I have a number of PoE IP cameras outside the house and I have trialled budget brands including S3VC to more premium end Unifi G3-Pros.
The AMCREST IP8M model had a deal on Amazon so I thought I’d give it a go. My video of the unboxing and quick install can be found HERE on YouTube but in short, for the money a really good camera and I was installed and away within 15 minutes.
You will need the default username and password of admin:admin to access the camera’s control panel. You will be prompted to change this when you login for the first time. From there everything is really intuitive and easy to follow.
RTSP path: rtsp://user:pwd@ip:port/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0
Note you should add a new USER in the camera control panel and make sure it has read-only access to the live stream.
EASE OF INSTALL: 8/10. Demerits for a large hole needed for the RJ45 connector and redundant power connector. I also had to contact support for the RTSP path.
BUILD QUALITY: 9/10. Demerit as above.
IMAGE QUALITY: 10/10. Now also viewing at night the quality is good. The wide angle is great.
USER INTERFACE: 10/10. Very neat and has all the features I’d expect and more. I’m only scratching the surface of functionality and it looks like the camera is designed to join a much bigger eco system if you choose.
Whilst I am connecting this to Shinobi for CCTV monitoring, Amcrest provide a paid for cloud service and the admin control also appears to allow direct mounting for a NAS. I haven’t trialled these features yet.