V5EP

I'm going to say this is really a 4.5 star camera, but because I got it on sale and so far it's been mostly meeting my expectations I'm giving it 5 stars. Here's what I like about it. - Image quality during the day is outstanding. - Has a very large field of view. - Image quality at night using IR is very acceptable and slightly better when the spotlights are triggered during motion detection. - Motion detection is quite good. In fact it's light years ahead of the previous camera I had. The last camera would trigger an alert if a mosquito flew in front of it. This Foscam seems to be doing very good at detecting humans and vehicles. If you want more detection schemes (package, face, etc.) then you need to sign up for their cloud package. I don't need anything but human and vehicle detection and I'm happy as of now without the cloud package. - You can define areas where motion detection will take place and ignore areas where you don't want motion detection. For me I just use the entire field of view because I'm out in the country and don't need to define a specific area. - The Foscam app for iOS is rated very low on the app store. But my experience so far with the app does not warrant a low rating. I've had no issues with it, although there are some improvements I would like to see. I'll detail those below. - The camera was easy to install and easy to connect to my wireless network on 5G. - All the hardware you need for installation is included. - It supports RTSP streaming and is ONVIF compatible. - The sound to and from the microphone and speaker is pretty good for the device. - You can enable a siren when an alert is triggered, although I'll never use it because I don't need to scare the Amazon driver every time they bring a package. But someone may find a use for it if they don't expect there will ever be a person in the area and they want to try and scare someone away if they do show up. - The spotlights can also be enabled such that when motion is detected they will turn on at night to help light the scene. A couple recommendations for Foscam as improvements. - I've had a couple false detections for a human when there was no human in the field of view. If you can improve the detection algorithms this camera would be even better. But as I said above the detection on this camera is light years ahead of my previous camera. - I would like the Foscam app to be able to allow me to set a notification sound on my iPhone that is different from my other generic notification sounds. I think this can be done by the developer in the app. - Sometimes it takes too long to get an alert notification. I believe this setting can only go as low as one minute, meaning the camera will only send a notification every minute. So if the detect timer is at zero and it detects motion it won't send an alert until that timer reaches 1 minute. If it just so happens that the motion was detected and the timer was at 59 seconds then you get the alert very quickly. I would like the alert immediately no matter what. When motion is detected send an alert immediately. When motion is no longer detected then reset the detect algorithm. I don't care if I get a lot of alerts. But it would be nice to be able to set these values more granular than they allow. All and all this is a great camera for my use case and the price was excellent. The fact that I still get human and vehicle detection without having to use a cloud service is very nice. I'd recommend buying this if you're looking for a security camera that is in a fixed position.

The V5EP is an excellent POE security camera. If you don’t have an electrical outlet near the camera, it can be powered from a POE switch, or POE Ethernet power injector. It also has a port to connect a 12-volt DC power supply at the camera if you want to power it locally. Video resolution is excellent both day and night. The nighttime color video is very good with just the neighborhood ambient light, or you can use the onboard led white light for color images under any night light conditions. The camera has all the standard features you find on any Foscam camera as well as onboard “Smart AI”. The onboard “Smart AI” works with or without the Foscam cloud service and can accurately detect and identify humans and vehicles up to 60’ away from the camera. False alarms are almost non-existent. You can add the cloud service and also get additional detection alerts for pets and parcels. If you need to detect movement more than sixty feet from the camera you can turn off the human and vehicle detection and use the standard motion detection to detect vehicle motion up to 150’ feet or more away from the camera, but you will get more false alarms from windblown trees, as well as any animals or people walking closer to the camera. If this is a problem, you can use the “detection area” filter to mask out any movement in areas you are not concerned about. Overall, I am very happy with the camera. The video quality is great. It was easy to install and configure. And technical support has been great also.

I don’t typically write reviews, but these cameras are impressive. I have been using Foscam as my security camera of choice for over 10 years now. Over time I’ve seen a better quality product, better software, and better reliability of the cameras and systems. They are easy to setup and use and they also work with my Synology NAS where I back up the recordings. Whenever I had any issues or questions customer service has always been responsive and helpful. Majority of my cameras are indoors, but I decided on the new Foscam V5P after searching for a while since I wanted to upgrade our security outdoors as well. Most of my cameras are PTZ, but this is the first bullet I had and I was surprised how much I like it. I was able to mount and setup the new camera very easily via WiFi. I have all of my cameras setup of over WiFi so I’ve never used Ethernet in this case. I installed the V5P with the Foscam iPhone app. Just scan and it’s setup. The image quality is superb and its features overall cover most of the needs one has for their cameras. I like that these cameras are well built and at a reasonable cost. Would suggest everyone who hasn’t tried the Foscam cameras to give them a chance. They won’t regret it.