PTZ POE 5MP Camera with Audio

The media could not be loaded.  My application is to be able to observe farm animals on a pasture.This is a very nice, solidly constructed, all-metal camera. I anticipate many years of use from it. I selected the POE connection because I have an area I want to cover that is far away from a power outlet and also has weak or no Wi-Fi coverage. This camera meets my needs perfectly. My setup uses Wi-Fi to connect to a Wi-Fi extender about 126 feet way from the router. At that point I have power available and the Wi-Fi signal is still good. From there I use a short generic ethernet cable connected to a POE injector. My injector meets the 802.3af specification and supplies ample power to the camera. A high-quality, 100 foot, cat 7 ethernet cable (intended for outdoor use) runs from there to the camera mounted on the exterior of far side of a metal barn.The camera arrived well-packed in a branded box.Interestingly, the manufacturer supplies a power brick with the camera and the camera has a cable coming from it that accepts the power directly from the brick's output cable. I guess this is intended for initial testing and set up. It works and the camera powers up with it. The problem that I see is that there is no included plug to seal off the cable end on the camera when powering it with POE. There is no reset button.Mounting is a bit awkward since the camera body blocks the lower 2 mounting screw holes. There is no mounting bracket. To drive the 2 lower screws, I had to loosen the 3 set screws holding the camera body to the mounting arm and let the camera dangle from the cabling while I turned in the mounting screws. I made a paper template to know where to drill the screw pilot holes before even trying to hang the camera.There is no way to really waterproof the Ethernet connection. The supplied pieces do not fit over an Ethernet cable connector so are basically useless. The main cable from the camera base to where it splits into the 2 connections (power cable, the Ethernet connection) is 14 inches long. For my setup I drilled a 3/4 inch hole through the barn wall directly under the center of where the mounting arm attaches. I fed the cable from the camera through this hole and make the Ethernet connection inside, out of the weather. When I attached the mounting arm to the barn wall, I used a generous amount of silicone caulk to seal the arm base to the wall.It is also easy to install the microSD card and this area looks to be waterproof when installed.The user manual's set up instructions for the POE camera initial connection are really confusing. This is because the manual is written to cover multiple cameras, including some that connect with WiFi. Luckily, it was easy to set up. I pretty much ignored the instructions and simply connected the Ethernet cable to the router and powered up the camera. Then I ran the IPWizardIII_2.2.5(English).exe app that I installed on my PC after downloading it from the Jidetech website. Software is also included on a miniCD included in the box. In the wizard app, I clicked the "Search" button and it quickly found the new camera as well as another Jidetech model that I currently have on my network. I selected the new camera and then changed the network settings according to my needs and clicked "Modify Network." From there I used a Firefox IE window (Camera web server runs only in IE. Jidetech will have to update this soon!) and entered the new IP address to access the camera's web server. From here I was able to change the password, time zone, and camera name, etc. I was also able to view the camera video streams and control the camera from here.Normally, I use iSpy to monitor all my cameras. Adding this one was straight forward. The iSpy IP Wizard worked, although the exact camera model was not listed. I have include a couple of screen snaps. Hopefully they are helpful.I get good picture and video quality along with decent night images and video in black and white using the IR LEDs. The LED output changes focus as the camera is zoomed in or out. IR range is quite good.A couple of things I would like to note. One, the camera pans horizontally a full 360 degrees and wraps around! As far as I can tell, one can turn it around and around all day long with no limit. Not too useful for my mounting on a wall, but this would be totally awesome should the camera be mounted on a pole. Also, I can conceive of discarding the supplied mounting arm and making a new mount to mount the cam from a ceiling. This might be really nice inside a warehouse or large barn setting!The vertical pan range in the up direction needs to be higher. For my application, from the point where I have it mounted, the ground slopes upward quickly enough so that ground level rises to the level of the camera and above within the range of the camera. I can see everything I need to when zoom is set to 1X but at 20X I just always want to nudge the camera pan up some more. I may decide to adjust this by placing a shim under the mounting bracket to tilt the camera itself up. This is only an issue owing to my particular setup.Overall, this is a very nice security camera and I am glad to own it.Pros:- Excellent picture and video quality.- Good night images and video in black and white using the IR LEDs.- Really good night vision range with the IR LEDs.- Pan, tilt, and zoom are responsive and smooth.- Motion detection works well.- Two way audio works well.- Weatherproofing appears to be good.Cons:- A wall mounting bracket would have been very nice. Jidetech has other cameras that allow screwing a bracket to the wall first and then sliding the camera onto that.- Higher vertical panning capability is needed.- Jidetech should think about supplying a ceiling mount option, perhaps instead of the power brick?

After reading many reviews about the pros and cons of different POE PTZ cameras and features, I decided to give this JideTech POE camera a try. What sold me was the reviews of picture quality, 20x zoom capability and the onboard SD card slot.Camera Installation:After many days of finding the right location to mount the camera, installation of this camera was pretty straight forward. The camera came with the wall mount bracket, but the selected location requires a ceiling mounted pole. So, I contacted JideTech company to get their advice on the appropriate ceiling mounted pole, and purchased the mount directly from them. They also advised to install the weatherproof grommet to protect the RJ45 connectors from moisture build up which will damage the RJ45 connectors over time.Prior to connecting the CAT6 ethernet cable to the camera, I used a network cable tester and tested both ends of the CAT6 cable RJ45 connectors, and verified that all 8 wires were crimped and installed correctly on the RJ45 connectors. I highly advise that you perform this step prior to installing the camera. If the camera is installed 20+ feet high in the air, and if the wires are not test and failed to work...Trouble shooting would be a very very difficult task.App Installation:The supplied manual recommend to use CamHipro, and this app is available for both Android and iOS. Since I own an iPhone, I downloaded the CamHipro app and installed it. Before app registration, I had the camera connected to a POE switch, which was connected to the Router Firewall. Once I verified connectivity on the switch and the camera is powered on (the camera does the dance on initial start up), I registered the app and the camera installation went pretty quick.Once the app is up and running, I used the following steps to add and view the camera's video feed.1. touch on Add or the plus sign in the upper right corner of the app2. Select "IP camera"3. Select "Device in use"4. Leave the default user name and password (admin, admin). Change it after the camera is added.5. Select "Search nearby devices" or Scan the QR code on the back of the camera.6. A list of "Devices on LAN:" is displayed. If you have more than one cameras multiple device UIDs will be displayed7. Select the UID of the camera8. Select "Add to"9. Change the "name:" of the camera or leave default10. Select "Confirm"11. If everything is working correctly, the app displays the CamHipro logo with a small round green light in the top left corner of the icon image.12. Green means success. Blue means something is wrong.13. Click on the CamHipro image icon and follow the initial onscreen instructions13. Done!Image quality and Zoom function:Once the video feed appears, I had to adjust the camera to the appropriate location by using the PTZ features. I find that using the Left, Right, Up, Down arrow to control the camera is quite slow. However, if I use my finger to swipe across or up/down the screen, the camera pan and tilt quite reasonably fast. The longer the swipe the faster the pan/tilt will be.Once a suitable location is adjusted for the initial video feed testing, to my surprise, the image quality is so clear and crisp! I tried the zoom feature, and it is awesome! I can see quite far...like all the way to the end of my street with only 5x zoom! The quality of the sensor and lens on this camera is incredible...So nice and clear!And the auto focus is almost immediate! Man for those that wanted to read parked car license plate, this camera is easily up to the task!Motion Detection and Recording:For the recording to work, I installed a maximum of 128GB microSD card, to the memory card slot, on the back of the camera (kinda tricky installing the tiny uSD card to the SD card slot) . The motion detection was super intuitive and easy to setup. Just drag the monitor's rectangle corner or side to adjust the motion detection area. Once the image is changed or motion is detected, a push notification alert is sent to my phone within seconds of the detected motion, and the camera starts the recording and automatically stopped after roughly 14 - 15s later. This feature is really nice, as I don't have to scroll through the entire recording looking for a specific instance. The recording's time stamp is a really nice touch. Playing-back the recording and Setting the intial playback location of the recording is a breeze, just drag the playback's thumb (the round knob on a slider bar) forward or backward to the desire location, of the recording, and it begins playing from there, easy-peasy!Two way on Audio:This feature is really neat, on the app, you can turn the mic on, speaks into it, and your voice will be heard at the camera (the speaker is located in the back of the camera)...and it's reasonably loud. Audio coming from the camera to the app is so clear. I can hear the birds chirping which I don't normally hear when I'm out side. The mic is so very sensitive, you can pretty much hear everything. If you don't believe me, buy this camera and prove me wrong ;-)Summary:Overall, I'm really impress with this camera and the many useful and functional features that packed into it. The image quality is amazing for a 5MP cam. This must be attributed to the quality of the sensor and lens. The zooming... all I can say is Wow! The motion and planned recording works flawlessly. Aesthetically, IMHO, it looks pretty professionally good :)If you are in the market for a high quality security camera, this one is for you! I highly recommended.

The video quality is okay the software the camera comes with is outdated and is no longer supported you will not be able to retrieve your videos. Unless you record with a third party software. FTP protocol functionality does not work. I do not recommend this camera. No updates to firmware.