Awesome, well built camera with bright infrared
To give a little backstory, I’m a security camera hobbyist and I have installed multiple camera systems throughout the years. From box systems to piecing together systems, I’ve had experience with quite a few cameras in my business, home, and helping others as well. Full disclosure, this is my first time with a 4k camera as well as PoE. My parents home is in an area that seems to be trafficked by a lot of unsavory people, and most recently, had two cars broken into in the garage. I had installed a Night Owl 1080p BNC system as well as a 1080p Wyze Cam as a backup. While it alerted me to the burglary in progress, the video was too blurry to use to ID the thieves, and they were released. This has made me interested in something better than what I currently use, which is how I found the Amcrest 4k PoE on Amazon. I’ve never used a PoE before, but it seems it’s the direction that the industry is going.

I was told I needed a PoE infuser (1 camera), or a PoE switch (multiple cameras) to provide power over the ethernet cable, so I picked up an infuser as well. When I finally received the camera and opened it, my first impression of it was how well made it was. Most of the cameras I’ve installed were made of plastic, but this Amcrest camera was entirely metal. Very solid build quality right off the bat. Next thing to do was to connect everything up prior to the installation. Honestly, I didn’t even read the instructions, but it took me about 5 mins to connect up everything and another 10 mins to download the app and get the picture on my phone. Extremely simple hook up, and I can see why PoE has become the default nowadays. The QR code setup definitely contributed to the speed of the setup. Once I confirmed that everything was working, I saw that the camera could take a microSD card for internal storage. This is probably one of the only drawbacks of the camera as you have to physically open up the camera to install the SD card. If you’re haven’t done something like this before, it would be easy to pull the wrong wire out, or not put everything back together correctly again as the weatherproof seal needs to be lined up exactly. Not a major issue, but just something worth noting.

On to the camera itselfthe images that it produces are extremely clear. I mounted the camera pointing at the driveway as I wanted the best camera at the point of entry to be able to see detail. I’m used to using 1080p cameras, so the level of detail the Amcrest has is definitely much clearer. Here is a still picture of the level of detail in 4k. You can see the license plate clearly when you magnify it.

While pictures in full sunlight are usually decent quality on 1080p cameras, my main interest was the details the camera could take at night. Here are two side by side comparisons of a Wyze Cam vs the Amcrest in the same area.

As you can see, the Amcrest has a wider field of view and a lot more detail at night. One thing worth noting is that the Wyze Cam picture seems brighter, but only because of the infrared light from the Amcrest. The infrared light on the Amcrest floods the entire area much better than infrared lights on any camera I’ve ever used.

While the camera does have a motion detection notification feature, it doesn’t differentiate between shadows and real people. I’m still trying to tweak the settings to minimize or eliminate false alarms, but I hope that there will be some type of person detection features in the future. Still, the notifications are a useful feature that alerts me to motion when its triggered.

Amcrest Cloud is also a very nice feature that will get you up and going without much setup. I do prefer the Amcrest View Pro app over the Cloud app as I found that the Cloud app does have a pretty substantial lag. The View Pro app has almost zero lag on notifications and live view. I also use the Surveillance Pro program for PC which is great for live view as well. All the programs used seem to be pretty user friendly although I couldn’t get the email function to work. There does seem to be a discrepancy between the phone app and the PC program when trying to adjust the motion detection area.

All in all, I am extremely impressed with the build quality and the amount of detail this little camera puts out. Out of all the cameras I’ve used in my years, this is by far one of the best cameras for the money. Easy to setup, easy to use, and awesome build quality. If you’re looking for one of the best PoE 4k cameras available now without buying a box set, this would be the one. I know comparing a 4k camera to a 1080p isn’t fair, but 1080p’s were the standard for a while, and what I had. If you were on the fence about upgrading to a higher resolution camera, 4k is definitely the way to go, but keep in mind it’s currently about 3-4x as expensive.

Good camera, app could use some improvements
About a year ago, we purchased an Amcrest doorbell camera. It’s

been a great investment, so we decided to try this Amcrest security camera. It

is well packaged, and the camera appears to be good quality

with the housing and outer shell cast made of aluminum. It comes with a

template on a sticker so you can easily place it in your desired camera location and drill right through the sticket template. It has four screw holes and

one center hole for the wiring. The camera has one

power input and one POE (ethernet) input (which can also provide power). The

power supply is not included if you need to power the unit with the

power port, otherwise you will need a POE switch or POE router. We

found a 4 port POE switch on Amazon for only $20 which was plug & play, no setup

required. I should also note that if you are also using the switch with

non-POE devices, some of the extremely cheap POE switches cannot

determine if you are plugging in a POE device or any other device which

does not require power, so make sure that the one you get has auto

detecting if you want to keep things simple. One ethernet from the

router to the switch, then you can have four cameras fed off of the

switch. Setting up the app was pretty straight forward, other than the

directions stating that the serial number & QR code was typically on the

back of the camera, which it was not. After a phone call with tech

support, he insisted it was there somewhere. I found that it was

actually on a sticker, wrapped around the wire, quite a few inches away

from the camera. This portion of the wire happened to already be

stuffed up through the hole in the soffit, but once I found it and

scanned the QR code, setup took minutes. The picture quality in 4k far

exceeded my expectation. You also have the option to digitally zoom/pan

quite a bit before major degredation. The night vision is pretty good

as well. Our driveway is about 60ft. long and there is enough infrared

light to show a clear picture up to about 40-50ft. out. The best

feature is the push notifications to the app for events such as motion

or sound detection. You can easily set the dead zones to prevent false

alarms. The microphone seems to pick up sounds very well, although I’ve

only tried it out a couple of times. We have used the basic cloud

service on the doorbell in addition to storing on the SD card, but we

have not setup the cloud service on the turret camera yet, instead we’re just using an

SD card. I should also note, if other cameras are added, the app

allows simultaneous viewing of multiple cameras with the ability to fill

the screen with just one. If you prefer, Amcrest also offers an app

for PC which can do it all, as well as some 3rd party software that can

also be used.

On the negative side of things…. The motion detection at night using

infrared seems to only pick up motion up to about 25′. There are some

adjustments for the sensitivity, but I haven’t been able to sense motion

beyond 25′ yet. I couldn’t find an in-depth user guide for the Amcrest

View Pro app which details all features, only a handful of guides

showing a handful of features which is found in the support area of

Amcrest’s website. The app is fairly clean, but could use some work.

A lot of Amcrest’s other cameras use the same app, so for a camera like

this with fewer features, the app still shows the buttons for the more

advanced features which other cameras would use. I feel like these

should at the very least be grayed out. After using the app for a

short time, you get used to which items are available and which are

not. In reality, once you get things setup the way you want, you really

don’t do a lot on the app. When a clip is recorded to your phone, your

frame rate is limited by your internet connection. A 4k recording may

output only a frame every few seconds if you are not on your home

network, making the recorded video very choppy. You can choose to send

the files or export to view on a computer. For some reason, when clips

are exported, the delay between frames is removed, so you get all the

frames quickly one after another right away, then the remaining time is

just the last frame on the screen, so something is off there. Keep in

mind, this is only when you click the record button on the app, not when

events are recorded straight to the cameras SD card. My biggest

complaint is that there are three main subcategories to view live video,

saved video/pics, and recorded events. On the live view screen, there

is no shortcut to view any recorded video, events, or pictures. In

order to view automatically recorded video from a triggered event, you

have to click the menu, find “push notifications”, “event list”, then

choose which event to view. However, once you are on the screen and

viewing your recorded events, there are shortcuts at the top to switch

to snapped pictures, and live video feed. It would be nice to have them

all accessible anywhere in the app. It seems like a lot of work to get

to your recordings. I should also point out that the Amcrest smarthome

app does have shortcuts to your recordings from the live video feed,

which works really well. Both apps are very different, and I’d assume the

Amcrest cloud app is also different.

All in all, it’s a great camera and easy to get used to once you run

through the app front to back a few times.

Was Amcrest's Best 4K Night Vision Camera Yet. Now dead after 1 year, 6 months.
Update 12/10/202:

Amcrest reconsidered:

“I have consulted with our techs and they have assured me that our firmware updates are working properly and this issue is mostly likely caused by the power being disconnected during the install process. However we have decided to issue a one time replacement.”

Note, the firmware update was done via the web interface while the camera was still mounted on my house and connected to an Amcrest POE injector installed in my garage and continuously powered, so I’m not sure how the power could possibly have been interrupted. On the bright side, they are RMAing this camera and sending a replacement. Thank you Amcrest!

Update 12/9/2020:

Sadly, I updated the firmware on this camera and now it is stuck in a reboot loop. The camera was working perfectly until I pressed the Upgrade button on my browser to update the firmware to V2.622.00AC000.0.R.201022.bin. Now the camera starts up, displays live video for a few seconds, then reboots. I contacted support who were unable to resolve the problem. They suggested contacting the RMA group which I did. They said the camera was purchased 1 year and 6 months ago, so it was out of warranty and Amcrest does not warranty firmware upgrades.

Maybe it was a coincidence that the camera failed during the firmware update and has nothing to do with the firmware itself. My experience tells me the camera would be working perfectly today if I hadn’t put Amcrest’s latest firmware on it….sure seems like just a software problem.

I am still very satisfied with my other Amcrest cameras, but I won’t be updating their firmware.

*************

I’ve been using Amcrest IP cameras for several years now for home and business security. I purchased this camera to be the primary camera covering my driveway and front yard. It has a 112 degree field of view which is perfect for my application. The daytime 4k video is amazing but I was surprised by the great night vision quality compared to the other models I’ve used. I highly recommend this camera. Now for some more specifics of my experience.

This is a POE (power over ethernet) camera which also has an optional 12V power connector. I went with Amcrest’s POE Injector for ease of installation. I just connected an ethernet cable from my network to the DIN port on the injector and then connected the camera to the injector with a second cable. I was delighted to find the weather seal has been re-designed to allow the ethernet cables RJ-45 connector to fit through the seal cap so premade cables work great.

The camera has several options for where the video is recorded. I wanted at local copy stored on the camera which requires installation of a micro SD card. I’m using a Samsung 64GB 100MB/s (U3) card. Using motion/sound triggered recording at the highest resolution, highest frame rate, and highest quality on my active street, this gives me about 4 days of stored video. Installing the SD card was a bit more of an operation than I had expected. Other Amcrest cameras I have used have small a weather sealed panel which can be removed revealing the sd card slot. This camera requires not only removing the back cover, but also the camera board inside. It is not a difficult process, just 5 screws to remove, but the documentation is not very specific. Fortunately, this is a one time task so it is not a big deal. Just make sure you don’t touch the camera lens itself, or if you do, make sure you clean it before closing it up.

I used the free Amcrest View Pro app on my Android phone to setup the camera. It is very straight forward and walks you through the process step by step. Once complete, I was able to view the live video and audio feed from anywhere. I can also playback the stored recordings as well. In addition to the app on my phone, I use Amcrest Surveillance Pro on my pc. This app is also free and the primary way I monitor multiple cameras simultaneously during the day.

Once the camera was setup, I went the the extensive customization options provided by the camera. Amcrest has done a great job giving you access to nearly every aspect of the cameras operation so you can set it to meet your needs. I went through the more detailed configuration options to specify motion detection recording and sound detection. The options provided are excellent. You can specify the times/days you want motion detection to be active, the thresholds for the amount of motion require to trigger the recording, up to 4 separate regions, etc. Likewise, the sound detection allows you to define your schedule and threshold by viewing a live graph showing the sound level.

Once the sun went down, I was able to check the night vision capabilities of the camera. It was immediately clear that this camera does a much better job than the 3 or 4 MP models from Amcrest. I’m not sure if it is the new Starlight sensor or the improved built in IR illuminator, but I have no problem seeing people walking 70 feet away at night. Not only that, but the camera maintains a good shutter speed so moving people/cars are not a blur. I am very happy with the night vision performance.

The built-in microphone is very sensitive. I have no problem hearing people in my yard, dogs barking, birds singing, sirens, etc. The camera has a noise reduction option to filter our some of the background noise, but I found the audio quality to be better without noise reduction.

Overall, this is a fantastic, versatile camera. The daytime 4k video performance is excellent, the night vision is great and the audio recording is impressive. The android app is very good at home or away. The PC app works well, but I’d say it is due for an update. Alternatively, Amcrest suggests purchasing Blue Iris software which works well with their cameras. Considering the features and performance this camera offers for a relatively little extra cost, this is an excellent value.