2-Pack Amcrest UltraHD 4K (8MP) Outdoor Security IP Turret PoE Camera, 3840x2160, 98ft NightVision, 125° FOV, IP67, MicroSD Recording (256GB), White (2PACK-IP8M-T2599EW-AI-V3)

We have used Amcrest cameras at our businesses for years now. They offer an affordable solution to monitor your properties when you are not able to be there. Especially when you have more than one to monitor. We have 3 businesses and our home all running on Amcrest and one that we sold last year also ran them. The picture is great, install is not complicated, as long as you can read, you should be able to set them up rather easily. The software and the app are great! We can easily monitor all properties simultaneously! Tech support tries to help, but I do suggest reading some of the articles and watch the videos available if you have issues come up! The only issue I have had with them is when the firmware updated on the NVR but not the cameras, there was a compatibility issue and getting Amcrest Techs to offer a solution to roll back to the previous firmware is a bit of a challenge. So I highly recommend that if you do update the firmware, do it to both the NVR and the cameras! Also, back up prior to doing the updates. Other than that, I love them! Will continue to purchase them as needed!

The IP8M-T2599EW-28MM is a very nice improvement upon other Amcrest 4K cameras that I have used and by far the best. BUILD QUALITY The build quality on this camera is comparable to the other 4K Amcrest cameras that I have with its very solid metal construction. The box does clearly come with everything you need to make sure that your camera is safely installed. I really enjoy the new "face" of this camera. I find the solid black field around the lens makes the camera stand out less. It's always tough with cameras to not give the impression of overbearing surveillance, so this helps out. INTERFACE As with other Amcrest cameras that I have used, this camera has the modern Amcrest interface. The preview mode allows for crisp and clear playback on what the camera is looking at. There is a rich set of available features that are very easy to edit and you can also tune your video quality quite easily to help it match up to the environment it is in. The camera also has such a strong feature set that an NVR would not be required due to its built-in functionality. It is also able to have different "backoffice" type settings for things like changing the name and many networking settings including Dynamic DNS. One thing I would like to see in the camera is if the interface could list out what model of camera this is. As I get more cameras installed, it would help to have this by default without having to use the device name, watermark, or manual tracking. It would also be nice if the camera could use centralize user authentication instead of only local authentication on the device. VIDEO The video quality on this camera makes a big step forward. I'm not sure if it's just tuned better, but it's much crisper than my other 4K cameras. The daytime video is really great. AUDIO The audio on this model is pretty good. Seems to be less tinny and garbled than other ones I have used in side-by-side testing. POWER My camera is powered by PoE. While in standalone live preview mode, I have noted that the camera draws between 2.3W and 3.2W. Once again, this is the best that I have recorded with Amcrest. SUMMARY This is the best Amcrest camera that I have used so far. Really great to see how they keep developing their products.

I have been involved in the security business for over twenty years on a commercial level and started when everything was analog, using coax cables to each camera and such. So, this gives you some background for my review. These are not commercial level cameras like Axis, Bosch, Honeywell and so on BUT for the price (especially when they go on sale) they are worth it. I have seen them used in commercial environments where cost was a huge factor ($100 compared to $1000 each and up.) but where HD, WDR and H.265 video compression is required these fit perfectly! I own several of these now and use them on my rental properties. I have a few in my primary residence and will replace my older ones with these POE cameras as they die. They have the same (if not better quality) than their competitors on the market like Dahua, etc. Everyone needs special features based upon their needs, so this statement isn't to start a comment war. :) The IR doesn't really go to 98ft but if you need to see that far, then buy an IR extender/panel. ANY camera needing that type of distance for nighttime vision you will need an IR extender/panel. The microphone works great but it's not two ways. I use it to pick up speech if someone is at an entrance and just standing there. The wide-angle lens with the WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) really makes it better for viewing. Think Axis low end camera quality without spending $700+ per camera. It streams one of the latest video codecs (make sure your NVR or storage device supports it) which has great compression and saves a ton of storage space. It comes with a SD card slot which is very helpful. If someone breaks in, most of the time they will look for your NVR or computer to grab that to remove evidence. Having a SD card gives you a backup at the camera level if they take your recording device or cut your Internet or Fiber before breaking in. Always go with the worst case Scenario! A few additional things to remember as well. FPS (Frames per second) and motion activation. If you are new to this, you might think that you need to have the camera recording full resolution and 24/7. That is never needed unless you are at a military base, airport, or other super high security facility. I highly recommend 7 frames per second for general use if you need 24/7 video capturing. Now there is a twist to this. You can capture 7FPS but when the camera senses motion it can trigger to capture at 30/60 FPS. This will give you 24/7 and full capturing of whatever comes into the camera view. I recommend interior cameras to be set at capture upon motion at full resolution and full FPS. There is no need to waste storage space on stairwells, hallways, nighttime only cameras or anything that you do not need to view/capture unless there is movement. You will save a ton of storage space. Always have the cameras (or NVR) grab screenshots and send them to you or a cloud storage device. Again, this will notify you and allow you to have a copy offsite if something happens onsite. Burglary, fire, etc. Use a storage calculator! I cannot tell you how many times I have seen where the storage space does not meet the client's needs. Then the storage device does not expand, and they must start over again. Figure out how many days you want to keep the recordings. Now remember, most new systems will send a copy to your Email or Cloud server when capturing events, so you do not always need the typical thirty days. you can get away with 7-10 days before it overwrites the information. This gives you plenty of time to make sure you have a backup, etc. Now commercial and government installations have legal requirements for storage and public records requirements so make sure you build the storage based upon your needs. ALWAYS ground each camera and ethernet cable to save the rest of your inline equipment. I say for all installations, not just for these cameras. Any surge or lightning strike will fry the device BUT properly ground will add a layer of protection for greatly reducing the factor of destroying everything connected to the switch and more. You can find dedicated inline devices for this. Remember though, the device needs power over ethernet (POE) so make sure you buy one of their power injectors or make sure your switch that you are plugging it into supports POE. For the price, features, water resistance, etc. I recommend this camera!

TLDR- Great camera with better image quality than my other security cameras. iPhone App needs work but usable Camera Night - Night view is better than my other cameras in a similar price range. I am able to more clearly make out objects around my driveway. Day - Daytime color accuracy is better than my other cameras as well. Colors are less saturated out of the box using auto settings. There are quite a few manual sliders you can change to get the image just the way you like it Viewable area - This camera has a much larger area of view than my other cameras. It was one of the first things that made me say WOW. I could see way more of my yard. Clarity - using license plates as I test I was not able to identify any further than 60ft away during the day in good light conditions, which is about the same as my other brand narrow view 5mp camera. H.265 - compression worked well and was easy and straightforward to set. You do have to manually set this in setting and is not set by default. SD card slot - is a very nice feature to keep from having to have a NVR or VMS. You are able to watch any triggered footage from your Amcrest app on your phone. It is also handy as backup footage should your other system go down or get stolen. POE - I love that this camera is POE. I prefer the ease of just plugging my cameras into my POE capable switch and not messing with other cables or connectors. 2 Apps - Amcrest Cloud and Amcrest view pro Both easy to use but in my opinion need some work No way to get IP address of camera in either app You can set IP to static but you cannot choose the IP you would like to set it to without using a web browser and going to the assigned IP which you have to use other means to find Unable to format/setup SD card via phone app. Must use management from web browser Unable to update firmware via app must manage from web browser Unable to upgrade/buy cloud storage through app. Must use web browser Not able to get cloud storage recordings of footage above 4mp even on my 8mp camera Blue Iris Easy to add to my blue iris VMS and worked well. Blue Iris accepted H.265 compression from this camera well with no issues. You can even set Blue Iris to receive triggers from the camera motion trigger events to help save my server CPU/GPU cycles having to watch for motion.

Not like the result. Very bluery

They work

Not a top of the line camera but for the price the Amcrest cameras are usually my most reliable cameras on my system. Some do have random fuzzy moments of low quality compression but overall they are very good for their price and provide an excellent image during the day. Night images are ok, high res cameras need more light to see at night and any built in infrared on any camera is a waste outside. It just attracts bugs and then the motion detection goes off and the night time videos become huge data files of fuzzy bugs flying around. This camera has no needless infrared built in but will require some outdoor lighting to see at night, it can see the infrared though so if you want covert or non blinding night lights for the camera view then this one will function well with those lights.

Amcrest 8mp PoE ultraHD 4K - 2.8mm super wide lens The very first thing I noticed about this camera was the heavy duty construction compared to the other Amcrest Cameras I have. This camera has the all metal housing where my other cameras were plastic. It is very sturdy and strong. Setup and installation of the camera is pretty straight forward, that's one of the benefits of PoE, no need to run any electrical. The video quality is amazing on these cameras. With the wide viewing angle you can view a large area and still have great clarity with the high resolution. My favorite thing about this camera and the other Amcrests that I own is the clarity at night. While it has the night vision technology, I keep the IR turned off. The Starlight Technology provides exceptional clarity and full color video at night with minimal lighting. The ambient light from nearby street lights is more than enough to make my night videos almost as bright as videos in daylight. At just over the $100 price point, this is my top pick camera. It integrates well into any system or can be used with Amcrest's cloud service.