the video shows a solid 25fps to my NVR, and it also supports backup recording on the camera itself. This camera does not need the special Amcrest plugin to access making it much nicer then their older offerings.

Motion Detection is also pretty standard, it is very sensitive which can be a pain in the butt, but if you are utilizing a NVR, you can set up zones, and adjust your own sensitivity. The camera may also have a way to set up zones, I did not check.

Amcrest provides an app which allows you to view your camera on Android and Iphone at no extra cost. You will need to poke a hole through your firewall unless you use their cloud service. (Which I do not)

I will be purchasing more of these cameras in the future as I believe their price and performance is unparalleled.

Great camera for the money!

Without a doubt this is the best camera for the money I’ve ever owned! I had my doubts when I saw the price, but the following pics should dispel any worries. The camera image at full rez is amazing, digital zoom is also excellent and the full color at night is great. I mounted temporarily to check it out and I will be buying a lot more to keep an eye on my rental properties. In short you can’t go wrong with this camera if you can use a wired POE one, highly recommended.

Better quality and field of view

I've been slowly replacing my older, no name brand with Amcrest. This model has the same 5mp resolution as the no name brand it's replacing. You can see by the pictures how much more you can see with this Amcrest camera compared to my other brand. You can also see how distorted the other brand is and how it stretches out the picture to try and give it the impression of a larger field of view, but it doesn't show as much. The Amcrest was very easy to setup and configure with the app and with Blue Iris. I liked the mounting configuration because with one philips screwdriver you can lock it in place on all angles. Not some allen wrench that you can't remember where you put it. Very happy and will be purchasing more to replace the others I have.

Camera has great quality, even in low light.

I have worked with several brands of IP Security Cameras and this has been my favorite. It has great video quality and works very well in very low light conditions. It is able to keep the color video in much dimmer lighting than any previous cameras I've used before switching to infrared. I will definitely be purchasing more of these cameras!

Good camera for the price

This was the first Amcrest product I had purchased/received. I have been eyeballing their cameras for my house and a couple other projects. I purchased the 5MP camera to test out at first. Out of the box, it's a pretty nice set up, especially for the price.

Pro's:

- Packed well. Everything arrived intact without an issue, no missing pieces and all documentation needed was included.

- Image quality. Daytime quality is great for the price. The camera will do all but the highest resolution at 30fps, with a limit of 20fps on the highest resolution. Though short of being able to read street names and the like at a distance, details like faces and such are pretty easy to pick out. Nighttime is far beyond what I anticipated. While not as sharp as daytime, the low light performance is stellar. The camera maintained color in a not-so-well lit area until it was literally dark out. Having the camera in an area with street lights, the camera stays in color mode & while a bit noisy, you are still able to pick out vehicle colors and body features. Black & white performance is great too, with or without the IR lights on.

- Storage. It was fairly easy to insert the micro SD card into the camera, just remove two screws and you have access to the micro SD card slot & a reset button.

- Configuration. Once you figure out what IP your camera has on the network, configuring is, for the most part a breeze. Everything is accessible from the web panel, including networking info, video settings, and more.

- Installing: Very easy. All it takes is three screws and the camera is mounted to whatever surface you need it on. The cable comes out from the base to the side, making flush mount relatively easy. PoE is a big plus as well, meaning you only need one cable to run (as long as your switch supports 802.3af or you have an injector)

Con's

- Amcrest Cloud. While convenient, setting up the camera on a cloud account was a bit difficult. You sign up for an account, then have to enter the card's S/N to enable access. While easy, this means the camera is always connected to Amcrest's servers, so I don't know how that affects data usage or ease of access by nefarious folk

Once you figure out where you need to go and what to do, then the rest is pretty easy. However, when you configure your camera with the cloud, it reduces video quality dramatically, decreasing the video bit rate & dropping to 15 fps. You can go back in the web panel and readjust your settings, but I'm not sure if it resets when you restart the camera or not. It would be nice if the Cloud could choose from Main or Sub stream, and enable higher resolutions for the sub stream to feed Cloud, while the Main stream feeds higher quality to local storage.

- No mic. Not a deal breaker, but in case you need to pick up a conversation about how your friends hate you while you're in the bathroom, then you may have to rely on lip reading.

- Motion detection: No matter what I did in the web panel, motion detection settings would not save. As soon as you reloaded the panel, they would reset. The motion detection on the cloud seemed to be okay, but it definitely needs refined.

- Firmware updates. There is no mention of this particular camera's firmware anywhere on the site. When I asked Amcrest about it, there was no ETA yet. I'm not sure if it shares firmware with any other camera.

- Rain shield. Does not really keep rain off the lens of the camera.. could be a bit longer to prevent that, if it won't affect the camera's vision

Overall, for the price, the camera is good value for money. If you're needing something simple to keep an eye on your prized possessions, you should be satisfied. For $50, it's a pretty good value. Some quirks here and there that can be fixed with firmware.

Does the job well!

Have a few other Amcrest cams, this one is of similar good quality. Super easy to install, except I didn’t realize I needed Blue Iris to use port 80 on it. Still haven’t gone into the primary web admin interface (assuming there is one) so the time/date is unset and no other pic quality settings changed. Just got it setup in the app (takes 1 minute) and BI. Overall pic quality is good, and I included one showing a zoom in on the logo on the side of my trailer at night with only ambient light and a little from the IR at that distance. Satisfied!

Good quality picture but image is distorted.

We use cameras in our barns to monitor our sheep. We installed Reolink 4mp cameras several years ago. They work well but I was offered an Amcrest camera for testing. I mounted the Amcrest camera as close as I could to the same location as one of our Reolink cameras.

The Amcrest picture does seem to be clearer. It is a 5mp compared to our 4mp Reolink. The camera was very easy to setup and the app works very well. My only complaint is the outer edges of the picture appear distorted. It could be the location of the camera or possibly the viewing angle. We do not see the distortion with our Reolink cameras. I have attached two screen captures to show the difference.

Knoxie

March 16, 2021

Good Camera, Quality Build, Could use some improvements

I own a couple of Amcrest Dome Style cameras and wanted to give the bullet cam a try since it has a sunshade on top that I thought would work well on my sunny back yard.

Overall the camera works very similar to the Dome cameras I have, the Firmware though is much improved I think. It's quicker, more consistent and worked great for setup., The picture quality is better than expected and I'm more than happy with it, I thought about going 4k but really didn't need to. The build quality is much improve dover the wifi model I have as it is mostly metal now, but that does make it a little heavier and harder to mount to the soffit without a backer board.

Few complaints with the camera though:

- The Sunshade on top is worthless, the slide is not long enough to actually work as much of a light/sun shade or anything. It's more for aesthetics than anything I think.

-- I couldn't figure out how to get the base to swivel once installed, so that is why it's pointed so far at my wall. The dome cameras and the wifi camera I have are much easier to adjust after the fat.

Perfect for birds eye indoor coverage

This is my garage interior camera, replacing an old DLink wifi camera that was failing. Installation required i run POE to the camera, but that's par for the course if you want reliability. The wide angle lens and 5MP resolution is perfect for the interior of the garage and covers just about the entire 20x22 space.

Easy to setup and start using.

The camera works as expected. It was easy to setup and has the ability to use a sd card. I can easily access the camera wherever I may be which makes it nice when things alert me from something coming up my drive.

Better than expected

My review after having the camera for approximately one month:

Pros:

Features: The Amcrest UltraHD 5MP Outdoor POE Camera has a lot of features.

Resolution: The resolution is a great compromise between quality and image size.

Price: For <$65.00 USD it’s a great offering.

Night: The camera ROCKS for my nighttime test. The image is crisp!

The 5MP turret camera I received was an outdoor / indoor camera and came in white. The camera has an excellent angle for my purposes (103º). The camera has the ethernet cable caps included to make sure the unit stays water-resistant (IP67)

There are three pieces of software I recommend as well. For mobile, you should get “Amcrest View Pro” this will help you configure your camera with simple and advanced settings. You should also consider “Amcrest Cloud” mobile app if you plan to use their offsite cloud storage. Last but not least, you can also manage the camera using Windows / Mac “Amcrest Surveillance Pro”. –I chose to store my recordings via FTP

Cons:

No Power included. The camera can be powered PoE or via 12v adapter. I had tested and used both types of power. The PoE injector I have works just fine, as did the 12v power supply I also had. I would recommend PoE as it’s one less cable to have to run.

Overall, the camera is great for what you pay for. It can be simple, but because it has so many features via software, it can also get technical if you need it to. The camera can work with your own network storage, or if you choose to connect it online - offsite cloud storage.

I've included some images for comparison between normal room lighting, zoom, and night time.

B. Stapleton

December 6, 2020

Crystal clear reason to buy this camera.

Good images and even better customer support. Takes a bit to set up but the top notch Amcrest customer service assists in that process. The Amcrest smart phone app works well and pushes alerts to you real time.

Best value for your money!

Video Quality

• This is the best value for your money. Best compromise between 4k vs 1080p.

• Picture is clear for both day and night.

• You’ll be able to have clear video without having to spend extra for storage. People don’t realize that 4k recordings take an enormous amount of disk space.

Case and Frame

• Metal construction. Very durable and weatherproof.

• Paint and finish feels very nice and looks professional.

• Frame comes with a cutout for the wire. Nice attention to detail.

• Metal set screws make adjustments nice and solid.

• Highest quality frame construction as expected from Amcrest.

• Not sure how helpful the little sun shade is.

Installation

• Easy installation. 3 screws (provided) and you’re mounted.

• Wires are grouped together and can be bulky.

Home Assistant

• Easily integrates with a couple lines in your config.

• Add the stream as a card and you can view it in your layout.

One of the Best Brands

The price and quality of this camera makes it a good deal compared to more expensive brands. You are going to get a higher resolution for a better price. The setup of this camera is straight forward: Plug it in, run the app to find the camera, add in to the app, and view. You can hook this up to a NVR or just a regular switch to view Live Video.

The App for mobile devices is practically the same you will see across other brands, but seems a bit better, is easy to use, and setup. Follow the instructions Amcrest provides with the camera and

Setup took no more than 30 mins to have live viewing on your phone and/or Computer. I tested the Power-over-Ethernet (POE) and the Power directly to the camera if your switch doesn’t have POE, both worked great.

I have the Camera hooked up to a Network Video Recorder (not Amcrest brand) and it works great, which is a big plus if you are looking at switching brands. Great to see that Amcrest is ONIVF compliant.

Only Con is the IR light is not the best for a large outdoor areas at night, if you are trying to illuminate a large area in dark hours try to find a model with more than 98ft IR Distance. Amcrest has models with 131 ft. and 164 ft. IR distances

Pros: Price, image quality, ease of setup, ONIVF, need to buy Ethernet cable

Cons: IR isn’t the best, Amcrest watermark on video.

Valerie L.

November 16, 2020

Another great Amcrest camera

This camera works great and showed great quality video day and night. The IR lighting in night mode worked well. The distance able to be viewed was very impressive. This camera integrated well with my Amcrest UltraHD 4K (8MP) Outdoor Security IP Turret PoE Camera. I wish this camera had an audio feature, but I knew it did not before buying. I would recommend this camera to anybody that needs a reliable security camera that knows this camera does not have an audio feature.

Good Clean Video Day & Night

I have a few of the Amcrest 4MP Cameras (IP4M-1026E) that have awful coloring and poor switching between day/night modes in morning and at night. I decided to give this new 5MP (IP5M-B1186E) to replace a failed cheap SV3C camera and surprised at how nice the video is during both night and daytime capture. I am using these with an Amcrest (NV4108E-HS) 8CH POE NVR and were fast to get up, configured and running.