Amcrest SmartHome 1080p WiFi Outdoor Security Camera with Spotlight, Built-in Siren Alarm, Strobe Light, Two-Way Audio, Night Vision, 133° View, IP65 Weatherproof, MicroSD & Smart Cloud Storage, ADC2W

The main reason I bought this camera was for the siren. I've wanted a security camera with a siren for a long time, but the only good options seem to be from Ring starting around $200. Besides the insane price, I do not want to use Ring. I believe they have too many problems with their system, and I don't agree with how they openly try to push "cooperation" from law enforcement.Enter Amcrest.I was always familiar with this brand and known them for offering value NVR and POE cameras. But as I was searching for a WiFi camera with a siren, this camera came up. And for only $80 I figured it wouldn't hurt to try.I was pleasantly surprised in so many areas.First, let's start with the video quality. For the price, it's fantastic. For comparison I have several 5MP Reolink cameras around my house. This Amcrest is only 2.1MP (1080p), but man it is crystal clear. For general observation it's great. I also want to highlight the 133° field of view. It's a wide view without distorting the image or otherwise messing with the image.Second it the siren. Now, this is the main reason I got it, and I should have waited to update the firmware before I tested it. Before the setup was complete and I updated the firmware the siren was laughable. But once it was done, man, that thing is LOUD. If you're standing near it when it goes off, it will hurt. My neighbors can hear it across the street, so I'm very, very happy with this siren.The light is great, but the strobe function is only okay. The user doesn't have the option to change the frequency of the strobe, and the default frequency is pretty slow for a strobe function. But I like that it's there, so I take it as a bonus and won't knock the camera for it.The app is one of the better apps out there. It's much faster than the Nest Home app, which is incredibly important since this camera has a siren function so you can quickly get to the camera and set off the siren if needed. But where it really shines is not having to pay for any service to get the most out of your camera. As long as you install an SD card (max size is 128gb) you can get the full functionality of this camera. That includes motion sensing (user can define detection zones), and playback WITH markers for where it detected motion. I think that right there is where Amcrest sets itself apart from other WiFI cameras with SD card playback. Wyze doesn't have it, and I wish it did. It is fantastic!And a little more about the motion sensing. I would say it's on par with the Nest Hello. I consider that impressive since Nest has the power of Google and their insane computing behind it. I didn't get this camera for any motion sensing capability, but I am glad to have it as a back up if the Nest misses something for whatever reason.The setup was also super easy. I did not measure the USB power cable (it's hardwired tot he camera and the end is just a USB A port), but another reviewer said it was nine feet. Because the end is just USB A, you can easily get an extension cable should you need more lead. But the end of the cord has the serial number and a QR code. Once logged into the app you just scan the QR code, enter your WiFi credentials, and that's it. And mounting the camera is simple too. Just unscrew from the mount, fasten the mount to your desired location, and secure the camera back to the mount.And there's a bonus (for me at least) with this camera. Although this camera uses another Amcrest app (Amcrest Smarthome), you can still link this camera to their desktop app as you would an NVR or POE camera. I really enjoy this as I like to keep my camera feeds up on a monitor while at my computer. Amcrest has a quick tutorial here: https://support.amcrest.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039475151-How-To-Add-Your-Deterrent-Camera-Into-Amcrest-Surveillance-Pro-ADC2W-. But it's super easy. Just get the IP off the camera in the app and add it to their desktop app. You can't control the light or siren from the app, but you can get a live view. So for those with this camera as your only one you can get a live view on your camera.I really can't recommend this camera enough. It competes, and in many areas beats the much more expensive competition including the powerhouses like Ring and Nest. a comparable Ring camera is $200 and you're adding your camera to a vulnerable network which has been hacked before, including by its own employees. Buy this camera!

I purchased this camera after trying camera systems from Ring and the Netgear Arlo. The Amcrest camera is loads better than either one of those systems. I also own a hardwired POE system that is 4K and the picture quality on this camera is almost as good. I've listed some pros, cons and some general notes about the camera since I purchased it.Pros:- 1080p picture quality is great.- Night night vision is very good. The picture quality in black and white is very clear.- Notifications on my Android smartphone are quick and the video is quick to open when you click.- Wifi range is actually really good. This camera has plenty of signal on the front of my garage with the router(150mbps) in the middle of my house and I have not had any pixelation. The expensive Ring spotlight cameras I triedhad signal issues placed at the same spot that caused horrible picture quality that was always pixelated and youcouldn't make out what was actually int he picture, especially at night.- I like that it has an indicator light on the front that can be turned on and off.- There is a ton of video settings for the camera. Its actually pretty similar to the settings available on my Amcrestwired POE cameras.- It has a motion schedule.- Motion Sensitivity- You can set motion regions so that you can avoid high traffic areas.- You can get email notifications and email snapshots.- There is also a spot that you can toggle on or off so that the lights or siren will turn on at a motion event.- In the video settings, you can adjust Brightness, Contrast, Hue and Saturation.- Additional settings include rotate the image of the camera, set night vision, speaker volume, mic volume, and theindicator light.- The camera does not require a could subscription to work. Just an sd card is fine.- The camera can continuously record to an SD card or you can get a an Amcrest Cloud subscription to upload themotion events. The Ring Spot Light Cameras and the Arlo system cant do that. I currently have my camerarecording to an SD card 24/7 in standard definition, with the motion events being recorded in HD 1080P. This hasbeen working great. I also have the motion events set to upload to the Amcrest Cloud.- With the camera recording in SD mode continuously and the motion events in HD, my 128gb MicroSD card has storage about 20 days of recordings.- ***Continuous recording works great with one hitch. (See Con***)Cons:- When turning on the light on the front of the camera, I don't like that I have to push the light button twice to turn itoff. It goes Light on, strobe, light off. The strobe setting after pushing again should be a separate button.- The siren is not very loud at all.- The speaker and the mic used for 2-Way talk are not very loud. It could be 10x louder.- I dislike the constant nag about playing videos on 3g/4g. This really should be a one time setting and then no morenotifications.- There's no online web browser website for Edge or Chrome browser to view and save the videos to a PC.- Cloud storage for Amcrest Smart Home cameras is separate from the cloud storage used for Amcrest's wired POEsystems. They also require separate apps. This is not a big deal for those that don't already have a wired system likeI do from Amcrest.- ***Continuous recording saves to the sd card in 8 minute clips. Two problems with that. 1. You have to wait for the 8minute recording cycle to complete before you can view the the last 8 minutes. 2. Its not real clear which are themotion recordings in the timeline view of the microSD card continuous recordings. In the timeline its a small blueline that is easy to miss and in the clips, you have to scroll looking at the times to find the ones that aren't every eightminutes, for example 8:01:35. They need something better to identify the motion clips. I do recognize that there isa different screen to view motion events only. Which is very helpful. I just think this could be improved.- I don't see any way to reboot camera from settings. You would need to manually unplug the camera to restart it.This is not a big deal, I would just like a restart option and maybe an option to set a scheduled restart to keep thecamera fresh like every Sunday at 2AM...- The cloud service did stop working a few times for me, but I'm chalking that up to a new system with bugs thatAmcrest seems to quickly work out.Notes and Ideas:- It would be nice if the the Wifi network selection page showed the wifi signal decibels for the camera to help withplacement. It wasn't an issue for me as I didn't have any signal problems, but if it was a long distance placement, a decibel meter would be helpful.- It would be nice if I could tie these cameras into my Amcrest NVR system that I already use for my POE cameras. Use ONVIF or something.- Saving a photo of the motion event to the cloud and MicroSD card and then showing it in the notification bar on my smartphone would be a nice addition.- No IFTTT support. It would be cool if I could use IFTTT or a routine in Alexa or Google Home to make devices do stuff if this cameras senses motion. For example turn on the lights if it senses motion.Overall, I'm very impressed with the video quality most importantly and functions available from this camera. I love that it doesn't require a cloud subscription service to store the video and is able to use a MicroSD card and still function similar to a cloud service. I liked this camera enough that I purchased 3 more to give as gifts this Christmas.