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"but by far the worst thing is that every now and then the camera goes off line"

"it takes forever to login and doesn’t work times out most of the time"

"i’ve got a few other wansview cameras and cannot fault them and the customer service is excellent i would absolutely recommend it"

"my only gripe is the app although it works it will not work on older android devices"

"being returned my wifi is 5g so doesn't work"

"the major down side is the cloud storage it’s very expensive and only one user from the household can view the cloud storage"

"wansview w4 the camera came with all the fixing require to install it to the wall the cable is a little to short to get through the cavity but that’s not a deal breaker i have not tried the cloud based software yet but once i get round to it i will test out the 30 day free trial then its only around £6 and month after that great for security in mind there also a motion detection service that’s free your phone pings every time something passes its path"

"looking at the app reviews it seems a lot of people have had the same problem"

"the app does not work"

"do not waste your money on this"

"then the one that was working stopped working"

"waste of money only works with wansview apps nothing else not even the ispy app on pc"

"mounting the camera was a breeze just had to align and finalise where i wanted it drilled the holes and used the rawplugs provided then mounting the camera to the 3 holes drilled and then screwing it down"

"without the app the camera is useless"

"the only negative i had was that the lead from the camera for an ethernet connection if you choose to connect it this way is a little short for it to come into the premise through the wall and hence i had to use an ip junction box to house the cable in however this only adds to the look of it overall as it looks more professional"

"the cloud service is next to useless too 2"

"clicking on the cloud storage icon read ' did not join any storage plan' though i have made a payment for the plan and have not received any refunds"

"my first camera had issues i think it ended up becoming water logged after we had terrible rain and the night vision was glitching however customer service sent out a brand new one with a week or so"

"they only positive aspect of this camera is that it has decent picture quality but pretty much everything else makes this camera an utter waste of money"

"the set up wasn’t as smooth as expected on the first day to account registration activation failure delay"

"it’s really frustrating that this camera doesn’t work with an nvr"

"when i went through the set up to connect to wifi camera would only work for about 20 seconds and then cut out i had to unplug to reset i was a bit disappointed with the camera i found the email for support and emailed to my surprise i had a answer after about a hours it was sunday with clear instruction"

"the 10 second limit extreamly affects the use of the product"

"no answer waste of £25 company wrote to me to offer a refund plus £10 to remove the comment on amazon"

"my biggest disappointment is with the wansview cloud app both on my phone and pc version"

"the worst camera iv had not happy at all "

"2 only one user can log in and view the camera at a time which is extremely annoying and useless"

"it keeps losing connectivity and keeps turning off"

"the only small issue is that it can be a bit too sensitive to anything moving like grass or rain"

"i know a poorly made item when i see it"

"* the camera shuts down without you realizing it but there would be chunks of gaps of missing footage i wouldn't recommend this camera to anyone i know"

"the only downside is the really chunky wires that need drilling through the wall!"

"the only issue i can say is that i would have preferred it if the main cable could be unplugged from the camera to make it easier to feed through a wall"

"sensitivity adjusted it's not all plain sailing hence the 3 5 stars"

"i realized that by then the 30 day trial had expired even without even turning on the camera and that company had taken the annual subscription charge from me through paypal"

"there are a lot more expensive cameras out there but this one does the job"

"though i can see it being useful for those that require this feature for £30 the camera is extremely good value for money it isn't cheap flimsy plastic rubbish like most are for this price"

"not what you’d usually expect from a lesser known chinese brand"

"i got it on but then the app didnt work"

"i believe this has a few major drawbacks"

"it connects but drops immediately"

"a static picture seems good quality but when there is movement you get lag drift & pixel distortion more often than not"

"i had a little problem setting the camera up as it would not read the qr code but after contacting customer support they suggested printing the code bigger which did the trick"

"no mention was made in the selling literature that you had to subscribe to an separate i cloud storage facility"

"1st was wifi dropping out accepting that maybe a signal strength issue so opted for a wired connection and reconfigured it to suit"

"only thing is if you have poor wifi like me it does take a while to load but it is still recording whilst loading"

"app very clunky"

"eg a indecent happed and it was not captured on my camera because the camera stopped filming at that point"

"guess will have to return this if i dont get my verification email by the morning"

"* another thing i found annoying is the camera will automatically cut after a few minutes during recordings which will reflect in some missing footaging that may have been useful"

"i know this w4 outdoor camera isn't the most expensive but i was hoping for a little better as i have the k2 indoor camera which i am very happy with"

"as far as the camera is concerned adding it to the app and putting it into operation was very simple"

"i found this to be utterly useless for me"

"but once it was fitted up on the outside wall problems began"

"the ball joint for adjusting angle makes much easier to fit and the camera itself is much smaller and has alexa functionality that works great shame this couldn't be added for existing models however one of the biggest issues for me is old cameras and new cameras have to be operated on separate apps which for someone who already has many wansview cameras doesn't work for me"

"i would like to use my own client app or at the very least be able to login via a browser"

"as this was my first time using an app based wifi camera i was intrigued to find out how "much hassle" it would be to set up"

"not difficult but slightly annoying"

"it is smaller than i thought it would be and smaller than the ezviz but that doesn't matter"

"purchased this wifi camera as my last one failed"

"they offer a 30 day free trial cloud recording service"

"took me a couple of hours getting 1 of them up and running then wasted a day trying to get the the other one working then wasted ages again trying to go through it all again with their support"

"sometimes it takes a little patience for the wifi connection to take place but once set up there should be no further issues and you can keep track of the camera via any ios or android device with the app installed"

"that said i'm overall satisfied with these despite the constant resetting it's still a deterrent in itself and nobody knows of the cameras are working or not unfortunately neither do i half the time until i look at the app"

"i had to leave the ethernet cable hanging outside as i can't drill that much without being worried about structure"

"then a much smaller hole could be drilled"

"ok it's a bit here and there with this type app is awlful drops off when it feels like but the picture night vision and install of it is pretty simple app is getting worse need vital evidence no ya can't get it with this it's dreadful"

"when it arrived and i opened the box i was very surprised with how sturdy it felt and all its accessories i had a little trouble setting it up so contacted the customer service who were absolutely brilliant they suggested ways to sort it out which worked a few days later they checked up just to make sure it was working which i appreciated"

"overall problem solved really satisfied with the product despite my old review because great customer service really does change the game and of course the product itself is doing its job pretty well now that its working"

"fixings supplied are good the cons i feel with this product are: lack of installation instructions and information on how best location needs a large diameter hole for the ethernet plug may require specialist drill if mounting on brick wall would be better is settings enabled adjusting how long video clips are recorded for on motion detection the default is a bit on the short side for my liking"

"the camera meet my needs it has really good night vision but it is sensitive to raindrops and small insects buzzing around"

"the camera definitely meets my needs it has worked through rain and snow without any connection issues at all"

"first as the camera is connected to the internet rather than being only accessed locally it exposes a lot of security risks it might get hacked"

"we are no longer running to the window as nosey neighbours at every noise from paranoia"

"4 the login server is extremely slow and unreliable"

"these cameras are just great value great picture quality both night and day my only slight quibble is the cabling supplied is bulky at the camera and very short "

"i would think with recordings with that layout there should be a next button that allows you to jump to the next clip"

"downside is that motion detector is quite sensitive to wind blown leaves cobwebs etc"

"the power cable on the plug is quite long but i still had to use an extension"

"the wansview cloud app is pretty basic but provides all that is necessary for a simple cloud based camera operation at a budget price"

"i just followed the instructions and had the device running within ten minutes i think the most difficult part was having to point the actual camera at my tablet which was displaying a qr code that was part of the set up process just had to have a little patience steady hand and good aim it has now been running outdoors for ~6 weeks it is monitoring a robin nesting box with no issues at all"

"i find this is the biggest downside to this camera and if recording time could be extended to 20 secs or more then i would have given this camera 5 stars"

"the only thing it does not have is sound"

"even to try the 30 day free trial you have to provide your paypal account nice little earner there from all those forgetful people like me that start the free trial and then forget to cancel it before it runs out "

"it's a ok camera could be improved theres a massive delay when someone goes by or a car by the time the camera shows a object passes it has already happen 30 seconds before"

"the ball joint for adjusting angle makes much easier to fit and the camera itself is much smaller and has alexa functionality that works great shame this couldn't be added for existing models however one of the biggest issues for me is old cameras and new cameras have to be operated on separate apps which for someone who already has many wansview cameras doesn't work for me"

"finally after i complained my camera misteriously stopped even powering on"

"camera was ser up for wireless operation using my bt5 hub"

"just a shame the wifi signal was not strong enough to set it up without wires"

"* another thing i found annoying is the camera will automatically cut after a few minutes during recordings which will reflect in some missing footaging that may have been useful"

"mounting the camera was a breeze just had to align and finalise where i wanted it drilled the holes and used the rawplugs provided then mounting the camera to the 3 holes drilled and then screwing it down"

"honestly people say you can't put a price on safety but for less than £30 i can't see why everyone doesn't have them!"

"it just means that the hole needed to pass the cable through will need to be quite large 65mm at the largest point ethernet cable end and with no way to disconnect it from the camera body left with no choice"

"i bought this on amazon because it stated it was half price but after finding it for £20 on ebay clearly this is not half price at all the image is great and the night vision too there is sadly no audio recording on this the app is useless unless you pay for the cloud too store your videos as from the"

"eventually connected it to ethernet updated firmware camera connected but no image"

"i cant help but feel the way the software is designed is to make you buy cloud storage and stop you from recording by other means as unlike previous models you cannot set cameras to write to a hard drive via ftp which offered a low cost recording solution"

"i haven't tried the cloud storage yet as for my needs is is less important"

"* the camera shuts down without you realizing it but there would be chunks of gaps of missing footage i wouldn't recommend this camera to anyone i know"

"what it doesn’t tell you is that if you want to benefit from the full use of it then you need to sign up and pay for cloud storage and only payable using paypal"

"really disappointed to camera i’ve had before 😞"

"i run several websites and they use webcams to provide tourist information"

"what puts me off is that it is a hong kong website you have to pay for storage and also there is a small delay on the camera with cars going past about a two second delay but not a problem"

"sending it back as it may work well but not as described"

"i had trouble at first when connecting the app to my camera but this was because my wifi signal was weak"

"nb if you have a dual band router which most modern ones are you will have to disable the 5ghz band temporarily whilst you set the camera up as the phone has to be on the same band as the camera ie 2"

"it does integrate with alexa but this is much too slow and laggy to be much use"

"doesn’t make sense"

"the image quality is pretty good even in the infrared by that i mean you can recognise a face easily but there is no zoom feature to restrict field of view i wanted to exclude the neighbours property "

"impossible to connect"

"camera was easy to set up and now waiting for lambing to start in late january!"

"i can’t use a wired lan cable as i have no method of routing it i rent so can’t just drill holes 3"

"the aerial kept falling down wouldn't stay upright even though i tried nipping it with a ba spanner"

"this review is based purely on lack of functionality"

"all i can say is that i was not disappointed with this in the slightest!"

"this has been a problem with most of the outdoor cameras i've had so it's not an issue specific to this model"

"find the right area you want to site the camera and then follow the clearly written instructions in good english drill holes screw it up to the wall ceiling wherever"

"now i can see any suspicious activities around my house from anywhere in the world"

"slight delay but nothing major"

"4ghz broadband as 5ghz will not work"

"the reviews for the app are appaling and i wish i'd seen these before buying"

"only downside i would say depends though on the use case is that it's missing a microphone"

"but despite the settings saying i have got the alert set it doesn’t alert me"

"so far we have seen a cat and hedgehog at night and lots of birds 😊😊"

"as a diy novice i was a little skeptical but the instructions are clear and very straight forward"

"the update kept on failing over wifi even after leaving it for 3+ hours"

"this alone makes the cameras unreliable"

"i purchased this for security for my business and had tried a number of other cameras from other companies which i had to send back to them as i was not happy with them"

"disappointing given i'd already said a don't use paypal to the same person and in the same chain of emails this should not have been offered or at least they should have been upfront about this in the first place if they are unable to refund the same way it was paid for"

"update do not fall for the email scam they send you"

"this was also a painful experience"

"i'm also reluctant to subscribe to the cloud fees as the picture quality isn't great"

"has had the firmware updated and the echo shows are the only items that run on wireless everything else is ethernet cabled"

"we are no longer running to the window as nosey neighbours at every noise from paranoia"

"i bought 7 on sale and you get what you pay form if you are technically bad with computers this may frustrate you"

"terrible product"

"it has a little weather cap to help take the glare of the sun out of the shot and to stop rain dripping on the lens"

"after googling and trying!"

"i should add i have done many checks of my devices and wifi with no improvement"

"absolute piece of junk"

"returned as utterly useless to me"

"there is one cable from the camera which splits into 3 at the end providing connections for power ethernet and an external re set button"

"not a huge issue but could be better"

"i have turned off the notifications on my app which works well but doesn't suit me"

"customer service seems non existent and the online faq is poorly translated c from chinese"

"4 the login server is extremely slow and unreliable"

"biggest gripe?"

"what the hell is this!"

"buyer beware!"

"and the thing that works for us is we can look at them any time but only one of us gets the notification when the camer is triggered so we are not being distracted at work evt"

"can’t fault the camera the app or customer support"

"wansview cloud app is very easy to use the one feature which attracts me that you have to invite other users to login independently and it’s not like that i had to give my password credentials for others to login which is extra security feature"

"so takes short recordings when it senses motion i did buy 2 of these the one for out the back is ro keep an eye on the kids and dogs"

"for my installation would have been better if it did not have a plug just bare wires to install in a connected box"

"it also lights up red at night to help deter people away"

"we did have issues with setup and connecting to the wifi and please note that you do need 2g to connect the camera to as it doesn't connect to 5g"

"you can find which i did later when i returned mine much better options for an extra 5 or 10£ with 2 antenas tf card storrage and even some free cloud storage app the camera connects it self"

"slight lag on live feed but the picture really makes up for it"

"after using this for over a month i have had some major issues with it"

"this makes it fairly useless for my needs and the intention is to return it"

"the only negative thing i could mention is the size of the hole needed for the cables as i expected to use only the camera with wifi i did not need to use the ethernet cable "

"detection is so sensitive even the smallest bug can be detected i am so impressed i have already ordered another one cloud storage is great too and 3 options to suit your budget many systems don't offer you that"

"anyways there is a slight reflection from the window but it's nothing major"

"the picture is very clear and faces are recognisable"

"for a cheap camera it is good"

"not do great if someone decides to come and cause havoc and then are not captured in the act!"

"these drop outs can last from a few minutes to a few days"

"motion detection algorithm is not good though"

"the issues i encountered were down to my error not the device"

"i have already subscribed and paid for the cloud service £65 total per annum for 1 3 cameras but you can pay an additional subscription for 5 or even 7 external cameras which works really well as it only records motion and stores it via your wifi straight into the cloud and is kept there for up to 7 days so you can review the recorded footage or current footage from your mobile phone and it has an app alert if it detects movement"

"the only slight downside is that at night it does pick up the motion of moths passing in front of the lens but i am sure if i adjust the motion detection this may change"

"i also set up continuous recording via the cloud based service offered which again is a very low cost annual fee"

"the aerial kept falling down wouldn't stay upright even though i tried nipping it with a ba spanner"

"i ordered the camera so that my parents who are elderly farmers could keep an eye on their handful of breeding sheep who lamb in a small barn next to the farm house"

"so any decent robber just needs to take longer than 10 seconds and the camera will miss them"

"why can't it keep me logged in v"

"ok it's a bit here and there with this type app is awlful drops off when it feels like but the picture night vision and install of it is pretty simple app is getting worse need vital evidence no ya can't get it with this it's dreadful"

"however just recently there was an update to the camera which caused a small problem but have to say after emailing the seller via the app it was resolved within 48hrs"

"i got it for a specific purpose as i have a few problems with my upstairs neighbour and i need proof"

"4g portion of the signal but i had it confirmed by support that this isn't possible"

"shame that these software and cabling issues are letting it down as the picture and night mode is awesome and the hardware quality is one of the best i've see in these budget cameras"

"even contacted me again the following week to make sure problem was rectified"

"but it's not that expensive in fact i thick it's quite cheap"

"hit and miss with the motion detection in only filming the first few seconds of motion control then missing the rest completely"

"this restriction is not immediately obvious"

"also works really well with alexa and my fire stick i will for sure be using this company again highly recommend"

"the worst thing about is the fact that the app it uses has no free cloud storage plus camera also has no no tf card option"

"you will still get hundreds of false alerts all day"

"if i hear a noise outside by the time i've logged in and the connection sorts itself out whatever or whoever it was are long gone"

"old review i cant even test it out"

"well if you look at the most recent review saying that it’s a great camera especially with the sd storage card ?"

"we bought this to view the wildlife coming into the bottom of our garden and it dies the job well"

"id also like to say the issue of disconnecting wanswiew replaced my first camera and where very very helpful they tried to remotely fix the problem but as soon as they couldn’t the new camera arrived a day or two after they sent it out via amazon priority thank you wanswiew for all your help and product and would buy again without any hesitation"

"how do i return the original camera as it must be under warranty?"

"my motorbike was stolen from my drive and this camera didn't record anything"

"box nothing is stored i i had not already installed this i would be returning it just based on the lie this this was rrp £50 and half price but on ebay are only £20 new"

"clicking on the cloud storage icon read ' did not join any storage plan' though i have made a payment for the plan and have not received any refunds"

"if you buy the pir it is extremely keen so beware where you put it but to be fair that's what it is for "

"it only records motion which can be stored on the actual app cant remember how long for or 7days rolling paid with cloud on a monthly quarterly or yearly plan"

"the ball joint for adjusting angle makes much easier to fit and the camera itself is much smaller and has alexa functionality that works great shame this couldn't be added for existing models however one of the biggest issues for me is old cameras and new cameras have to be operated on separate apps which for someone who already has many wansview cameras doesn't work for me"

"voice controlled so you can alert intruders whilst you're away from home"

"restarted several times checked through settings for ages uninstalled and reinstalled app camera i received would not show an image"

"the drilling pattern sticker made it very easy to get the holes ready for mounting"

"it was fairly easy to set up although my camera would not read the qr code to connect so we had to download the app onto my partner’s phone and then it read it straight away"

"for this price what can you possibly do wrong"

"detection is so sensitive even the smallest bug can be detected i am so impressed i have already ordered another one cloud storage is great too and 3 options to suit your budget many systems don't offer you that"

"on this setting you get nothing else"

"we had to connect them on different routers as our wifi signal didn’t reach the garage "

"detection is so sensitive even the smallest bug can be detected i am so impressed i have already ordered another one cloud storage is great too and 3 options to suit your budget many systems don't offer you that"

"hello all i was using sanview cams but they never worked i looked for something working with alexa and i found the w4 omg took a sec to set up and now i have them in all my kid's rooms and outside i emailed support asking for some help to get all 4 cams to show up on a pc and i had replies from the support"

"we live in quite a wooded area so not a fault of the camera whatsoever"

"a great teething problems setting it up to begin eot"

"also app permissions are alittle odd"

"very disappointing coz i was really looking forward to trying this out"

"can't really go wrong"

"it’s basically you jump through several hoops of reviewing their current product sending screenshots as evidence "

"set up: in the hallway of my flat block so outside but not in the elements"

"good for the money but wouldn’t pay full price although i like it and delivery was fast i don’t like that to record day and night you need to subscribe and the cost is to pricy to keep these running on record every day of the week but it will record movement of up to around 15 seconds iv found some far"

"plus point for the old app it keeps you logged in always!"

"if i had any issues with the camera it's the motion detection which picks up flys even on the lowest setting but it's nothing majorly annoying as i prefer to have that footage"

"restarted several times checked through settings for ages uninstalled and reinstalled app camera i received would not show an image"

"so if you're using it and another family member logs in you get automatically logged out"

"secondly the camera has a big fat cable meaning if you want to install it outside you need to drill a hole about 1 inch in size which is a joke"

"then i found that when someone came up my path it didn't record that!"

"1bout a 10m second lag so not much use to check when someone knocks on the door as they have left by the time the picture comes on the screen phone and alexa unfortunately a good camera let down by having to subscribe for it to be any use payments and laggy response"

"my front security camera installed by an electrician has disintegrated in the heat!"

"wish i could give zero"

"you will need around a 25mm drill bit if fixing no to external wall due to bulky ethernet adapter"

"not a huge issue but could be better"

"even to try the 30 day free trial you have to provide your paypal account nice little earner there from all those forgetful people like me that start the free trial and then forget to cancel it before it runs out "

"i gave up on the wifi and ended up forking out more for a wifi extender with an ethernet input so i could wire it"

"we did have issues with setup and connecting to the wifi and please note that you do need 2g to connect the camera to as it doesn't connect to 5g"

"it does integrate with alexa but this is much too slow and laggy to be much use"

"sending it back as it may work well but not as described"

"the camera is cloud only so no internal memory card but the app can be used to save footage to your phone"

"sensitive to motion rain sets it off which is annoying"

"you can adjust the sensitivity i have not messed with this yet but i suspect i can exclude "moths" if i reduce the sensitivity"

"no security reasons for that"

"however this is not a pre requisite as when alerts are triggered a 10sec video is downloaded to your mobile device"

"then comes the crap you have to go buy the camera jump through all their hoops again and then give them your paypal details and they will refund you !"

"it has more wires than my current wired system and you will need to drill a big hole through your wall to feed the thick ethernet dongle through"

"i find this annoying"

"having seen the price of this camera i thought that i would give it a try to the rear of my premises it took a little while to sort it out maybe with everyone else using the internet but with the help from there support team it's a nice little camera"

"i had my doubts about this because it was only £25 but very surprised how brilliant this really is "

"does lack a some bit"

"the camera doesn’t have a very long range to connect to a wireless network plus when it detects any movement the recording stops after only a few seconds"

"3 it take no more the 2 mins for the wifi blue tooth connection"

"i use this camera for viewing the front of my property after a theft of a motorcycle"

"i was a little surprised disappointed that it did not feature onvif rtsp but was advised that they can apply a firmware update to add support for this which means i can add it to my other camera's in ispy"

"have already returned 1"

"the image quality is pretty good even in the infrared by that i mean you can recognise a face easily but there is no zoom feature to restrict field of view i wanted to exclude the neighbours property "

"there is a drilling template provided to assist in correctly locating fixing holes to mount the camera unit outside this was very useful and helped enormously in making a professional job of mounting the camera"

"in the first two weeks of operation there is a bus service goes down past my house and there is only 5 a day hourly mon fri the camera captured the bus a total of three times out of ten events i have little idea what i am doing with it and as i am not rich enough to pay for cloud access i am stuck with just the alerts one night kids tipped over my 4 recycling buckets and again the camera was as useless as a chocolate fireguard ok the night vision is really good as is the picture quality and the motion detection is too good it activated if rain is falling or a light shows from houses on the other side of the large park i live next to but it is still only as good as the times it actually activates at the correct time the lack of instructions with the package did not help either"

"pros= 1 good size not too big 2 well built metal construction 3 excellent pictures both night and day 4 pretty easy to set up cons= 1 cables attached to the camera are too big in diameter shame they can't be detached 2 lots of moths trigger the sensor at night 3 power cable quite short edit"

"this camera should be removed by amazon"

"the front one was ripped off the wall and stolen"

"and i must say wired setup is also a challenge"

"i use it to monitor my front door as i have an office at the bottom of the garden and i can't hear the doorbell"

"nice small camera sometimes struggling with connection tho shame it does not have memory card but i can take still images on my phone when motion is detected as long as the camera is online and loads working 90% of the time and a great deterrent always"

"unable to set camera up"

"if i'd known i wouldnt have bought this item"

"i am sending mine back"

"very old technology"

"what puts me off is that it is a hong kong website you have to pay for storage and also there is a small delay on the camera with cars going past about a two second delay but not a problem"

"if you want to connect it via ethernet cable then get an extra long one as the only provided is very small"

"the signal was so weak to the internet"

"the camera has a single cable exiting the unit with three short tails 1 a reset button 2 an rj 45 connector for wired ethernet connection and 3 a circular power socket"

"you do though need a watertight bid if installing externally for the plug and other bits"

"although the camera is a good build and quality for the price it's limited to what you can do"

"the camera has been added to the plan as per requirement the support team is a joke and they do not have anyone in the uk"

"forces you to use the new "wansview cloud" app which is a disaster"

"worst thing i have ever bought!"

"even if it does detect motion the alert takes forever to come through"

"overall unreliable & very costly to subscribe to the yi cloud do not waste your money on this product"

"the online storage is very expensive per month even the minimum 7day plan"

"only gripe is that the playback on my iphone jumps to first recording of the day instead of the clip i want to see"

"had mine a while now can't fault them 👍"

"whilst using the app on ios it’s a lottery if you can connect to live view and when you do it doesn’t last for long before it loses connection whilst it tries to reconnect immediately it very rarely does even closing and restarting the app or switching the cameras power supply off and on again doesn’t work"

"a couple of weeks later and the alerts have stopped working"

"amazon that a great job of getting it to me asap setup was easy the only negative was that the lead that came with it wasn't quite long enough"

"the biggest issue is the angle of view"

"same problem with the rain"

"i was going to install sd cards in each camera not really explained in the instructions but east to find out how online but having been tempted into the cloud storage system by the free trial i've been so happy with it and the original 2 cameras i will continue the cloud storage subscription and add i've also bought 3 more cameras i just hope they prove reliable as i've invested so heavily in them"

"this camera is useless"

"good design however does not work"

"so this makes it next to useless for iding anyone if there is a break in but is otherwise good for general seeing what's going at night or when you're away"

"it would have benefited from a smaller plug to get through a wall rather than the full sized usb plug but not a major issue"

"compared to nest where the storage plan is expensiver but you can have several cameras in the plan you pay here per camera and 90 bucks for the shortest 7 day period per camera can get quite expensive"

"setup was easy i set them both up inside then installed installation was simple drilled the holes and apply construction adhesive to make sure it was strong"

"this product is poor quality"

"0 10 playback on app absolutely atrocious"

"really really disappointed"

"you're likely to need to drill a hole through your wall if you aren't capable of this yourself bear in mind this is a cheap camera but paying for skilled people to install it won't be cheap"

"great picture quality but poor microphone with a lot of noise and cannot hear clearly"

"poor really"

"as overall waste of money because of poor quality software"

"useless crap"

"it is pretty loud and if that goes off 10 times at night i could not imagine you would have a good night sleep and wouldn't be the best neighbor to have"

"so far one of my yi home outdoor cameras is turned off blind but it is still working periodically at the back recordings sometimes"

"this has some intermittent network disconnection but we dont keep it on for 24x7 so its ok"

"i’ve sent about 15 emails with no resolution they just keep telling me to uninstall and reinstall"

"the camera has also become cloudy as moisture has leaked into the sealed lens despite being in a sheltered location thus making the image quality extremely poor"

"i would give this camera more stars if it wasn’t for the unresolved issue that has caused two cameras original and then replacement to go offline when ir night vision is on and it goes dark!"

"i see little point in having evidence of a security issue on camera and the camera is then illegally removed along with the sd card holding the images"

"the app is really easy to use and setup was quick and simple only issues i have was the wireing is to short and the time that was taken to fix the notification error was too long other than that i would recommend this product"

"the camera produces good quality pictures but the software is very very limited"

"there is nothing in the description that is informing the buyer what the socket configuration is on the power adapter"

"integration with alexa show also doesnt work "

"the app is really buggy and crashes all the time"

"it renders the sound useless"

"video quality blurry and seems more like 720p not 1080p"

"moreover and this is totally unacceptable the yi customer support refused to help me with my camera because it is out of warranty"

"motion detection is good unfortunately this means a lot of false activations from birds flies and raindrops"

"turn them off and the image is exactly the same without the false triggers"

"you cannot record from this camera using any industry standard security equipment : the product is locked down and you are forced into their subscription services"

"so pretty useless as the 2"

"absolute rubbish goes offline every night at 18:36 tried resetting it many times but sit no luck avod"

"night vision clarity is average poor if you zoom in"

"seem to cope quite well with inclement weather in the uk"

"very randomly it sending alert to me even i am right standing in front of it waving my hand it does not detect any moment"

"wifi is not very good i had to buy a power line wifi repeater but even then when i check the 24 7 cloud recording you get 5 30min dead spots where nothing has been recorded!"

"so not really something to complain about"

"camera has developed two faults"

"i get alert notifications on my phone but can't look at them due to this so basically after installing and setting up it is completely useless"

"this is a replacement for one that went wrong"

"left it off for a month or two while i decided what to do with it amd now it doesnt connect"

"the camera itself it noticable enough to deter unwanted visitors at night but not an eye sore outside the house"

"i have looked online and this is a long standing known issue that yi don't seem to be able to or want to fix"

"the app supporting them is totally unreliable the cloud service fails after about 3 minutes and logs out all cameras in valid subscriptions customer service is an automated zendesk response and nothing more"

"would recommend without hesitation"

"sadly this leaves me with gaps in my intended coverage"

"wifi is a little flakey at times the wired option is preferable if you can run a cable from the camera to your router"

"the biggest annoyance though is the stupidly short usb power lead that comes hard wired to the damn thing"

"it appears the sd card slot is not very well aligned with the slot in the plastic as i almost did it again when i tried reinserting it"

"raindrops snowdrops any fly or bug that gets close to it a flash of light basically anything that changes the pixel you will be alerted i have changed the settings for alertness and sensitivity to low and i get about 8 10 alert update every night if it rains so it kind of defeats the purpose as i now tend to ignore all alerts and it becomes useless now this bring me to the alert noise could you imagine if you had that turned on?"

"update: vertical axis rotation has failed completely as return window closed 1 month"

"camera has gone faulty after a month"

"however after several months the camera lost its connection to my account so i have tried to re pair it but the reset button doesn't work so it is now a useless brick attached to the wall with a cable that has been drilled through the wall and sealed in place"

"it also comes with a screw driver but that's for the sd card port"

"there is a firmware hack to enable that but its still not as good as i would like it to be"

"however mine came faulty the wall fitting it wobbly meaning the camera doesn’t stay at the correct angle"

"so you cannot use one of the better 3rd party software available on the market so most importantly you will then be tied to the yi premium cloud service that you need to pay a subscription for"

"nighttime pic quality rubbish"

"their cloud service is incredibly poor where the cloud service doesnt allow you to playback recordings and also with no auto renewal feature meaning your cover can be disabled without you knowing "

"first two cameras i bought were great but the third and fourth are very blurry?"

"phone support says the right things but is equally ineffective"

"however there is a major flaw if relying on the sd card storage as the quality of the video files is terrible"

"if i set it to low sensitivity it ignores the lights but also ignore people and only records when i pull my car onto the drive"

"the most annoying thing is that i can't record straight to my nas"

"the camera audio would be good but there is a manufacturing fault with these cameras where they are sensitive to wifi probably due to poor shielding on the hardware"

"its will even detects flies or spider which creates false alarm"

"i had the gen 2 yi 1080p home camera and liked it but i was monitoring outside through a window and so had some glare issues off the window pane"

"it just doesnt exist"

"the activity clip is only 6 seconds long which is really inadequate if you are looking to collect evidence after an incident"

"just states send fail error"

"makes outside wiring more difficult that it needs to be especially if you need to run the cable through walls"

"never had any internet issues either and live in remote area where internet isn’t the best"

"it’s so narrow it’s useless for anything in a domestic setting unless you are trying to capture a long thin garden"

"i have consulted yi helpdesk about this who suggested i use another sd card or reformat both of which i've tried and still have the same issue"

"either way i will be returning it back to amazon"

"so it would not work "

"i had to upgrade the firmware manually my cameras wouldn't connect to the wifi without that and frankly it's very poorly explained"

"all for them to ignore the problem and not get back to me"

"espeically since this is not a cheap item"

"you cannot easily hear voice coming from camera live view is almost impossible even using the yi cloud"

"multiple lengthy periods where the cloud backup is unavailable thus rendering the camera useless as a security tool"

"utter disappointment i’ll send them back"

"sure the framerate isn't fantastic but consider the price tag so no complain there"

"sadly i have missed the amazon return deadline"

"with this one if you zoom in then it's useless and even on standard zoom you can't read car number plates"

"at first it has this really annoying buzzing noise and it was constant"

"otherwise these are still great security cameras with a great app and i would still recommend them just seal the front holes"

"yi should include poe power over ethernet"

"no major complaints though"

"whilst using the app on ios it’s a lottery if you can connect to live view and when you do it doesn’t last for long before it loses connection whilst it tries to reconnect immediately it very rarely does even closing and restarting the app or switching the cameras power supply off and on again doesn’t work"

"ended up returning as cable not really long enough for any external points"

"all software technicians know about its issue and tricks"

"it works really well in every aspect except 2 areas: sound: when i enable audio there is a very loud crackling sound almost like listening to rice crispies"

"think of apple packaging as this is almost a carbon copy of it"

"tried contacting support without success "

"otherwise with this price no further complaint"

"i will break down the pros and cons pros mid range price for a well built product"

"i had the gen 2 yi 1080p home camera and liked it but i was monitoring outside through a window and so had some glare issues off the window pane"

"it feels like too much effort was put into pushing users to the payed cloud services rather than focusing on the free functionality side"

"if they correct the sensitivity of the motion detection and add zone control horizontal and vertical then this would be a difficult product to beat in this price range"

"unfortunately at night when the night vision kicks in there is too much reflection from number plates and its very rare it will pick them up"

"more worryingly i've reinstalled the app in an attempt to set it all up again and can't now log in to my yi account"

"also extending usb can be costly since cheap cables will just turn the camera off if night vision is used"

"after contacting customer service multiple times and sending all the proof for payment and identity my plan is still inactive after 1 month +"

"i have called yi twice remember to call them after 5pm both times i explained the whole problem filled in emails with photos etc"

"i suspect that the motion detection problem is due to a faulty unit so i am sending it back"

"keeps losing wifi"

"i found that by the time the camera started to record all you could see way peoples sides or back for a fleeting moment before recording stopped"

"don't make a mistake they do still push their cloud storage but the camera does its job without it so you can potentially lose the videos only if the camera is stolen but you don't get impaired features like with other competitors"

"have another yi cam different model with same issue"

"i wish the clips are at least 30 seconds long"

"yi cloud is really expensive versus other competitors"

"there is a firmware hack to enable that but its still not as good as i would like it to be"

"and has been for a further month despite several resets"

"i've tried to speak to yi support about this issue many times but they are absolutely useless and stop responding after they realise they can't fix this issue by making me turn it off and on"

"probably the least reliable camera i’ve ever seen in terms of watching live footage"

"buy almost anything else because these will waste your time"

"the one i received had an sd card slot but there is nothing behind the slot and the sd card slips straight into the cass and rattles around inside the unit"

"as in the title software update can turn the camera into a brick and other reviews stated this too"

"it's a shame it automatically shuts off at 9pm and has random drop outs on recording"

"motion follow is okay but tracks traffic and sometimes can ignore actual people"

"one other issue i came across but was easily sorted was the ir light ring"

"also you are unable to stream!"

"ended up returning as cable not really long enough for any external points"

"now the camera works but it just disconnects all the time"

"well in my opinion the quality of the yi camera video recordings is better than the ring spotlight cam which costs £280"

"i will provide a video to illustrate my problems further"

"going back to the motion issue"

"this isn't very good as the reason i brought it was as i am currently away from my home so needed around the clock watch on my house"

"im not impressed and feel let down philip"

"camera wall mount that swivels screws"

"this is definitely not a fake review!"

"currently having motion sensing issues triggered by rain"

"it can automatically adjust the video quality by your internet speed without losing many details"

"as in the title software update can turn the camera into a brick and other reviews stated this too"

"many of the of other cameras had very similar features at a lower cost but appeared to be let down by the android ios app which would appear to consistently obtain very low ratings"

"should use dc instead of usb had to make a widder hole for usb and then fill the hole because cable itself is flat"

"calling function and cloud buffering is poor"

"i selected the cheap one and it just totally locked up and refused to work"

"the biggest annoyance though is the stupidly short usb power lead that comes hard wired to the damn thing"

"picture quality is ok in the day but poor at night zoom is grainy motion detection is hopeless doesn’t matter if you set zone goes off when it feels like it however it an affordable price and easy to install"

"screenshot attached light blue means recorded data other area is dropped connection again very poor as you could miss a crime or event!"

"if i push to talk over it then that just crashes it altogether i think because it draws extra power to engage the speaker and thus killing it"

"poor quality false notifications"

"overall very dissatisfied and won't be buying any yi products again mainly for the useless customer service"

"disappointed you have to pay a large subscription charge"

"overall good having a bit of an issue with sensitivity too sensitive and it alerts with rain drops and not enough and it misses some obvious things like visitors to the door"

"there is no way a person or car registration could be recognised which renders the camera largely useless for my needs"

"waste of money and time"

"only 3 months of use and condensation has appeared inside the camera so you can no longer see a picture the camera is now useless and can no longer be used!"

"bad points motion detection “too” sensitive even on lowest setting no zone control no angle limitations inclusions schedule needs more customisation to inc"

"seems like a software bug"

"spoke to supplier and it's been a challenge to get the replacement"

"however after several months the camera lost its connection to my account so i have tried to re pair it but the reset button doesn't work so it is now a useless brick attached to the wall with a cable that has been drilled through the wall and sealed in place"

"frame rate is low for same price you can get 4mp this is 2mp camera at 30fps with dc power and dual band wifi this is 2"

"so it means the camera which was previously useless is now more than useless just using electricity and hanging up on the wall"

"should use dc instead of usb had to make a widder hole for usb and then fill the hole because cable itself is flat"

"don't make a mistake they do still push their cloud storage but the camera does its job without it so you can potentially lose the videos only if the camera is stolen but you don't get impaired features like with other competitors"

"but then you see it's limitations"

"my cloud plan dissappeared after changing phones and now keeps signing up to the wrong plan yi support are just ignoring me"

"the main downsides were a oermenantly attached power cable and no rtsp support which means you have to buy cloud subscription for off device storage"

"i believe the issue stems from the usb power cord being too short unless you have a socket close to where you want to place it which is unlikely as it is an outdoor camera"

"this is after yesterday returning a blink xt system which was shoddy"

"live view works but alerts don't which is pretty pointless really"

"after over a month of exchanging emails with the manufacturer and following every step they have suggested to fix it it has become clear that they do not know what is wrong with it and offer only a stony silence when i suggested they replace it or refund it"

"got two of these one has an audio problem sounds like buzzing but it's installed so can't be bothered to send it back"

"•the black faceplate is covered in micro scratches as if it’s been wiped over with a cloth there was also no protective film on the lens"

"the sd card can be viewed through the software and there's a version for windows so access from a pc also works"

"what became a possible 30min set up became 3hr nightmare back and forward to b&q"

"waste of time and money"

"i kept getting the same “fail to acquire” message"

"being told my sd cards were probably incompatible or formatted incorrectly they weren't "

"being told my sd cards were probably incompatible or formatted incorrectly they weren't "

"i have downloaded and reinstalled the app at least six times but still will not open the apps were downloaded from yi windows and mac site has anyone else had this problem and can they help yi help team take ages to respond then state it is a computer fault"

"i'm not sure if my unit is faulty but it happened both when i initially tested it out of the box and when securing it to a wall even though the camera reports as having a 100% connection to the wifi it has disconnected and refused to reconnect"

"in fact far more misses than hits even when turned to highest sensitivity"

"laptop fire tv that irritating noise is always there i contacted seeverything uk and i was palmed off with excuses and then they totally ignored my messages the sellers name may say uk but it's actually shanghai you are dealing with i would avoid this seller and this security camera at all costs"

"the only big complaint i have is the app is a but of mess to navigate with the same functions in different places depending on which screen you are on"

"will not install on iphones eventually installed on ipad but then would not work unless we paid for a subscription there was no mention of that when it was bought the support is not helpful"

"an update they appear to have added which no online review seems to mention is the addition of the notification area detection you can highlight a box within the frame where it will only notify you based on activity in this area"

"but for some reason i had alot of issues with this current camera"

"i wish now i hadn't got the ring as i'm gonna be stuck with a hefty subscription until the camera dies"

"their cloud service is incredibly poor where the cloud service doesnt allow you to playback recordings and also with no auto renewal feature meaning your cover can be disabled without you knowing "

"biggest issue for me is that it does not support rtsp real time streaming protocol or seem to have any web interface therefore you are tied to using the official yi home phone app or pc program"

"says network not good enough but moved access point router next to the external wall and still won't work"

"includes a mounting template all screws and fixings if required and even usb cable mounting clips for a very neat install"

"and it only does landscape counter clockwise when i tend to turn phone clockwise"

"i have had to replace two of the usb power adaptors due to failure of the ones supplied"

"i contacted the support but got nowhere fast"

"update dec 2018 : the app for windows pc is now not running properly"

"i figured it was just a bad batch or faulty component"

"camera is ok but the alerts don't work on android phones until you open the app then you get loads of notifications all at once which is useless"

"the 3m cable is non extendable as it is attached to the camera which might be an issue if you didn't have a power socket planned for this camera you don't want to leave the camera socket out in the weather: this bit is not water proof"

"it now only picks up major movement and minor movement is now ignored although the camera is set to most sensitive setting"

"due to the poor customer service i think i'll go elsewhere!"

"overall very dissatisfied and won't be buying any yi products again mainly for the useless customer service"

"the only slight negative is flys etc set off motion alerts at night time but i am still playing with the settings so may be able to resolve that"

"initially i had the phone alerts set up but this got really annoying getting alerts every couple of minutes so switched that off but this would be a great tool where there is not a lot of traffic setting it off and i will be using that on the garden cam once that's set up"

"mine is placed at height looking at my front door area so there is no power sockets"

"the motion sensitivity is also useless"

"for instance my power socket is outside and another 8 metres away and is proving a nightmare to buy cables to get to it"

"they worked perfectly fine for about a week then they stopped recording the 5 sec clip and now the one to the front of the house is gone offline"

"to be honest i'm disappointed and wished i'd sent it back when i had the chance"

"laptop fire tv that irritating noise is always there i contacted seeverything uk and i was palmed off with excuses and then they totally ignored my messages the sellers name may say uk but it's actually shanghai you are dealing with i would avoid this seller and this security camera at all costs"

"i had a sv3c dome camera before this one and it was useless at night"

"i feel sure that yi will do a firmware update soon to control this rain problem"

"purchased as it had the sd card feature which on paper is great but sadly only worked for the first week or two"

"should use dc instead of usb had to make a widder hole for usb and then fill the hole because cable itself is flat"

"1 of these worked perfectly but the second developed a problem"

"the visual is very good the sound is quite distorted"

"was unsure at first to purchase it"

"the infrared system is now faulty and causes picture disturbance throughout the night causing the camera to constantly alarm and record the picture disturbance as the camera movement sensor thinks it's a genuine alarm movement"

"cheap camera does the job pros micro sd slot cheap effective cons picture not great in the dark inadequate cable length"

"they loose connection to wi fi"

"the camera works but the app fails consistently to either remember the login or to send notifications"

"there is a constant clicking noise from the microphone really loud click click"

"my cloud plan dissappeared after changing phones and now keeps signing up to the wrong plan yi support are just ignoring me"

"even a camera alarm"

"the image quality i would say is 720p and not 1080p as it says"

"it simply did not work"

"it's easy to install and i can monitor my flat when i am travelling"

"the search and auto detect feature is also poor and often hit and miss"

"have reset the camera 3 times checked all the settings and checked for firmware updates there are none and this still continues to happen so the completely fault ridden useless wall ornament that yi is marketing as a “security” camera is going back in it’s box and back to it’s biological parents"

"thus it’s more of a deterrent than a useful camera"

"the two outdoor cams are fitted under eaves and are not susceptible to rain"

"i should note that this is very rarely an issue during the day just at night when the infrared is on"

"did a reset and got it working again for one day only then it stopped"

"initially was impressed but had issues with the cloud service in that there have been periods where footage has not been uploaded"

"if i have one concern it's that the motion sensor is too sensitive even at low levels causing many alert notifications"

"however at night it is terrible so much so that i now ignore it eg rain will set it off despite it being in a covered location camera the picture quality is great and it picks up the wifi signal well overall if it was not for the night time notifications being so bad and short cable i would have given this 5 stars"

"changed my review to one star due to latest camera not being able to download footage"

"update we got another one delivered and just noticed it stopped working 22 feb"

"imagine if your car is removed by a thief!"

"unless you intend to use this right next to your router it is a waste of time"

"very good image quality response is rather slow and the alert mode is not accurate even in high sensitivity mode"

"will have to be binned now unfortunately"

"my only gripe with this model is the lack of zoning to only alert in specific areas the ability to set sensitivity is rather poor too so this needs to be improved upon"

"one camera which is the closest to the router continually fails"

"my brother has the same model and it works perfectly fine he has also attempted to set it up but it just doesn’t work"

"i have used hikvision cameras 1080p which are much much better"

"cable length cable length is 10ft but it comes out of the bottom of the camera and is hard wired very bad positioning if you want to connect to a power source above the camera as it leaves a very naff finish when installed"

"cheap chinese tat"

"you will regret it"

"supposed to be 1080p but the pictures are quite blurred"

"camera is generally good however there are couple of serious issues"

"app is glitchy notifications can sometimes arrive days late"

"motion detection there is no specified range on this anywhere available online i looked everywhere but could find no actual technical spec so i contacted the yi community forums and was advised that the range is only 15ft from the sensor and that the sensor worked by determining heat signals body heat and so on not by actual movement"

"i don't know if i can return these items as i have installed them and been using them for a while"

"i got charged but the subscription failed"

"both the android app and windows application work well however i own a few cameras from other manufacturers and prefer to use one android app to view them all which wont work with the yi camera because it doesn't support rtsp"

"camera is great but the cloud service is awful"

"check the app store for the recent reviews too it’s not just me"

"ok picture but the 3 of the cameras are junked and not working"

"even if they wanted to stay on low voltage a regular basic dc cable with an adapter instead of the usb charger we have to use anyway would make things lot easier instead of having to get a 20mm drill bit"

"i contacted the support but got nowhere fast"

"there is a constant clicking noise from the microphone really loud click click"

"i was told if it was plugged into wired it would use that seems very 'afterthought' and easy to add functionality via an update"

"i selected the cheap one and it just totally locked up and refused to work"

"im not impressed and feel let down philip"

"i was able to set it up quickly and all seemed well but the camera intermittently fails to load video clips and has inexplicable gaps on the timeline"

"all in all don’t buy this as you’ll regret it when you need it the most it won’t work and you’ll be left feeling stupid for wasting your money on a vastly unpractical and flawed “security” system"

"motion detection could use a little improvement"

"the sound is truly terrible"

"3 indoor cameras went down early today now this one has failed"

"it doesn't give motion detection alerts unless you start the app which is completely pointless"

"most hand held drill only go up to 18mm so you’ll need a sds drill"

"i have ran the cable and it's nowhere near a socket so i have had to extend it"