Sunday, March 8, 2015

Product review: Annke SPI Wireless 720P HD Wi-Fi IP Camera


We have bought a number of IP camera in the last few years to watch over an older relative who had a tendency to fall and not press her emergency alert button. I have to say that this camera is better than the ones we have used in the past. I thought Annke is a nice camera and I really liked the app that controls it. The app allows me to pan the camera by swiping my finger across the screen, I can zoom in and zoom out by pinching and spreading my fingers. I have been using it extensively for several weeks and have not experienced any crashes or technical issues. The video is very good during the day and not bad during the night. If there was anything I would change about this camera is I would have liked it to have a slightly wider angle, however because I can pan the camera this is not a big deal.

The setup was very easy . All I had to do was install the app (called MIPC), connect via Ethernet for the initial set up, and create an account. Once this was done I could connect the camera either via Ethernet or WI FI.

The quality of the video is quite good as you see in attached video. I already mentioned that I like the app that controls the camera. It has a lot of nice options and is easy to use. I tried this camera as a surveillance camera looking out of the window. To make it work through the window during the night I had to turn off its infrared mode (otherwise the infrared reflects from the window back into the camera in the form of light). To turn off the infrared option I had to switch the mode from Auto (which switches between day and night) to Day.

The camera can be used free standing or be mounted on the wall with a bracket that is included in the package. The bracket can also be used as a stand if you want to tilt the camera down (say on a window sill to have the camera point to the front door from the second floor of the house).

The camera can record to a micro SD card (max card size is 32G).

The camera has several recording modes. You can schedule recordings to occur between certain hours. This is handy if, for example, you need to fit more video on the micro SD card.

Alternatively, you can have the camera start when it detects motion. There is a setting which allows you to control "motion detection sensitivity". You can use it to tune the camera not to start recording when wind moves the leaves on trees yet record when someone comes to the door.

I have been using the camera for several weeks and so far I am quite impressed with it and had no problems. I am especially pleased with how I can control the camera using the app.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★

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