Tried a WYZE v4 first but turns out it was about as useful a camera as a brick would be.
It would NOT connect to my WIFI from either of my routers(I have a Xfinity modem/router but it's old so I bought a Netgear Nighthawk some years ago to boost the signal at a one time cost rather than renting extra equipment every month from Xfinity cause they refuse to replace anything that's outdated), it would NOT get detected by the WYZE app whether I used the same wifi signal or not so I couldn't even troubleshoot it since the app didn't know it existed in the first place. To make matters worse it costs $45 which is the most expensive brick I ever owned in my life so I returned it for a full refund and decided to try 1 more time with a cheaper but comparable camera. That's when I picked this up.
I went in a skeptic assuming I would have the same problems as I always did with WYZE(tried a v3 or maybe v2 years ago, same problem as the v4 so I guess WYZE is just incapable of actual improvement and favors dumb gimmicks instead. The only thing that changed was the app layout which admittedly LOOKS better now but looks can be deceiving...)
Turns out I was wrong and NOT every camera on Amazon is an overpriced pile of junk! This camera is half the price, connected immediately with 0 delays and functions exactly as advertised. This cameras App has performed nearly perfectly and I can even move this camera FAR from my router without any impact on the signal quality. I can keep my phone on 5G and STILL use EVERY feature on the app. I can also be far away from my router, house, and this camera without losing any features. That means I can get notified of activities, pan/tilt manually, toggle NV, change app settings/schedules, set up to 4 viewpoints, set detection zones in said viewpoints, record manually, turn the status LED on/off, download recorded activities(manual recordings OR detection-based recordings) and Etc...
The cloud service is cheap but in a GOOD way. Only $3/month per device(up to 4) or $10/month for up to 10 devices which is extremely affordable.
The quality of videos is very good IMO although I do wish the Frame rate was a little higher(I don't KNOW the exact Frame Rate but I'm a big time Gamer who just loves loves LOVES to toggle his FPS display ON and set it to high accuracy mode.) Based on what I have seen so far I think it's about 10-15 FPS so really fast movements will look like a smudge but natural movements shouldn't have that problem. It might not be the BEST option for monitoring(I don't know WHAT is cause this is only my 3rd attempt at finding a decent camera for basic monitoring but it's gone above and beyond my expectations at this pricepoint.) I'm actually about to get 2 or 3 more of these once I finish and submit my updated review.
Some notes:
When you plug it in for the first time it will probably start moving suddenly on it's own, this is NORMAL. It's a way to test the motor and range of motion for the pan/tilt feature and can be done manually in the app as well. I've moved to different outlets twice now and it has not done that on it's own either time leading me to believe it's only a one-time automated check up of sorts.
By coincidence, I found one minor flaw on the app which I'm not sure was a fluke or an actual Bug. I was watching a live video feed and tried to manually record something I wasn't sure would trigger motion detection but apparently it DID and my fool self forgot about the minor delay so it popped up in my notification panel "Activity detected on ___" but did not appear in the app right away so I refreshed it. When I went to reciew download it
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