6MP PoE Security IP Camera - Built in Microphone Compact Dome Indoor and Outdoor 2.8mm Lens SD Card Slot Audio Alarm in and Out Compatible with Hikvision DS-2CD2563G2-IS

OK, so I'm going to try my best to be as objective as possible. Some background to help you filter any bias I may have, I usually use Axis IP cameras, because they're not made in China and are high quality. I have used Foscam (Chinese) cameras in the past and I hated them because the cord that comes out of them splits into multiple other cords, which makes it hard to hide cables or run them through walls easily and the web interface also required a plug-in for the browser. With a modern browser, there's NO reason to need a plug-in, which makes me worried this is spyware being added to my browser. Like most people, I do banking using the same browser, so having random Chinese plugins installed is not ideal. An update eventually trashed my Foscam cameras and I swore never to buy Foscam (and preferably not Chinese) again.So, I've been using Axis cameras, which are much more expensive than this Chinese stuff. With Axis cameras, you run a thin Cat 5/6 cable to where you want the camera, clamp an RJ45 (ethernet connector) onto the end, plug it directly into the RJ45 jack inside the camera and mount the camera. Only thing coming out of the camera is a single thin cable that runs all the way to your POE switch. Its very nice. When you plug it in, DHCP assigns the camera an IP address that you can immediately access with your cell phone while orienting the camera to make sure you've got it pointed the right way. Then you're basically done. I was in the market for some new cameras and the Axis cameras that I wanted are backordered until at least next year. I saw these cameras, which are about half the price and thought I'd give them a try. I liked the reported resolution, the inclusion of iR and the microphone. I ordered 1 to test it out:The camera arrives and the first thing i notice is that its got a Foscam-style cord dangling out of it, which is not shown in any of the photos on Amazon. The amazon photos make it seems like a nice neat camera that you'd just plug an ethernet cable into. There is one large cable that comes out of the camera that splits into FOUR different connectors -- 1 RJ45 jack, 1 12V power supply connector, and 2 weird green connectors that I've never seen before (one says audio and the other says alarm). The manual shows several types of camera, all of which have 3 things splitting off the main cable leaving the camera and this one has 4. So it seems the type of camera provided does not match any that are described in the manual. The only thing in the manual that looks like the weird green connectors is labelled "Auxiliary Video Outputs," but as mentioned the green things are labelled audio and alarm, so I have no clue what to do with these things. They each just have a place to connect 4 wires and screw them in. These cables are not detachable from the camera, which means there's no option except to drill a giant 1-inch hole in your sheetrock/wall/ceiling to put all this unnecessary stuff through or just deal with a bunch of cables dangling from your camera.Ok, enough ranting about the bad wire situation; for the price, I just drilled a bigger hole...so I plug the camera into my POE switch. It clicks a few times, the IR lights come on and off if I cover the lens -- it works! I log into my router to see what IP address was assigned to the camera and don't see the camera at all. Ugh. So I look back at the manual and find that it says DHCP is enabled by default, but also seems to indicate that it is NOT REALLY enabled by default. I'm guessing this is a translation error, but it ended up being true that DHCP is NOT enabled by default, which is a very strange decision, and the IP address that your router must be OK with the camera assigning itself is 192.168.1.64. Everything on my network is 10.0.0.x, so I could not connect to the camera. I had to completely re-configured my entire network just to connect to the camera so that I could change the settings, but once I had everything on 192.168.1.x, it appeared and I could access the camera with my browser. To my pleasant surprise, you actually can access the camera without having to use a plugin, although it does seem to want you to install one. No thanks. You can get a low-resolution preview of what the camera is seeing, which is good enough to use to align the camera during installation. There is a much higher resolution feed available through RTSP. So, in the end, I'm going to order more and use these cameras. The image quality seems decent in good lighting (its honestly hard to make out faces in the dark despite the IR) and they're very cheap, however they are very difficult to set up and the cable situation is unacceptable for something meant to me wired through a wall or ceiling. I think the average user might have a lot of trouble getting this up and running. If you aren't already using 192.168.1.x IP addresses or you already have a device assigned to 192.168.1.64, you're not going to be able to connect to the camera without messing around with your router settings. I would still prefer to pay more to get an Axis camera and to support non-Chinese manufacturers, but I can't wait until next year, so these will have to do. I'm giving it three stars. If they enabled DHCP by default and just had a flush RJ45 jack on the camera instead of a wire with all this garbage hanging off it, I'd give it 5 stars.

Decent camera but audio is poor Wouldn’t recommend if you want good audio.