HooToo HT-IP206P IP Camera

Here's the pro's. During the day the camera does descent, but not great video.(Blue Iris had very grainy video for software everyone says is so great). The Quality of the video seems to change when you restart the camera. It says 355 degree Horizontal but its actually 360, I marked a point on my window and it will fully rotate to the point in either direction on patrol. Its.well built with exception of dome, its plastic and panning fully up part of picture is obscured by a ring that is 1/4 wide all around the dome and distorts the view, so mount this camera high. Glass would of been better for durability and clearer picture. The Wifi signal so far is good to about 90 feet, that's as far as I needed to go and didn't have another extension cord to test farther. Motion detection works very well.Cons: Night vision- forget it, without expanded IR lights or very bright yard light this thing is nearly blind, the LUX is not low enough. The built in IR lights are good for about 10 feet then fade out fast. The example screen shown for this camera at night are just false. The IR lights would be fine for a porch or small small area. Built in, rotating with camera IR's would of been far far better. Unless your a pro at networking, set up is a bear. You need to first get it working on Lan with IPcamera tool first then after working with your router can jump to wireless, from there to actually seeing it on internet after using a site like no-ip.com to get a dynamic ip address. I know some networking but I am a novice at best, took 2 days to get this to finally work. Using I-Spy free version is the best software to me as it will track and identify any movement or can get a plugin for facial recognition. No other free or trial software including Blue Iris will do this that I found. Without the auto camera tracking might as well buy a stationary bullet camera. con or no there is a minimum of 3 seconds to as high as 15 depending on your bandwidth of lag time for all movements , but seems inherent to security cameras. While I think as many Hootoo is a respectable company, this camera needs minor improvements to be worth its price or at least exceed Foscam and other PTZ IP cameras. Since I see i didn't mention my setup is outdoors. I tried it near porch, and ended up mounting high up on my power pole which has a yard light attached, then added 96 led expansion lights X 4 to cover areas that the yard light couldn't which helps 10X over. If you buy this try the free version of I-Spy software and play with the settings, can make this an interesting PTZ.

Does PTZ really well, great quality lens, fast response from the camera when moving from pre-set to another pre-set. I love the look of the camera it really blends in a looks really professional.The setup was easy just as any other camera is. (I've setup a handful so I know how they run)Interface takes some learning if you don't use the manual to figure it out.Dome and components seem good quality so I hope it last!I haven't ever heard of HooToo before so I was a bit nervous, especially this being the only one that fit my needs, but so far so good.**Update**The customer service is pretty good through email but I just noticed after the first night that somehow the dome is causing weird reflections and the night image is kinda worse then a cheapar bullet non ptz outdoor cam. Hopefully some adjusting or a new dome will fix this issue. Its too bad because the day image is pretty good.Picture here: http://s1.postimg.org/v6dx992u7/Dome_Issue.png

The folks at Sunvalleytek sent me a replacement which was great customer service so I've upgraded from two stars to three stars.The replacement fixed: 1) Focus is off. 2) Colors are extremely bad even for an uncut IR sensor unless it's a very sunny day. 3) The center of horizontal travel is not aligned with the mount. 4) When it detects the limits of horizontal travel one side soundsHowever it's still the case that: Focus is perfect only at maximum zoom because of the lens design. The sensor is grainy. The dome adds significant distortion near the threads. This makes the fully horizontal possition of limited utility. The camera should be mounted high enough that it's always looking down.The new dome is much better than the original away from the threads.The cable is quite short. The POE jack on my Axis is on the end of a five foot cable. The cable on the HooToo is about a foot so you'll have to mount it on a wall or provide a weatherproof box.The IR lights are really too dim and you can't turn them off. My IR floodlight would be suitable if I opted for supplemental lighting.I have several cameras, mostly Foscam but four Axis units. I don't expect Axis quality at 10% of the price but I don't understand the glowing reviews the unit is getting.

First, the description is deceptive. It is not a new arrival when this model came out mid-2013. Not a problem, a good price point for a pan-tilt-zoom camera. I knew I was in trouble when the included instructions were only in German, but the company's website has instructions and downloadable software. The setup software never did find my camera and I ended up having to connect it to my router first, then connecting directly to the camera's built in web server to set it up to connect to my wireless router.It worked all of 24 hours before failing. While advertised as an outdoor camera, the manual says to only use it indoors. It got cold overnight and even after removing it and bringing it inside to warm up, I could never get the camera to connect again to my wireless network. No POE, so you have to use the included power pack which has a short cord. A mess of cables hangs from the camera after mounting it and you would definitely want to protect the whole mess from rain.You only get complete control of the camera if you are using IE as your browser - otherwise you get a limited set of feature control. I was hopeful that this would be a good, reliable product but not this time.