Amcrest UltraHD 4K (8MP) Outdoor Bullet Security IP POE Camera, 98ft NightVision, 2.8mm Lens, IP67 Weatherproof, 256GB MicroSD Recording, Black (IP8M-2496EB-V2)

The AMCREST IP8M-2496EB is a decent, mid-priced option for most surveillance systems. Full disclosure, I was reimbursed for this camera by AMCREST. My surveillance system uses exclusively AMCREST cameras as I have found them to be of reasonable performance and value. I have multiple resolution cameras in my system - 960H, 2MP, 3MP, 4MP, and 8MP - and a combination of wired (both coaxial cable and ethernet) and wireless connections. The IP8M-2496EB camera is the first PoE camera that I have added to the system. As with all previous additions of AMCREST cameras, connecting this camera to the surveillance system was very straightforward. Use of their mobile app to add equipment is simple and quick, and has worked this way with every one of the dozen cameras and recording devices I have added to my system. The PoE functionality of this camera worked perfectly directly out of the box - truly plug & play. The camera clearly states that it does not have the power supply included, so you must supply power either through an adapter or through a PoE switch. I use a PoE switch in my system, and it works very well - no signal dropouts and good speed (dependent upon your switch speed). The IP8M-2496EP camera has a significantly wider field of view than any of my other cameras, and the image is reasonably good over the entire field of view. In my evaluation of this camera, I compared it to a 2MP camera (IP2M-841), which has a 90° field of view. The full view resolution of the two cameras seem to be very similar, but if zoomed (using the scroll function of the mouse rather than the digital zoom function) the image of the 2MP camera does seem to be slightly better when the image is adjusted for the size difference. I've attached a photo illustrating this - the two pics were taken using the IRillumination from the cams which were mounted about 18" apart. The pics were adjusted to be approximately the same size using Photoshop, but no other changes were made. Since the 8MP camera has a significantly wider field of view, this means that the pic is zoomed to a higher degree to be the same size - and this may be a reasonable explanation of why the 2MP camera seems to have better zoomed resolution than the 8MP camera. I am working with the AMCREST product development team to determine whether my hypothesis makes sense. With this limitation in mind, I have set up my system to use narrower field of view cameras where it might be necessary to zoom in for something like facial recognition. This IP8M-2496EB camera has 112° field of view and offers a very good wide view where the zoomed in limitation is of lower significance. Ultimately, this camera will be mounted to provide a wide-angle overview of my property rather than to provide protection for specific entrances and buildings.All-in-all, I have been very pleased with the performance of the IP8M-2496EB camera. I will be adding at least one more of them to provide a very wide field view (~ 225°) of my property and out buildings. A significantly larger amount of money can be spent on setting up a security system, but I have found the AMCREST cameras and recorders to be a very good value proposition - a proper balance of price and performance.

This is my second Amcrest product. (The first was the AD110 doorbell cam). The rest of my cameras are Ubiquiti UVC G2 bullet cams which are getting pretty outdated at this point and I am in the market to replace them with something newer. Since I was happy with the doorbell camera, I jumped at the opportunity to test out this 4K Bullet Cam. I've had it and tested for a week so here's my results.Pros:4K Image is stunningly crisp and detailedWide viewing-angle covers a larger area than expectedPopular protocols supported (H.264/H.265 and RTSP)Can use with any number of NVR systems or the Amcrest AppsSD slot card for out-of-the-box recordingCons: (There's only one)The cable extends out of the camera body for POE and optional barrel connector for power. This is not an issue if you can mount where the excess cable can be tucked in to a wall, but is the only thing I don't like better than my Ubiquiti cameras which allow the ethernet plug to connect in to the camera body with a weatherproof grommet.I unboxed the camera and it came with everything I needed. The sticker for the mounting pattern was especially useful. I ended up using slightly different anchors because I mounted in my garage on a wall which is drywall over 3/4" particle board. The quickstart guide covers using the apps (there are a few different apps Amcrest provides and they also cover briefly how to connect to third party apps such as BlueIris). To get the physical mounting instructions, the quickstart guide refers to a link with a video and some instructions. Even though the instructions were for a slightly different camera model, they are sufficient. Your exact setup is going to vary anyway so use your judgment along with the instructions for the guide.It's recommended to use a bare cable and crimp ends on to the cable to get the ethernet connection made to make it easy to get the connection in to the weather resistant housing. We had a bunch of snow and I couldn't get to the box of cable I had in the shed, so I used a 10' pre-made cable. As you can see in one of the photos, I had to trim the anti-snag part of the boot to make it fit. If you use a bare cable and crimp the connector on yourself as recommended, you won't have this issue. It is also why I ended up with a slight surplus of cable. I plan to redo the cable at some point in the future.Once the camera was installed, I turned the port on, on my switch and it powered up. The Amcrest app in search mode found my camera (and my doorbell camera too) easily and I was able to adjust the mounting slightly to get the exact viewing angle I wanted. I also added the doorbell camera to the Amcrest view pro app. If you just want basic viewing, you can stop here and you are good to go. I had some other things I wanted to test out including a live feed on my camera monitor in the office so I had a few more steps.If you go to the camera's IP in your web browser (I just used my iPad and it worked great) you can login with default credentials of admin/admin and it will prompt you to change the password. You can then see the live view and customize network settings, picture settings, motion/recording settings and stream settings. I ended up setting a static IP on the device itself as well as adjusting the settings on the sub stream to test them both out. I made sure RTSP was setup on the default port and I was able to add it to my camera display by just configuring the URL rtsp://<user>:<password>@<ipaddress>/ and it loaded up the main stream. You can really see (bottom left) how much better the Amcrest camera picture is than my other cameras. The night vision is really good too. A huge improvement over my UVC G2s. One thing I really like is you can move the overlays around the image to customize.For a final test, I spun up an instance of Shinobi (open source NVR) and was able to quickly add in my new camera and setup recording and notifications. This worked completely as-expected and I had zero compatibility issues. Basically put in the URL and it just worked.Overall this is a great camera and definitely a good candidate for me to use to replace my aging 720p cameras. The product supports all of the industry-standard specs you would expect and plays very nicely with both the Amcrest apps and the third-party apps that I tested.