FOSCAM 5MP Security POE IP Camera Outdoor/Indoor, T5EP 3K Home Security Surveillance Cameras with 2-Way Talk, AI Detect Human/Vehicle,Color Night Vision, Spotlight, Compatible with Alexa IP66

As a retired Tech guy, I am always tinkering with LED lights or IP cameras, much to my wife's dismay.I had an Amcrest camera looking out on the side yard from a window, but the glare made it useless at night, so I purchased this FOSCAM camera to mount outside high up on the exterior wall of the house. The setup was very easy, with a voice confirmation over the internal speaker that it connected successfully. The other thing that was a nice touch was that the dongle had integrated link lights to visually confirm the connection.Because of the roof line and where I needed the camera to point, I purchased separately a universal mount. Not the camera's fault, just the way the house is set up. Very easy to mount with a few tapcons. 640x480 resolution, but very clear on both the computer and iPhone. It has a built in spotlight and color night vision, all great for the price point.All of that being said, I do have a sophisticated Ubiquity UniFi network in the house, with multiple switches, and all of the video is motion activated recording to a Synology Disk Station NAS, although you can record to an internal micro sd card. Getting it all configured requires a basic knowledge of networking. First of all this is NOT a wireless camera. It requires it to be powered via the ethernet port, which means that it must be plugged in to a POE switch, POE NVR, or using a power injector. In short, this is a wired ethernet device sitting on your network.Just know what the parameters are, and if the above description sounds complicated, FOSCAM has a number of cameras that will connect easily to the wifi in your house.

The FOSCAM T8EP IP PoE Camera is the latest addition to my family of Foscam equipment. I have about 15 Foscam cameras spread out over two properties.This unit was easier to set up than earlier Foscam cameras. I’m guessing that they have upgraded the setup software in the cameras to make it much quicker to load the operating system and grab the network. You simply plug it in to a PoE network cable and wait for it to prompt you and then go to the Foscam app, click on “Add New Camera”, point the phone at the QR code, and it’s up and running within 30-60 seconds.Resolution is incredible. You can read license plates from a distance, small print on boxes at 20 feet, and identify faces easily across 30-40 feet. I like the ability to do the AI detection within the camera itself instead of having to use a cloud service. That means there are no ongoing fees to use the system.I personally put an SD card into each of my cameras and then if there’s an alarm, the first thing I do is download the videos to my phone for storage. That alleviates the bandwidth hit on the network from continuously streaming videos to a server or the cloud for backup.The only problem I have with this camera is how it’s mounted and aligned. Instead of the usual gimbal arm, this unit has the camera sitting in a two piece mount. You need to align the camera to whatever view you desire and then twist the outer mount portion and secure it with a set screw. Once the set screw is tightened, you can’t move the camera at all. This makes it difficult to do small adjustments if the camera gets out of alignment when you tighten the mount. A minor issue, but easily dealt with if you hold the camera tightly when you secure the mount.All in all, another excellent product from Foscam!

My wife is in the process of setting up a new business. In the past she has used NEST cameras to monitor the front desk, however with NEST's upcoming price increases she wanted an alternative, and also wanted a multiple camera system, which get expensive with NEST cameras. She needs to record 24x7 with 30–60-day retention and easy access to the video, and that can also get expensive with Cloud based services.For year I've used various Foscam Cameras recording to an Raspberri-Pi. The Pi runs 3 docket containers.: an FTP Server; a process that repackages the "mkv" files generated by the Foscam cameras into "mp4" format files and a Samba Server that exposes the mp4 files to Windows clients. Using a Pi and docker containers, makes it cheap to purchase, easy to install/upgrade and has zero ongoing costs.We purchased 4 T5EP cameras for interior use and 1 V8EP for the back door. All the cameras were easy to configure via Foscam's VMS software. The VMS software also allows to monitor the cameras in real-time from the front desk. This is the first time I've used PoE (Power over ethernet) cameras, it was very easy to place the cameras where I wanted them, since I only had to run an ethernet cable (I used a Netgear GS308EPP 8 Port Switch to supply power to the cameras).Using the VMS software it was very easy to configure the cameras to record to FTP Server. The cameras automatically switch files at 256MB, which appears to be approximately every 10 mins. Overall, we are very happy with performance, quality and ease of use of the camera. My only nitpick is I wish they came with a wider-angle lens would provide a better FOV.Picture quality is excellent. We have them configured to capture a still image when their internal detection detects a Human being which provides us with an easy-to-use index for the recorded video stream.Overall these latest Foscam cameras were cost effective, easy to install and configure thanks to Foscam's VMS software.