License Plate Recognition IP Camera 2.1MP 1080P 5-50mm Varifocal Lens 84 IR LEDs

I bought this camera to add to my home IPCCTV system. It gets old when there is an incident that you capture on a street, and the police dispatcher gives you attitude because you don't have a plate number. I have 21 years of camera and security system installation experience.I have this mounted under the eve of my home, which sits a little above street level. The instructions for this say it should be mounted between 4.5 and 9 feet above the desired license plate view, between 30 and 45 degrees off centerline, and 100-125 feet away. Mine is mounted about 14 feet above street level, about 35 degrees off centerline, and about 100 feet away, so I am pretty close to the butter zone, if not ideal.I spent about an hour making adjustments to the settings at night to find the best for my installation. Of course, I am zoomed all of the way in. I think that is necessary for anything close to this distance. I have the shutter speed at 1/4000 second, which gives a crisp, clean shot of vehicles travelling at the street speed here (posted 25, but most drive 35-40). I would agree with the one other post that I get 100% of plates during the day, and about 90% of plates at night. However, the other post indicated that as a negative, and I feel that this is a great result, especially for a camera at this price. The IP LPR camera that we offer to our customers is from Hikvision, and it is over $500 our cost. That factor turns most people away without even getting to the image. This is designed to view one or two lanes (from an angle) and just catch the plates. You may very well see a small amount more during the daylight hours, but once the sun begins to set, you should see nothing but black screen, with a few headlights, taillights, and license plates when cars drive by.I believe this is a private labelled camera manufactured by Hikvision, it even shows up on SADP, but I won't be attempting to update the firmware. Speaking of which, the firmware reported by SADP is 4.0.3 build 121010, which I think is from back in 2012. It reports to my NVR as 7.5.1.59 (definitely sourced privately). It does work with my Digital Watchdog Spectrum IPVMS (I highly recommend, BTW), but I don't know if it will be compatible with any of the self-contained NVRs (or different firmware versions of each) because of the age of the firmwware.Even with the shutter speed at 1/4000 seconds, vehicles travelling quickly move by the time the entire frame is scanned by the imager from top to bottom. What this does is skew the image so the bottom of the vehicle is always forward of the upper portion. I don't think it is an issue, I just thought I would mention it since I have attached some pics, and I am sure somebody would ask why the cars look funny.Images have not been blurry at all, even with speeding vehicles (probably over 50mph). The only issues I have had are identifying characters on dirty plates, when mist or fog which block the IR transmission or reflection, or when vehicles are missing plates. All of these issues would occur with any other LPR camera, so I only mention them here so people will have a realistic expectation of what to expect.This is just one component of a complete video system which should be layered from minute views like this to general views and overviews in order to catch everything. You need to be able to identify, not just verify.

After using this camera for a few days, I found some additional Cons. Lowering review to 3 stars.This is a pretty good deal for the price with some important caveats. The other POE license plate cams that I had considered were all in the $600 to $700 range.I am using this camera mounted under an eve. It is zoomed in all the way and is targeted at a spot 100-110 feet away. I am capturing about 100% of plates in the daytime. At night, I am capturing 90+% of plates on the rears of cars (where the plate is lit). At night, I am capturing the front plates that are clean and new. On the dirtier ones, I am capturing enough to make an educated guess on the number. I am not programmatically capturing the plates. Just looking at them from the video.Caveat: This camera is for a person who has previous experience with POE security cams. Not for a newbie. Read below for more.This camera is huge. From the pic online, I thought that it would be the size of my other small turrent cams. From mounting base to lens, this thing is a foot long. It is over 2X the size of my other cams. The dimensions on Amazon are accurate.I can't speak to durability because I just got the camera. If it breaks, I'll update the review.Pros:Good PriceReads plates amazingly well for a <$200 cameraWhat appears to be solid constructionReally long zoom lens30FPS at 1080PWorks well with BlueIrisCons:The biggest Con of this camera is its inability to transition between day and night well. At night, the Infrared lights come on about an hour too late. I have an hour right at dusk where there is not enough natural light to see plates, yet the IR is off. There is an on-off setting in the firmware for IR. It does nothing. I suspect that the IR lights are triggered by a sensor that is not connected to the computer inside the camera. I emailed the seller and was informed that there is no way to control the IR manually. When the sun comes out in the morning, the picture on the camera gets so bright that you can't see anything. I have to reboot the camera to fix it. Fortunately, I have been able to automate that.Very poor documentation.The menus are poorly translated into English (for example close means off)There is no in-line help. I had to guess as to what the settings meant.The zoom and focus are manual using an allen wrench and screws under the camera. Not a huge deal, but challenging to adjust while holding my phone to view the image on top of an extension ladder.The up-down adjustment on the camera has detents. I found that one was too high, and the next one was too low. I ended up having to shim the base slightly to get the angle that I needed.