Amcrest View Pro

I Use BlueIris to control my cameras and record and that works great. I’d be happy with this application if connecting to cameras and adding cameras was more consistent and easier. I use a VPN so my cameras aren’t visible directly on the internet and at times the app just doesn’t connect to the camera (I see others talking about this same issue). I could live with that but adding a camera is a pain. The WiFi connect only rarely works and is useless if you’re away from home anyway. If the app simply had the ability to add an already configured camera by IP address things would be so much better. Every time I get a new phone I have to go through the unnecessarily painful process of adding cameras through their process again...ugh! I’d even pay a couple dollars for the app if they would add that one simple feature.

I just bought the 720 camera and connected it. I followed the prompted guide on how the app works and it seems pretty straight forward. No issues thus far. I only have one camera, but if you tap the top right button to select your camera or add camera, it doesn’t seem to be difficult if you have multiple cameras and there is a feature to monitor multiple feeds at once. I’ll prob get one more camera in the future. I will be using this mainly as a baby monitor. It was a great deal on Groupon during Black Friday and I couldn’t pass it up. Does what I need it to do, see my baby via my phone ( instead of a stand alone monitor I’ll have to carry around.) I don’t plan on using the camera while away from home so the issues about logging onto the app while connected through a different internet source (cell or other WiFi) doesn’t apply to me. I also had difficulty setting up the device via WiFi so I used the Ethernet cable and it was quick. I could unplug the camera and move it with no problems reconnecting. I noticed a few people mentioning network re-setups was difficult, I would just factory reset the camera to default and reconnect. Seems faster- per the manual online- (reset button/light is next to the Ethernet plug, press and hold for 10 seconds- for the WPS, push once and release reset).

If all you need is a camera to record a motion event day or night, the cameras work good. However, if you want an app in order to access and change settings, view events, add a new camera, etc., THIS APP SERIOUSLY STRUGGLES! The ease of use lacks tremendously. You have to constantly bounce back and forth between the menus and options in order to figure out how to make something work correctly. I find myself having to keep adding my cameras into the Live View mode because some other option/function has removed them. Most recently, one of my cameras (camera A) pushes a notification of an event. When I click on that event on my smartphone’s home screen, the app tries to load another one of my camera’s (camera B) recordings. I am then prompted that there is no recording on camera B. I contacted customer support and they had me double-check different settings for camera A. All which turned out to be set correctly. Amcrest prides themselves on having US based customer support, but giving an Indian the name “Dexter”, “Mikey”, “Joanie”, “Trish”, etc. when there clearly is a couple of oceans between America and where their accent places them, does not fool me. Step up your game Amcrest. There are other products out there that work seamlessly and have a better UI than your app.

Two years using this app and now, on my latest iOS version I’m still able to access my Amcrest cameras without any issues locally and remotely. All free and no cloud charges. I recently have to reset my iPhone to default when I sent it out for repair, afterwards the app reinstall and setup was as smooth as when I started using this app two years ago. My only complaint and the reason for the star deduction is the lack of macOS web support for their 2018 NVR. I had to do my NVR playback and settings directly from the NVR, remote setup in macOS Safari not supported. Tested this on macOS versions from Sierra through Catalina. As I mentioned earlier, livestream works in iOS but no access to NVR playback. I can see the NVR and do some settings but playback is no show in iOS. Overall this should be 3.5 stars, so I’m being generous with the 4 stars. My other fib is Amcrest newer models that is not compatible with their own NVR, I needed an outdoor camera and had no choice but to purchase a different brand (Rio solar powered) which is also not compatible with Amcrest NVR.

As far as the camera goes it works great ( I only wish I would have bought the 1080p), one huge thing that needs to be added though is the option to force the camera to stay in either day or night mode through the app. In dim lights it will constantly switch back and forth and it is very annoying when it does, especially the clicking as the IR lights switch on and off. We use as a baby cam and it’s woke our son up from naps when it gets in one of its moods. That’s my only real major complaint though. The phone app is also getting much better and they are definitely making strides in improving its reliability. As I said though one big feature needs to be added. When you set the camera up you need to make sure it’s either wired or linking to a 2.4ghz signal, it does not support 5ghz which would be a good feature in the future. Also make sure you put the app on your computer and do the firmware updates once a month or so if they are available it will keep things running smoothly.

I purchased an Amcrest Pro HD Wi-Fi Camera (IP2M-841) about a year ago and was completely satisfied until about a month ago. Thankfully, it was not the camera’s fault, but I didn’t find this out until I purchased a replacement camera! My internet provider changed out my modem (an upgrade). While I saw better speeds on my internet, my camera stopped working. Trying everything I could think of, I decided the camera my have been damaged by a surge due to recent storms. So, I ordered a new camera, the same type as before. When it arrived, I tried to connect and had the problem I had with my original one. After some additional research, I discovered the modem was a 5 GHz and the camera requires 2.4 GHz! My internet provider was able to split the signals and the camera is working again! Too bad that I ended up with an additional camera but I’ll find use for it...you can never get too much of a “good” thing!

The App has good intentions, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s incredibly complicated to navigate. Sorry, Amcrest, but this camera is getting shelved and replaced by something much better. Among several other issues, here are the main points of contention: The settings do not specify the effects of changing certain values (e.g. no noticeable changes when altering “Anti-Dither” and “Delay” settings. Another: the camera will not record video and photos to the SD card when prompted by motion. You have to view little bits of video and a very rough playing slide show of photos to see what triggered the recording, then it’s up to users to snag their own screen shots or save the files. Another: as other reviewers have mentioned, you constantly have to bounce back and forth between menus and remember to save every change in order to get the camera working. There are several other small hiccups that make this app very annoying to attempt to use. It’s very possible I’m just not programming the thing properly, but there’s no way this app should be on market yet. Needs a ton of work.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and range of the cameras. The 1080P resolution and ability to zoom in real time, as well as in playback mode is a plus. We also have three Arlo cameras and base station, that while offering an equally exceptional video feed, tend to devour batteries regularly. But Amcrest’s wireless configuration, while powered by 12 volts and with greater range, limits your camera locations to within reach of an AC outlet unless you ha a 12 volt feed (we use our 12 volt emergency power source to power the cameras which view the exterior of the house). Both systems require AC power for their network interface, and since our network hardware is on a UPS, we receive notifications regardless if the power fails. In conclusion, this system gets four stars, only because of the somewhat confusing setup instructions, which in my opinion, lack the detailed information necessary to confidently interpret and understand the software interface, unless you are somewhat “tech savvy”! This camera and system is of top quality and is built very well. After several systems of considerably less quality, Amcrest is a very much welcome and pleasant change of pace, which earns it an overall rating of FIVE STARS!

I’ve been using Amcrest for many yrs now. Not only have I installed numerous systems of my own but also many others with Amcrest. There have always been little issues that could be better but the pros outweighs the cons. So, not only have I recommend Amcrest to many others, I bought an entirely new system for the new house we just moved into and have the old one away. After numerous issues with the NVR and how they have changed many of the settings such as “scheduling the camera to change day/night at a specific time of day” are only accessible if you log into your computer and go through several steps from there. Finally, I got most of the kinks worked out and was fairly happy with everything until two days ago, I can no longer view my cameras from my phone. I’m not a novice with the app since I’ve used it for all of our systems and from two business locations. So, hrs of checking cables, rebooting, checking settings, checking to see if was my, internet, WiFi or phone etc etc etc. I’ve come to realize that the app simply will not connect to my cameras/system no matter what I try. I can access them if I log into my desktop with Amcrest config but not through the app. It’s now 11:36 at night and I have to go wot work early in the am and I’ve spent countless hrs fooling with this stupid app and system to no avail. Feels like I’ve wasted nearly a thousand dollars on this entire set up.

Its just hard to understand who is responsible for this software and if that person really understands that a useful app is when it is not complicated to setup. Please learn from others like Ring, or Axis. Their setup is easy and it works as you expect. You have options like: threshold, anti-dither, sensitivity, delay, regions, latch. Why? And none of them is clear enough to understand what it does. It’s frustrating. Snapshots are a low resolution, and where are the recorded motion detection videos? Really if I didn’t cost me much money I would just throw it away and buy a set from someone else that works. I am just stuck with you and hoping that you will hire people to build a software that will work for any customer and that will be easy to setup. Don’t look for excuses. Just start from scratch and fix the issues that people. Read the reviews, those are terrible. Just to end on a positive note, the image quality and video from live view is very satisfactory. Thank you for that.

As many have said, the cameras are great, but the purpose of purchasing the camera for me was so I could use the app when I’m away from home. This is even more important with how much I travel. When the app works, it’s not that terrible. However, I receive a “Failed to connect...” error constantly. Sometimes shutting off my phone and restarting it allows the app to work, but this is rare. Instead, I have to uninstall the app and reinstall it. This poses an incredibly challenging problem as this happens constantly when I’m traveling. I can’t connect to my camera after reinstalling the app if I’m not on my WiFi and don’t have my camera handy. I shouldn’t have to hold my breath every time I open the app and hope to high hell that the camera actually connects. Please fix this failed to connect problem. At this point I’m ready to buy a different brand just so I have an app I can rely on.

Amcrest Technology is like something out of the stone ages before you go buy expensive cameras and expensive NVR’s save yourself some trouble and go with a Reolink or another brand that actually supports their products with Regular firmware updates. The app itself is not user-friendly if you can get the cameras to load up which is hit or miss going through a recorded motion video is not the best experience either It seems incredibly over complicated for what it should be if you decide to purchase an NVR to record the cameras the user interface is like something out of the 80s I’ve seen cheap Chinese set ups that are easier to use than Amcrest stuff. The latest firmware update for my nvr was over two years ago and I’m pretty sure they just gave up supporting their products and especially their app. Unfortunately I have eight cameras and nvr so I either have to swap everything back to Reolink or just deal with bad technology.

You know this company does not have an IT team when it developed 10 different apps instead of one. Each one is just slightly different and a complete waste of time. Need help and try to call? Have fun spending 10+ minutes waiting for someone with the hold message on a glitching repeat. It’s a 5 second message on constant, glitching repeat. It was the most miserable experience of my life. Trying to get your camera from your iPad to your iPhone? You need a computer and you need to download 3 MORE DIFFERENT SOFTWARES to do it, and it’s still not guaranteed to work. This is the worst security design I could ever work with. Literally, if the person who gave me a set of cameras did not pass away (and thus being one of the last gifts ever received from the,) I would throw it all away bc it’s just not worth it. The system is not secure and so poorly designed. This must be the most weak and hackable security system I have ever seen.

Wow. I know as an engineer I always want more options, less fluff and better performance over looks but this takes that to the extreme. For a customer facing app this surely makes me reconsider my purchases of Amcrest cameras. My wife wants to know how to view our cameras and man I don’t want to tell her cause this app is just so complex and confusing. From setting up cameras to viewing even live stream it’s just a bear to use. Compared to an app like TPlink or Wyze, even the reolink I just got, this just can’t even compete. Great sensors. Works fine with Synology and honestly I default to dscam more than this even for live stream because even though it’s difficult, this is even worse. You set up your camera via IP but as soon as you leave the LAN - cameras don’t work! But I’ve got them on my domain you say? Nope ‘login timeout’ Pleas get this app cleaned up and prettied up. You’d win a lot more customers that way

This app is garbage. My camera one day just quit recording after I spent hours trying to figure out the most unintuitive software I’ve ever used. I had it scheduled to record around the clock and it did so...for a little while. Now it just says the HDD in the camera (the SD card, but these devs are too lazy to rename it that) is in “sleep” mode and it no longer records. Of course there are no options or explanations as to why it will no longer record and the app is basically useless now, as is the camera I overpaid for. Stay away from Foscam/Amcrest, they’re a shady company that doesn’t provide a good customer experience nor do they actually improve or update their garbage apps. Use a cloud-based cam system that isn’t built on cheap overseas hardware and sketchy retooled apps that don’t work. Local recording is supposed to work and works flawlessly on my other cams. These guys just want you to pay for the cloud storage, so go pay for it with a better, quality company, not these clowns.

We have high-speed cable Internet provider with any higher than average accounts peas. I confirmed with the company before purchasing the required download and upload speed‘s. How are speed‘s testing from the same speed test site has posted p.m. crest website produced extremely high speeds 10 times what was required. So I don’t anticipate any problems with speed. The camera works with the app as was described on the website and explained by the technical representative. I will test the system while I’m at work this week. We purchased the network video recorder with the system as well thinking we could utilize the recorder for our video library as opposed to a monthly online streaming fee. Have not set that up or tested it yet I will update my review when we do.

And possibly a scam to boot. This camera works when it wants to and has decided it didn’t want to work EVERY time I most needed it to. I just watched it NOT detect the very same motion it detects (when it FEELS like working) up to half a dozen times (for the SAME motion, which is better than when it doesn’t work at all) because when it DOES manage to work, it still refuses to work RIGHT. Oh, and when it does work at all, it takes about an hour to look through the videos because playback is often up to 10 times slower than real speed. And if you call their customer support, without even TRYING to determine the problem first, they try to get remote access to your computer. That might not be so suspicious, IF they actually tried to correct the problem before telling you they HAVE to to remote access your computer because you’re probably too stupid to figure it out on your own. Except I DID figure it out on my own. Enough to learn that their app for the computer is NOT verified through the App Store and comes back as an untrusted certificate. This camera was a waste of money and this app is a waste of a download. This company is a waste of ... everything. Edit: now this piece of crap refuses to replay the recordings AT ALL. Was going to raise the stars until it flat quit working. It’s currently at ZERO stars.

I purchased three cameras and spent quite a bit of time setting them up to work with this app. Our Wifi router died so we had to replace it, which meant getting a new network name and password. This also meant updating the cameras/app with the new info. I've spent hours trying to get them to work, but I can't get them to connect to the new network. On top of that, after deleting the cameras and trying to reinstall them on the app, even with the old camera user name and password, the app doesn't recognize the cameras. I can't reset any of it from the app and the website is even more complicated to figure out. This system isn't worth your time and money. They need to make it more user friendly. (Keep it simple! We want to be able to plug it in and let the app do all the complicated work for us). Buyers, Do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. We just ordered the Nest camera system and expect a much easier time!

I’ve had my Amcrest for about five years. My dad installed these in his office even way before then. Compared to other more popular brands this camera is a bargain. It has everything it says it’s going to do and I can manage notifications from my mobile when I’m away from home. I can check in and see what’s happening even when the maintenance crew is in my apartment fixing things and I can’t be there. I can’t imagine anyone not liking this camera. There’s a trick to the installation of the camera and the phone app where it does have to be connected to the 2.5 because it won’t work with the 5.0. Exceptional camera!!!

Overall, the app is okay and does the job. However, playback control is pretty bad. First, recorded events are marked with a very light green vertical line on the timeline that is very difficult to see. Second, there is no way to skip directly to the beginning of the next recorded event. Third, it’s virtually impossible to scroll the timeline with a high level of precision. Scrolling the timeline of events, you can get close to the specific time you wish to view, but only within minutes. Developers need to add a feature where you can scroll with more precision by sliding your finger or thumb up or down while scrolling to control the level of precision. Fixing these three things would make playback much more useable.

Absolute junk, has to be one of the worst cameras out there. Set up on these is hit or miss, sometimes the initial set up is easy sometimes they wont connect. Good luck communicating communicating with customer service, when you’re already frustrated and then you have to deal with the language barrier it makes it even harder and more frustrating. I put these all around my house to watch my dogs while im at work but unfortunately I cannot depend on these cameras because they sometimes fail me and wont connect. Its very stressful to be away from my dogs and when i go to view them i cant connect. Amcrest must of changed something because the latest cameras ive received connect fine upon initial set up as long as my phone is connected to the wifi but as soon as i go on my phone’s network the cameras wont connect....I DIDN'T BUY THESE TO WATCH AT HOME I BOUGHT THEM TO WATCH WHILE AWAY FROM HOME THEREFORE THEY ARE USELESS!!!!!!!!

The settings for motion detection are a kludge. It’s a complete pain to set schedules that go beyond midnight, you have to have 2 schedules...one that stops at midnight and another that starts at midnight and keeps going. Also seems impossible to easily edit different schedules for different days of the week. The entire scheduling portion needs to be redone. The editing for the “delay” on motion detection is a slider bar, which is idiotic. Just try to set a consistent value, it is impossible. It should be a roll wheel so that if I want 30-seconds that I can get 30-seconds, instead it jumps when you lift your finger. 29, 28...no, you wanted 33. Seriously, have your developers actually ever interacted with this app?

This review is mainly for the app. Look, there is no reason for this app to look/operate the way it does. As others have pointed out, the app and the web interface is clunky and cumbersome to use. I am annoyed that while you can set up ftp storage, you can’t really check playback from the app. Secondly, I set up a schedule and notifications but it really is hit or miss. A lot of us are spending money on these cams and expect that at the very least, basic functionality and design work properly. It is not intuitive. PLEASE FIX THESE ISSUES. This is a good solution for those who want to self monitor but the app/web interface needs a lot of work. I suggest not purchasing any camera from this company. All of a sudden, my notifications for motion stopped working with this app. How is it, that canary, ring, arlo and others can get this right but Amcrest can’t? Come on. Wish I could give this 0 stars.

To be able to buy, install, and monitor with your phone with no monthly fees makes these systems and this app well worth dealing with any small issues others are complaining about. This is my 2nd system. I recently moved and bought one for my new house. I currently have 8 wired cameras and one WiFi. My wife and I can both pull up a live view at anytime on our phones with this App. I’ve never had a connection issue (depends on your internet connection, not an Amcrest issue). Everything works great. There is a learning curve with playback through the app but once you understand how it works it pretty easy. Setup was extreme easy and it’s been trouble free. I recommend to all my friends who are amazed there’s no monthly fee.

My first Amcrest camera was the IP4M-1041W which was connected and configured quite easily. This camera is controlled by my alarm to be powered only when the alarm is on. Everything works well enough including its alarm functions. Then I added an IP5M-C1188EW for outside use. This camera does not support PTZ, yet the the iPhone app still shows the control when viewing the camera. It was a point of confusion at first until I reviewed the camera’s capabilities. With 2 cameras and both on Live View, the swipe to move between cameras works well. Nice. This app works well on both the iPad and the iPhone. Don’t bother with the iPad version of the app, it is old and disappointing.

Can you view a live view? Sure, and it works ok. Can you view history? Hold my beverage. Be prepared for a painful time navigating to access it. EVERY time you leave the playback view, you’re going to have to re-select the cameras and dates. Then, you’ll have to use the inefficient timeline. If you leave it at the default history of 3 days... the green indicators of activities will be impossible to view with the green over gray contrast. So you’ll spend time “zooming” to the timeline which effectively makes the quick scrubbing slow. If you have gaps between motion alerts (say between 2:10 and 3:00), there’s no forward button to quickly jump to the next motion alert. You’ll have to manually scrub the timeline to get to 3:00. And since you zoomed in to be able to see the green line, well you may take more time getting to that event than the video itself.

I’ll start with the good: Camera live view does work well, which is definitely the best thing this app does. Push notifications also seem to work once you tweak things for less false alarms. Now for the bad: Playback of SD card recordings and images is terrible and is in desperate need of improvement. The timeline control is incredibly awkward and jumps around as you try to use it. The highlighted sections that should show when motion was detected sometimes don’t appear at all, especially if you’re scrolling backwards or forwards more than an hour. There’s no simple list of videos like there is on the desktop version. The SD card snapshot viewer is almost comically bad. There is no list of snapshots. You can only choose a 10-minute interval, and the app will just start scrolling through whatever images it finds during that time. Good luck guessing what 10-minute interval you want. Overall, the UI is awful. Amcrest, please hire different UX consultants to actually provide a nice user experience. Fix the UI and make the SD card playback equivalent to the desktop web view, and this app could definitely be a solid Nest competitor. But for now, it’s a really poor implementation.

The new update requires you to turn notifications on and off via the drop down menu. The problem arose when it failed to do so while toggling on and off. No instructions on why that happens. You have to delete the camera then reinstall. Again, no instructions. You must unplug your camera for ten seconds, let it cycle then press the reset button until the light flashes green. Then you must use the QR app on your phone to scan it. It’ll finally ask you to join your network then enter a new password. You’ll notice that there’s a new interface via the Amcrest app. Hope this helps.

Was happy they updated the app yesterday, now it’s buggier than ever. The video is larger but the options are now very tiny and some no longer work. Difficult to see timeline. App crashes when I attempt to delete a saved file. They still haven’t included the ability to add custom sounds to push notifications. I have 8 Amcrest cameras and have to check my device constantly to see which one is alerting me. It’s annoying….and so is the notification sound. Also, when are we going to be able to switch between Live and Playback mode with one-click? It’s even more of a hassle when holding your device horizontally. Currently you have to physically rotate your device, then select menu and choose playback/live. How ‘bout a better update for your loyal customers please?

This is an awesome app for security cameras! It has an easy User Interface and yet you can adjust each security camera to different settings. I have 6 cameras and all of them I am able to change the settings individually. I was getting annoyed because of the notifications I was getting when we were home so I would disable the notifications from my phone settings. Then I would forget to re enable them. After browsing through the app turns out you can set schedules for motion detection! No more forgetting to enable push notifications Easily a five star app for this tech guy! Great job!

When it works it’s great but it stops working intermittently and drops random cameras all the time for no apparent reason. Spent over an hour on the phone with tech support and all cams were working only to have two suddenly dropped again with the ‘failed to connect’ error. My cloud account suddenly won’t connect to any of my Cameras and I was told they were resetting my connection & problem would be fixed within 15-20 minutes. 36 hours later nothing has happened and no response from tech support. If I could do it over again I would not buy Amcrest. Also caused fail on PCI compliance scan due to known security vulnerability on Amcrest cams. Had to invest significantly in special firewalls to deal with the issue after a year of trying to get help from Amcrest.

I’ve had this camera for about 2 years. The setup isn’t as easy as it should be. Then to have software issues. With Amcrest acting like your settings or possibly something you did. No the issues was with the software. 2 years in a row I fail to get push notifications. And yet again they had me reset and uninstall the system multiple times. About an 1.5-2 hour process. Went through settings and everything. Again the only reason I contacted them. Was due to push notifications. Which I explained. Well problem still there. And want me to fill out more contact info so they can email me a solution. Why wouldn’t tech support get with there company and look into the issue.

Is the app ever going to get an update on the user interface???? You push new products but you leaving behind the user interface. The more products you push the further behind the app gets. Some stuff needs attention like better search options for video footage. At least a preview option when searching through playback. Also when searching through video footage the footage freezes and you have to add the camera again forcing you to start over. The product hardware you push should match the app for performance. Anyways just wanted to share my experience. I had Amcrest for many years now and I feel that it was time to say what I been waiting for many years. Other apps make it easier and other customers can agree the app is falling behind.

Everything used to be fine, however, since February 2021 notifications only accept certain emails. Emails that do not have 2 factor authentication. That leaves very few. I found one that was accepted and it tests fine, however, motion still doesn’t notify you. Only health checks. Support from Amcrest is as bad as it gets. You set up a time and they tell you when they’ll call. They’re never on time and leave a message when you don’t answer. You cannot understand their language and they hang up on you after you refuse to provide them acces to your pc from remote. Why would anyone do this for someone you don’t know and cannot even understand. I went to Ring and everything is easy to set up and works great. I am 100% done with Amcrest. Worst on the market.

It sure would be incredible to utilize the iOS’s new picture in picture capabilities so we can continue to watch our kids while doing something else on our iphones I desperately need a grid view for JUST 2 cameras, cuz i only got 2 babies, (e.g., side by side in landscape, and stacked in portrait.) I travel with the camera (used as baby monitor) so I'm constantly connecting it to new wifi networks. it would be great if the app could store a couple frequently used wifi configurations and passwords. that's all I can think of for now, thanks /BUMP - all these suggestions are still highly desired

Looks like a lot of people, possibly everyone is having this same problem. Notifications randomly stopped working. It’s not related to iOS update because I didn’t update my phone until after they stopped working. Customer support claims they sent my problem to R&D weeks ago and now they only send a generic response when I email. Cameras become useless when you can’t view events. Oh and they also at first tried to tell me notifications were working on their end. An obvious lie. Don’t bother calling. They barely speak English and will ask you for all your device and cameras S/N even though that has nothing to do with the problem. Guess we are stuck waiting. Don’t buy amcrest cameras. I’ll be looking to replace them.

Initially I really enjoyed this app up until I bought a 32 camera system and found out this app won’t allow you to view more than 16 cameras at once. If you want to view your other 16 you have to create a favorites list and constantly switch back and forth between the 2 by closing out one set and opening another 🙄. If you’re OCD like me it’ll drive you up a wall especially to see the 16 cams never go back in the same order they were before they were closed out. If all you have is 16 or less cams that you need to watch and playback from this app is great if you have 16 or more this app is terrible!! I’ve asked Amcrest if they plan on doing an update so we could watch more than 16 and their answer was no, there’s favorites lists…

I purchased 3 outdoor cameras and 3 memory cards. Tried using the app to set schedules and view recorded playback but it doesn’t really work. The schedule doesn’t reflect what you saved and sometimes it freezes when you hit Save. The computer browser plugin is the only decent way to set your schedules and download recorded events but this isn’t very portable or convenient. Even with the plugin I couldn’t see any playback content. It was just a black screen. I had to download and play recording with VLC. I hope they fix all this because I want to get indoor cameras as well and only have to use 1 app to view and manage. I had a difficult time with all of this and I’m a techie.

The camera was tricky to set up because wifi didn’t work and I had to try twice with Ethernet and was successful. Give the camera time to light up green. You can zoom, pan, talk, hear, and the night view setting is amazing! The totally dark basement- no light at all- and I could see the entire room. If you don’t like this camera, keep trying to set it up. I still have some questions: if I unplug the camera to move it to another room, will I have to reconfigure it or will it remember my settings? Someday, I will try to move it, but not anytime soon.

I just ordered my camera and received it today. Set up was a bit difficult, I tried to do it straight with WIFI but it wouldn’t work, you have to do Ethernet cable setup. Once it was set up and mounted I was able to name the camera and get the angles I wanted. The camera itself had a few issues, the mobility is slow, which is normal through WiFi, but it supposed to move up and down and it doesn’t. I have to physically move it. The app was a bit hard to understand but I just did the tutorial and learned how to use it. This rating is based solely off my first impression and how I had to set it up. Will come back in a few days to give a better review.

Oh I jumped at writing this review! I have had nothing but problems from the beginning. Yes, the initial set up for phone/pad was simple but trying to figure out all the configuration settings on the computer..... forget it! No real help anywhere but 3rd world support who rarely knew more than I. Look online & you’ll find endless reading of people like me who can’t manage for this to stay online & connected for longer than a day or a week..if lucky. Every time I needed to review recorded footage it was the same thing, NOTHING available, didn’t record to the card or just dropped the (rock solid) signal I have & never reconnected, leaving me with a false sense of ‘security’ 100% of the time. Save yourself, spend a little more money & get something better.

I like the cameras, I have four and the picture quality is great, but it’s always challenging to work with the app. After working out how to add the cameras to my iPhone I downloaded the app to my wife’s iPhone. I got only one of the four cameras to successfully connect to her iPhone after going through the same steps. Looks like another call to helpful Amcrest support team to work out the problem. Once set up the cameras seem to be pretty stable and come back online after power outages. The cameras seems to hold up in the seasonal weather extremes. The glitches in the app keep this from being a five star review.

I’ve had a Amcrest camera a couple of them for years and their great but when you ask for support they don’t know anything I called about the Amcrest iPhone app and when you record from camera that saves to the app I wanted to know how to move that file from the iPhone to your photo section and Amcrest did not know I did find out that if you go to the my saved files section of the Amcrest app and click on the click on the upper right hand corner to a box that has a pencil on it it will let you select the one you want to export then at the bottom of the screen in the middle there’s a button that will export the file to your photos on your iPhone. I’m surprised they don’t know that

The Amcrest cameras are the best per dollar you can buy. I like the fact that you do not need to subscribe to their cloud service to be available to monitor remotely. In order to support remote access you need to set up DDNS with your router. This may be difficult for the average person who is not familiar with router set up. Newer products are easier to setup, but the Amcrest cameras seem to be much better quality. The iPhone app is also improved. The best feature is ability to sync the time with your phone. A big deal twice a year with day light savings.

Love the camera. It has been great for us to use in the baby’s room. We mounted it on the wall so there is a very wide range of movement to the camera. However, you are Unable to pan down with the camera if it is only sitting flat like on a dresser. The only downfall is the app. It’s difficult to re-connect when disconnected and moved. It has too many features and options. We use the bare minimum and it works fine. All the other buttons make it confusing sometimes, especially when you ch age something by accident and you don’t know how to change it back.

If I could give this app zero stars I would. The cameras work great on the Amcrest NVR but trying to view the cameras in this app is next to impossible. It has gotten progressively worse the longer I’ve had the system. It would take a miracle for any of the cameras to load on this app; it might as well not exist at this point. It is completely useless and for the life of me I don’t get why nothing has been done about it. I’m at the point where I’m considering switching out the NVR for a different brand just to be able to view my cameras on my mobile devices. The software is clearly outdated on both their NVRs and remote access apps and if nothing changes, the will be left behind. My advice to any buyer out there, AVOID AMCREST PRODUCTS!!!

The app is solid. Lets you do almost everything over mobile that you can on the console of the NVR. Most of the bad reviews on here are about setup of the cameras, home network issues, etc. The full Amcrest NVR/cameras are not shiny happy consumer stuff from Netgear or Ring. But it works very well. I have 8 cameras and have things setup solidly for remote access. I can view and adjust cameras on my phone on home wifi, cellular data and over VPN. The app is a little dated looking. None of it is extremely user friendly. But it works great.

I received my amcrest camera about 4 years ago as a gift. I let a friend use it to catch some mailbox thieves and taggers before I set it up at my house. Since I’ve been using it, it’s done a great job for us! Our house is on acreage and I can’t see the driveway from inside so having the camera as my lookout is wonderful. It’s also great when I’m traveling and am notified when someone comes in the drive. I’ve used the customer support MANY times and they are so wats courteous and solve my problem. If I had a need, I’d but more cajetas but tus I’ve does it.

The camera works great! The app is so so, and if you get disconnected from the app it’s a headache to be reconnected. I called customer service today and I was greeted by a heavy breather and heavy accent I could barely understand. I had to constantly ask him to speak up, and repeat himself. After what seemed like an hour of trying to resolve the issue, I finally was able to reconnect the camera to the app. BUT the person I spoke with failed to tell me after deleting and reinstalling the app would make me lose all of my saved files which have been cherished memories since my baby was a newborn. In addition, after I unplugged from the Ethernet and put it back in the nursery the camera STILL wasn’t connecting to the app. An hour wasted, and 100’s of memories lost.

Okay, this camera app has a lot of cool features and a lot of customizable settings. Almost too many because apparently it’s too much for the app the handle because it rarely if ever works. First of all it took me forever to connect the camera. And every time after resetting the camera, installing a new memory card or unplugging and replugging In the camera I have to go through the same headaches all over again. Now for whatever reason my camera doesn’t want to record anymore. Was working just fine and then one day after changing memory cards it just decided it wasn’t going to work. It detects motion still and notifies me but does not provide any playback. There has got to be a simpler camera out there right?