Amcrest UltraHD 4K (8MP) Outdoor Security PoE IP Camera, 3840x2160, 98ft NightVision, 2.8mm Lens, IP67 Weatherproof, IK10 Vandal Resistant Dome, MicroSD Recording, White (IP8M-2493EW-AI-V3)

I received version 2 (V2) of this camera, which is a good upgrade from version 1, of which I have at least 5 in service. The cable break-out junction is now just POE ethernet and a 12V external power jack. V1 of this same model had alarm contact wires, low level (external amps requiredfor use) microphone and speaker RCA Jack's, plus the POE ethernet and external 12V power jack. I haven't used any of those extras from V1 and it just took way more space behind the wall or ceiling to shove them all in. LOVE the simplified breakout cable, even if it does eliminate the "possibility" of adding audio and tamper detection.The base is still metal, includes a sticker template to show alignment holes for predrilling anchors and the large bore hole for the ethernet and power cable.Internals look much the same. If adding an SD card for local capture it sits inside on the lower motherboard. The camera lens can be articulated 360 degrees as well as up and down manually. This is not a PTZ pan/tilt/zoom camera, but with the dome off and the camera mounted, it is very easy to aim the camera lens and get the proper rotation for horizon alignment.The V2 model also has a stylish upgrade for the infared night vision onboard LEDs. This newer model uses 3 high power LEDs concealed behind a glossy decorative ring and looks way more professional than the V1 LEDs soldered to a circuit board mounted around the camera lens. From my observation, this new IR arrangement also helps distribute the IR light more evenly. Comparatively my V1 models with 15 to 20 independent night vision LEDs around the camera lens form more of a spotlight. While this V2 model washes a bit more down and away with a high power IR LED on the left, right and below the camera lens instead of fully surrounding it. The plastic diffuser over the IR LED ring gives the camera a very nice finished, professional look when seen in daylight. When observed in low light, the human eye can see then3 high power IR LEDs glowing a deep red - which meana bugs and spiders can also be attracted to the dome.Setup was a breeze like all the other Amcrest camera's I've dealt with before. I don't use the Amcrest cloud, so I can't comment on that, but connection to an Amcrest 4 series NVR was based on IP address, port number, and user credentials - please change the defaults to protect yourself and the Amcrest name - I have a street camera I share with neighbors and it's amazing to see the failed login attempts from countries all over the world hoping to steal video footage!Overall, I continue to be impressed by the Amcrest brand, at least in the 8MP space where robustness and quality are still packed into each camera at what I believe is a reasonable price point. I'm also a big fan of non-intenet dependency when it comes to security. You can use their cloud based service if you want, but I continue to appreciate that my Amcrest cameras are off-grid and local to my networks unless I want to expose them to public/internet access - bought once with no recurring service agreements and internet connectivity only if desired by me. This may not always be the case, - the Amcrest Smart Home series of devices maintains internet connectivity to leverage their mobile Smart Home App. I'll continue to buy these dome and turret cameras, keeping my images local to me.

Picture quality is great, especially snapshots. Can be used standalone/no internet. CGI API works well.You can configure both video and still images be saved on the SD card, I have it configured to save motion events as videos, and stills once a minute to the SD card 24/7. The stills are NOT frame captures of the video stream but jpg's from the raw data that do not suffer from the video compression.I do not intend to use this with any of Amcrest's online services or phone apps. I have the camera connected on an isolated DMZ with NO internet access. All attempts to connect to the internet are blocked and I connect to the cameras locally from my laptop and home server.Yes, you can provision it via the embedded web server just fine from a PC locally. Most config can be done without needing to install their browser plugin, but you do need to use their plugin to do some items such as motion ranges, privacy masks, etc...By default on power up the camera attempts to create these connections, but the camera is just fine if they are blocked. I find it ironic that their cloud service connection attempt is over HTTPS, however their "security" connection attempt is over HTTP.TCP: config.amcrestcloud.com:443TCP: amcrestview.com:12367TCP: dh.amcrestsecurity.com:80UDP: p2p.amcrestview.com:8800UDP: google-public-dns-a.google.com:53UDP: google-public-dns-b.google.com:53Amcrest vs Dahua:Yes, it's quite clear that Amcrest just OEM's camera hardware and firmware from Dahua. The Amcrest IP8M-2493EW appears to be a Dahua HDBW4831E (not 100% sure on that exact model number).I have nothing wrong with this business model, however I don't see much value in Amcrest investing in re-skinning all the UIs and firmware. Not intending to use any of their cloud services the only plus I see is Amcrest looks to be more consumer focused than Dahua (both in sales and support).Some faults:Whenever you login via the web interface, the camera automatically syncs the time from your PC to the camera, even if you have NTP configured, it takes whatever time you have on your PC and uses it. This cannot be disabled. If the time on your PC is slightly off the camera will step the clock and also be incorrect until the next NTP update.SMTP with the 'other' server option seems completely broken, there are some threads on amcrest forums about this. Mail test fails immediately and it doesn't even attempt to do a DNS lookup let alone a TCP SYN to the SMTP server.Amcrest's "user docs" are horrible. It seems they hired some contractor to simply take Dahua's docs and "translate" them from english to english and replacing all the company logos, providing no useful material. You can download the Dahua's user manual to get a better experience.The back of the camera has the pigtail coming out almost near the side, nowhere near the center. Mounting this camera isn't ideal. I bought one of the mounts (PFA136) which will give you space to store all those cables.Some pros:syslog works, it'll log to my home server just fine. ntp works, etc...The CGI APIs work well. Do a web search for the AMCREST_CGI_SDK_API.pdf and read through it. This is identical (or almost identical) to the Dahua CGI API doc.Some useful items from the SDK. You can obtain real-time still images from /cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi which is quite useful and better quality than stills captured from the video stream.It took me a few hours to write a shell script with wget to list contents of the SD card, and then retreive all the videos and stills on there to my home server.Relativly low power consumption, my switch reports 4W when IR off and 6W when IR is on (on about 40ft cat6).Pigtail:Oh it's almost a dealbreaker. What a horrible pigtail. People who are buying a PoE camera expect just one connection, an RJ45. This things has 5 connections, and "waterproofing" is only provided for the ethernet connection.On the inside of the camera the other end of the pigtail is broken out into 2 connectiors, a 6-wire connector with the Audio and Alarm relays, and a 9-wire connector with Ethernet, PoE, 12vDC, and the alarm ground wire. See my pictures.If you are only connecting the RJ45, you can safely unplug the alarm/audio header and even clip the 12vDC wires on the inside of the housing then chop off the unused pigtails leaving just the RJ45 external with no risk of shorts outside the camera.