GEEYA C802 P2P Indoor PTZ H.264 720p Wireless IP Camera, 1/4" Color CMOS Sensor, F: 3.6mm F:1.4 (IR Lens), Email Alerting & Motion Detection

**** Note - I don't work for a camera company. This isn't a shill review. Read my other ones. I'm just a happy Prime customer who buys a lot of stuff, is thankful for reviews from like minded Amazonians, and tries to reciprocate. ****Life is all about expectations. So expect this - this camera is one of many, many Chinese made IP cameras, all with extremely similar (if not identical) hardware and software, many from the same ODM (Dericam, Wansview, Foscam, HooToo, etc.). Yes, they have some software, and some instructions, but seriously - did you really think the instructions were going to be anything other than funny? And the software works - seems fine, small, nothing fancy - a PC based client, an Android client, and maybe something Apple related, I forget. Besides, people with iSomethings are buying Dropcams. Hey, the browser based stuff works pretty good - at least on Chrome - I didn't try it on another browser.I also haven't tried the SD card recording, althought I like that idea. It's also capable of triggering on movement - also haven't tried that, yet. I really don't care about that - I use it as a baby monitor.Forget all that. What you wanted was a good, inexpensive, reliable 720p, H.264, wireless IP camera with a super common Linux based firmware behind it. This is it. Well, I think it's reliable, anyway. I've only had it for a few days, but unlike many people who claim they ordered 4 and 3 were DOA, I had a happy experience with mine. No glitches. No reboots. No disconnects, no curious behavior of any kind. It feels reasonably solid - nothing wiggles or creaks or rattles. Don't even think about using this outside, though, it's strictly an indoor type of thing.I'm a technology professional with 25 years of IT experience. I don't have challenges when it comes to figuring out how to open a port in my router, or assigning an IP address, or sorting out why the camera might be losing signal (I really hate wifi whining when the person puts absolutely zero effort into surveying their house, moving their router, ditching crappy phones, changing out antennas, etc.). So the computer hardware/software part of this - not an issue.But I'm not a super smart "camera" guy. Back when we used to have to buy separate cameras, I would buy a good Canon super compact point and shoot. I'm intimidated by DSLRs. I don't have it in me. I understand the basics. And I can appreciate a well taken photo (thank you, head shot dude, for making me look less ugly and like I work in a cool place - I get why you are well paid), but good enough is a term I rarely apply...except in photography. So someone else might argue anyone who owns this camera should really work on the color correction, image saturation, the PT should be more granular, blah, blah, blah. It's a $70 720p, PTZ, wireless IP camera with 2 way audio (speaker and microphone built in). Remember what I said about expectations, and get over it.I bought it to keep an eye on the little guy in the crib - it works astoundingly well for that. Don't waste your money on crappy "purpose built" baby cams - if you setup your own router and know what DHCP means - you want this. It's reasonably quiet when it pans and tilts. My son wakes up when a fly hits a window three houses over, and he hasn't once asked me "Daddy - what dat noise?", so that's my testing method. And this kid misses NOTHING even remotely audible. Sharp eyed, too. Although I will say the faint glow of the LEDs was one thing I thought would grab his attention, but I guess with all sorts of weird nights built into all his music players, noise soothers, baby monitor, etc - it's just another ring of red lights. Yes - it makes a click when it switches to LED, but it does it twice a day (morning and night) - not a million times, and it's not objectionably loud. If you're trying to surreptitiously record your wife cheating on you, then stop reading this - don't even think about buying this, time to quietly move on with dignity. Please. And as for wireless range - I have an Asus RT-AC66 router with 9db antennas, so I don't have signal or range issues that some people might have (independent of this camera). But if I see an issue, I will unscrew the stubby little antenna on the camera and use $5 worth of much better and longer antenna. Yeah, it unscews - common connector. Nice, huh?. So if you're whining about wireless you can even buy a longer antenna for a few bucks. Or use the wired connection, that does POE, too. Oh, speaking of, the connection lights on the RJ45 jack in the back do blink, just like a computer NIC, even unused. For a baby monitor, you might need a little electrical tape to cover those, depending on it's placement. Not a big deal at all.I will say I was somewhat confused between this camera, the Geeya C802 (in black only, at least that I could find), and the similary spec'd C801 (in white only, at least that I can find). The Geeya web site shows a white version of the C802 (which is what I really wanted), but no one sells it. Both cameras list almost identical specs, but the case on the C801 is clearly a swoopier design. Since I was familiar with reviews on many, many clones that had the exact same case as the C802, I went with it instead. Either would have probably been ok.Hey - the 2 way audio actually works! Most of the time. The microphone works REALLY well. The speaker is funny - it's very clear within a certain volume, but it's so small, it can either distort beyond recognition if you increase the gain on your side or just be really quiet. It works okay for baby monitor purposes, because he/she doesn't give a crap what you're saying anyway. Using it to screen your visitor at the gate? Hook into the external audio connector, please, or use a dedicated audio device altogether, because wind will seriously bum you out. But for resonable listening an occasional and non critical 2 way, it's pretty impressive.In fact, I would still recommend a dedicated audio baby monitor. The batteries in those will last longer and there is little chance of an audio glitch if you buy the right one. If you don't have one - do yourself a favor and buy a Philips Avent DECT unit. They just work. Period. No static, no audio issues. Long range, sensitive, lights so bright when baby cries it looks like the police landed on your nightstand - you WILL wake up, just fomr the lights. They do audio WAY better than this camera and your phone/tablet EVER could. And if it breaks, you call Philips, speak to a very nice person who is clearly US based and they Fedex you a replacement. Because they know you can't be without it. Win/win. Yeah, they aren't cheap, but really, they are clearly superior.Anyway, buy this camera. Really, for $70, it's probably not the image champ, it's just a commodity item that you can have a lot of fun with because the community around these types of cameras is very similar to the Android developer community. Fervent geeks who like to help, know their stuff, and love to trick their stuff out. You can count on them for help in tweaking this if you so desire. It's a better image than anything at Babies-R-Us. And you can snoop on the dog when you're out. Easy to move. Just need an AC plug, or POE. Yeah, the AC adapter is kind of cheesy, but so is the adapter on some really expensive phones and other devices lately, so it's right in line with something like this.I'm giving it 4 stars only because...I don't know. I just rarely give 5. I would have to be really postively surprised. And I wasn't - I set my expectations correctly, got exactly what I thought it would be - a reasonable quality 720p "clone" camera, and I'm hoping this helps you in that way, also.

After getting the unit set up for wireless use, I put it in position for monitoring. It took a while to figure out where all the menus were located for setting it up to record on alarm etc. etc. The instructions the camera come with deal with setting up the viewing on istuff, Android, and PC and network setup, not much else.The Good - I will say that the video quality I get from this camera is a lot better than what I got from the Tenvis iprobot3. When I bought this camera, I also bought two of the iprobot 3's thinking they would be the superior camera's. Boy was I wrong. I sent them both back to Amazon for refund. I left a review for Tenvis so I won't get in to that here. I also tested the audio feature that allows talking into and receiving sound back from the camera and it sounded good to me. I thought it would be very tinny but actually sounds clear and good and is loud. It takes photos, as many as you want, and records a video on motion alerts and saves them on your computer wirelessly. That part is outstanding, I just wonder if it can still send those recordings to you if you are off your home network? I will update when I get the chance to find out. The P/T function of this camera works slow but it works.The Bad - This camera has the potential to be a lot better with hopefully a few firmware updates. When I use the Android app and log in to view the camera, it constantly tells me there is a motion alarm. This is very frustrating as one of the reasons I wanted this camera was to alert me when it detected motion. There is absolutely no information in the package or online that I can find that tells you how to set this thing up for recording options. There is a motion sensor setting from 1 to 10 but I still do not know whether 1 or 10 is the most sensitive as the camera alarms on any setting with no motion. The Z function I left out above is because I have yet to get the camera to zoom. I cannot do it from the PC nor from my Android phone. You cannot adjust any of the camera settings on Android with the eyesee app., except P/T and sound. You need a PC for anything else. Not sure about the istuff apps yet.Anyway, I hope the folks at Geeya see this review and try to fix these issues and make some directions for the settings. I would gladly adjust my rating up 1 star if they could address the motion issue.UPDATE**** Ok, I set up the software on my ipad2 and here is where I found the ability to adjust the brightness and contrast as well as save locations of interest or predesignated camera positions. These options are not available from the PC or from my Android phone. I think GEEYA needs to make all features available on all devices for this to be a better device. I still have not figured out this motion alert yet. I get the images and video in time stamped files but there is nothing there when I view them, by nothing I mean nothing that moved. Whenever I go in front of the camera to test the motion, the log that eventually pops up does not have me anywhere in it. It's as though it alarmed for motion but didn't start recording anything until I walked away. I will test this theory later. Still the video quality even in IR mode is outstanding in my opinion compared to the Tenvis iprobot 3.

Pro: The picture in good light is very clear, outstanding infact. Movement of the PTZ is graded and has a wide field. The app (iphone/Android) works out of the box with no weird router port forwarding or setup nightmare - it even allows you to scan the QR code on the base to save you having to enter a device ID.Con: the IR LEDs are not powerful enough to warrant night viewing. Other cameras do this better. The manual is OK, but there is little information about how to use the camera with other software (like a browser, BlueIris or similar software). It would help if the mobile app showed you the IP address and port for a browser in some way, as discovering that is hard work for most people.BTW - default port it uses to gain access for the web interface is 81, so you would need to use something like 192.168.1.10:81 in a browser to view that screen. Of course, your IP address will vary.Summary: good camera for daytime viewing, and as with most clones like this, needs a better manual. For the sake of hiring a document writer *once*, these companies would avoid the same complaints on these forums. Get with it!

Quality of picture not extremely good after a while, loses a lot of the color aspect after a year, went to the 1080 much better picture and color quality.

you cannot get the software anymore...waste of money