SUNBA P636 V2 PTZ Security Camera

Great PTZ hardware backed by an actual engineering support team

I run a live 24/7 outdoor stream and weather broadcast at 7,000 feet elevation with lots of harsh weather and wind. I wanted high optical zoom and great image quality in a camera. This camera does not disappoint! Amazing zoom and image quality. I’m running a SUNBA P636 PTZ camera on my tower, and the video quality and hardware performance in harsh conditions has been outstanding. I have had several compliments on the quality of the video for the stream. For the price of this camera, I got an amazing value for the money and doubt cameras at 3x the price could be better quality. This camera has been abused in my application on a tower in high winds, rain, snow, hail and the durability of this camera has been stellar. This night vision is very good as well. It has built in "night vision" spot light that will illuminate the dark for a longer distance than I need.

Too bad I'm limited to just one video. Here's some screenshots from the camera. The high zoom image is a visitor center 26 miles away. I can not say how happy I am with this camera.

I haven't had a hard time navigating the software/app as it's mostly straightforward. There is always something to dislike, but so far I haven't had any problems using the software or the mobile app. The manual that comes with the camera is very detailed.

Working with Robin in customer support was a fantastic experience. Robin provided detailed engineering support and left me with the feeling that customer support and happy customers were important to him and the company.

If you need reliable PTZ hardware for live outdoor streaming, sky/weather/bird/critter watching, or site observation backed by top-notch technical support, SUNBA is a great choice!

0:16

Great 5mp PTZ

So far so good (2nd day in use), better than the 20X one I replaced. This P636 V2 cam was plug & play into my Onwote NVR using a Cudy 30W Gigabit PoE (+) Injector over 50'. All the controls in the Onwote NVR work with this Sunba PTZ because it's ONVIF compatible.

0:24

Great Product & Great customer support

Above the city or out in the woods Sunba out performs some of the big brands (over-priced brands). This one gave me some problems but with a same day response from Robin P. at Sunba Support who shared the firmware update file and suggested a powercycle I was good to go. You can't ask for better support or a better camera for the price. A personal thanks to Robin!

High quality, excellent performance

Bought the 36x optical zoom performance series camera, great quality video even when zoomed out to 72x digital zoom. Good support from Robin P. At Sunba tech help

Unbeatable features at this price point

The image is from my Sunba Illuminati 25x camera, if you allow digital zoom on top of the optical, the quality drops slightly. For reference this photo is 4,886Ft away. Almost a mile away and I can easily identify cars and people. The advanced picture settings on the PC app allow for slow shutter and many other features to dial in night time recording. Even the stars register at night.

Best Camera I've Ever Bought

Very good quality camera! The camera is made with a good material, it's very resistant and the zoom is incredible. I highly recommend it!

Good image quality but occasionally pans to the left continuously when it detects a moving person

Image quality is what I would expect from a Sony sensor. Good image quality day and night. Detecting and tracking object (person) is usually acceptable except when you have have a fast walker in which case it doesn't follow very well. Overall performance of the camera leaves a lot to be desired, i.e., it's slow in auto focus and as stated earlier slow in tracking fast walking people especially when it's within 20-30 ft of the camera.

These characteristics can be excused/forgiven if not for the fact that occasionally it will get into a "tracking/following" mode where it will pan continuously to the left. This has happened several times already since installation about a week ago. For a workaround they need to count the number of times it has continuously panned 360 degrees and put it to Home position after 2 or times 360 degree pans.

I've included a video of when it's triggered to continuously pan to the left. 0:01 This is the last position where it last tracked me. It picks me up again at around 0:03/0:04 where it moved to the Home position. Note that it doesn't follow me at around 0:22 as I move towards the camera and disappear out of the camera's view. At 0:37 it picks me up again as I appear in view. At 0:51 it starts to track/move but then starts the continuous pan.

Edit: I reached out directly to Sunba tech support after I posted this review. I received a response immediately from Robin P., Technical Director, and asked me to provide him with the Device info. After I sent Robin the info, Robin informed me that I needed to upgrade the firmware and included a link with instructions on how to upgrade, etc, etc. After a day of testing and observing the usual activity around my house, especially with gardeners, I can say that the problem I described above is gone.

With additional testing, I've noticed that response time for pan and tilt can take an average of 2-3 seconds even with the speed control maxed out; this is incredibly a long lag time. It seems ridiculous considering that cheaper PTZ units from Boavision (at a fraction of the cost of this Sunba camera) exhibit hardly any lag time at all.

Object/People Tracking leaves a lot to be desired; the gardeners definitely put it to test. The camera was all over the place and it was jerking from one position to another and at times pointing to the sky. Most of the time it couldn't keep up with the lawn mover and it was barely keeping it within the view of the camera. I couldn't tell if there was any zooming at all; it would have been nice to zoom in and following the object ... smoothly. If a small DJI drone can track an object this camera should be able to do better.

Overall, tech support deserves a score of 5. But the camera is definitely not a 5; 4 may even be too generous. I'm keeping it because it does enough for what I want it to do. I have two other PTZ cameras made by Axis and Hanwha but they are too big for my neighborhood.

2:37

Buy it for the Security, Enjoy it for the Zoom

OK, I confess, I bought this PTZ camera for the security aspect as well as the photography capabilities. The camera is in a position to capture fabulous pictures/videos of the near action and the far view.

0:17

Excellent Auto Tracking PTZ Camera....but it's BIG!!

I finally got around to installing my new Sunba P636 V2 PTZ camera and it was definitely worth the wait. I also purchased the Sunba pendent mount for my soffit mounting application which required some fabrication, but I reviewed that item separately. The picture quality is just amazing with excellent clarity and vibrant colors of the fall leaves and the zoom is incredible as well. Compared to my other 4K security cameras which aren't nothing to sneeze at but I like the picture quality on this Sunba camera the best. I had trouble updating the firmware which is required to enable auto tracking support, but Robin P. at Sunba Tech Support was quick to respond and provided excellent instructions and helpful links, so Sunba customer support is excellent. I knocked off one star only because the camera is so BIG, but also the drive motor is really noisy if you're anywhere near the camera. As another reviewer said.....you can't hide this baby and people will know it's there looking like a big Hornet's nest. I searched a long time before selecting this Sunba camera but it ticked all the boxes of everything I wanted so no regrets buying it so far.

Roasted itself and died. Can't select any options to get ahold of anyone. Money down the toliet

[Update] It died. Hey I'll just try and get ahold of them, I think it's just the PoE port, power port works but I can't run power all the way to where it is. talk to AI that "can't help you with that" I bought three different cameras and had issues with one other one. I'd recommend the one that works!

[Old review]

[Title]

For the price it's the best. Maybe even for any price

Zoom is absolutely incredible on this monster. The picture of an eye was my German Shepard all the way across a 2,000 sqft room. He doesn't move much so a capture was highly detailed for him.

The camera is BIG. Like bigly big. Don't expect to be able to hide it. That said it's made from Tonka tough steel and if placed right won't be easy to remove without being noticed, if that's your situation. The ultimate goal for my installation is to be out of reach and to use the amazing range of the telescopic lens to keep an eye on my front 5 acres.

Night vision is probably fantastic, I'm still testing mine inside my basement, and attempting to use it for nights backfires because of the IR flashlight effect on the windows. If you're wanting to use it indoors to watch outdoors for any reason the IR is going to make that difficult for the same reason pointing a flashlight out a window at night is dumb unless you're right up on it. Won't be an issue if you use it as intended.

Image quality is amazing. 5MP doesn't seem all that impressive, but it's pretty damn amazing when you combine the zoom. I was absolutely sure I wanted 4k but it's just not going to matter. Yeah I said it. You're getting intricate detail from the lens so don't worry about it.

Complaints:

Well we knew this was coming. The brains of this thing are kind of wonky. If you let it follow motion it likes to point in weird directions once it's done. Sometimes it goes back to where it was pointing, sometimes it goes to a predetermined point that I'm not sure if I can set. If I figure that out, then great. If not? Well I'll probably have to turn off an integral feature I actively bought this for.

It's not inconspicuous. At all. As you can see from the pictures it's large human head width and taller. It also costs half a grand and is seured with an Allen wrench that you already own 8 of probably. You're gonna want to put it out of reach. But a weak "con" since to get the most ground coverage you'll be wanting it high anyways.

And finally the real con: software. I finally got it loaded up in the VMS they have, took a while because VMS thought it was a switch. Odd. I also bought Sunba's 405 ECO (it's a smaller and paired down version, basically) they use different apps! Damnit! So I bought two cameras off one business and still need two phone apps to watch them. Well that sucks. Additionally as with all ONVIF cameras, if you want to actually use them you gotta load them into an old IE browser and deal with your computer freaking out over that. This one allows you to use Chrome, but similar problems arise. It's ONVIF though so grab blue iris or if you're one of the cool kids like me get ZoneAlarm setup. Just don't expect it to run 18 cameras on the 2014 server with only 40 threads and 128 gigs of ram like I did. Oops.

Sam

April 17, 2022

GREAT NIGHT VISION: A photo is worth a thousand words.

GREAT NIGHT VISION: A photo is worth a thousand words.

The picture is very crisp and clear, The night vision in total darkness all around my property is great.

Even better than my Dahua 2mp low light camera, and this thing is 5mp. I wish they had some stationary camera to replace all my Dahua 2mp cameras.

This is a 36X Optical Zoom 5MP Dome Security Camera that is unbelievable.

So far so good. Hope it takes a liken and keeps on ticking. lol

Poor Service

Sunba camera's are really bad during weather conditions. Snow and/or rain blinds the unit. It's no good for any type of security. When I contacted support they told me, there's nothing they can do, that's just the way their products work. Very poor customer service and technical support. My complaint is the product doesn't work in any weather condition. This presents a major concern for theft and vandalism during nature weather conditions. They now refuse to communicate or resolve any of my concerns. These are buyer beware products.

The night vision is terrible (unusable IMO)

The good - Good software on the camera itself. The zoom is amazing. The daytime picture I included is 3/4 of a mile away. Build quality is good. 'cross line' functionality works.

The bad - Night vision is not good. It won't focus properly if there is anything reflective and if there are headlights the picture washes out completely (see first 3 pictures I posted with this review). I also don't understand why the background is pixelated when the camera is at max resolution. Sometimes the picture freezes when on the hi-res setting, which is unacceptable as it is a totally wired connection on a strong network.