Amcrest 1080p WiFi Camera Indoor, 2MP Pan/Tilt Home Security Camera, Auto-Tracking, Motion & Audio Detection, Privacy Mode, Enhanced Browser Compatibility, H.265, Two-Way Talk IP2M-841W-V3 (White)

Firstly, one of the most important things about a security or surveillance camera is operational security. I want access to the video, and I don't want unknown third parties to have access to the video.Most modern cameras fail the second part of that. Another Amcrest camera I ordered was impossible to set up without creating an account on the company's site and linking the camera there. Since the company is in China, this is even more problematic than if it were a privacy-abusing company elsewhere.This camera, fortunately, avoids that trap. Mind you, they will still try to steer you in that direction, but with a little extra work, it is relatively easy to configure without "phoning home".The camera has an ethernet jack and a micro-USB jack on the "back". The first is, of course, for wired network connections, and the second is for power. It should be able to be powered by almost any cell phone charger, although it comes with its own.I connected the camera via ethernet to laptop running Linux. The laptop was not connected to the Internet. I ran the software "Wireshark" to determine the address of the camera (when it comes up, it starts looking for other things on the network).Once I had the IP address of the camera, I was able to log in using the default settings. (I believe it's "admin" and "admin", but you can search for that separately.) After logging in, I immediately had video from the camera in my browser. I also had access to the "Setup" screen, where I was able to collect the MAC addresses of the wired and wireless adapters. (By the way, don't be put off by the lack of a visible wireless antenna — this camera does support WiFi.)I changed the settings on my router to block Outgoing traffic from those two addresses and then I could connect the camera to my network without fear.Once connected, it was simple to pull it up on a browser on my phone or computer. The picture is clear, and in daylight the colors are very good. At night, the picture is still clear, thanks to the infrared leds around the lens, but not in color, of course. (Infrared is essentially a "single-color" light...)The "Network" Setup screen will give you the particulars of the network connections. I have used the rtsp connection to access the camera from MotionEye (an excellent home surveillance software that can run, among other places, on a Raspberry Pi) and the ONVIF is plugged into an app on my Linux desktop computer. I haven't yet searched for a compatible app on my phone, but I know MotionEye is supported in Android.If you're looking for the exact format for the rtsp link, I found the information on Amcrest's site:rtsp://«user»:«password»@«ip address»:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0Some software doesn't require everything there (you may be able to omit everything after the ip address, for example), but that full string should work in software that supports it.In any case, the camera works flawlessly with these open standards, and I can use it freely without sending any video data (or any other kind of data) out to the Internet. The price is low enough, and the build quality seems good enough, that I will likely buy several of these instead of buying parts and assembling Raspberry Pi camera systems (running MotionEyeOS). Since it's difficult to find a Raspberry Pi at the "regular" price, by the time you've added the camera, a case, and power, I think it will be hard to beat the price of this camera.In short, I'm glad I overcame my reluctance (caused by experience with the ASH21-B camera from Amcrest) and ordered this one. It checks all the boxes, and I couldn't be more pleased.

As I've already had over 10 amcrest ip cameras (outdoor and indoor, wifi and poe, even a big one with zoom outdoor), I had no issue setting this one up. For some reasons, its ip was set to statically at 192.168.0.103 with the DHCP server at 192.168.0.1. After resetting that, I was good.The main reason I got this ip camera was to check out the new auto-tracking feature. I was disappointed to see the auto-tracking feature is narrowed down to one little check mark in motion detection section. I had thought it would need to be a lot more controls -- maybe sensitivity, speed, timeout ?At first, with auto-tracking on, when the camera sees motion, it moves... and moves literally away from the moving object (in this case, me). I called in to the help desk but the technical support person did not know how or why. By The Way, I hated the fact that everytime you call in, the first thing they seem to want you to do is to reset the darn camera... and they would refuse to go further if you don't. Sigh... even after I told him I have over 10 of these and I know how they work... Anyway, after getting on to my system and looking around the camera's setting, he gave up (like I knew he would). 2 days later, I got an email from the next tech level rep informing me that he would try to call me the next day. So... it would take 3 days now to get help...Meanwhile, I played around with the setting. I reduced the movement speed down to 1 (originally set at 5 max). And low and behold, it works fine. So now the camera would move and follow a moving object when it enters its view. When the moving object is gone (or out of its view), after several seconds, it would move back to where it was (THIS actually is a good feature... for example, if you set it to your front door, it will follow whoever enters your front door.. until that person is out of view, then it would go back to the front door and continue monitoring. I do like this).Again, as this is the first time auto-tracking is a feature for these lower-priced cameras, it was satisfactory to me. I do hope they would improve and give that function a bit more controls of its own (speed, sensitivity, timeout, etc.)I do like the fact that they are continuing to improve their products. THAT is a good sign. I will continue to use amcrest for a long time and would definitely recommend them.

A lot of performance for a reasonable price, tilt, pan, listen, talk, and camera will send e-mail alerts upon video detection. Video detection has sensitivity adjust and filed of view adjust, very sophisticated for under $100 camera. Irene at customer support was very helpful in getting the e-mail alerts setup. you need to use a third party app password with spaces!

Camera is good overall for the money, but there are some terrible software bugs.1. On power up, the camera does not update the time and date from the NTP server. It defaults to a random date and will only update if you manually log into the web interface.2. The alternate DNS server settings do not get saved on restarts. so every time the camera restarts, it defaults to google DNS, which is annoying since I have a DNS server setup.3. The software presets for the PTZ function don't appear to work.The last firmware update was in July 2021, and it doesn't appear there will be any more, so if these items are crucial to you, DO NOT BUT IT!

I have moved several times and had various internet services, I have always been able to contact an Amcrest tech support to help make sure my device and remote viewing app are working well. Thank you to Kenneth S. for fixing my issues and for your patience with my slow computer! Thanks Amcrest!

This has been a great little camera. I have it included in our surveillance system and since it’s WIFI I can easily move it around the house. I thought I had a problem with it recently, but Amcrest tech support quickly identified the issue to be the USB power adapter I was using. DOH!