Wansview Wireless Security Camera 1080P HD Wansview, WiFi Home Indoor Camera for Baby/Pet/Nanny, Motion Detection, 2 Way Audio Night Vision, Compatible with Alexa, with TF Card Slot and Cloud
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "I have plenty of IP cameras in my house. They are a combination of DLink, Wansview, Tenvis etc. I have to say my most durable ones are from Wansview. I've had some for as long as 2010! They simply give you the best bang for your buck. I hate to say it but the reason ALL of these IP cameras have a low rating is because of one thing. User error. I admit, I have an IT background and installing these are really easy for me. The new cloud feature couldn't be more easier to install. Even my mom could do it, (sorry mom LOL). Just download the app, make an account, show the QR code that shows up on your app to the camera. Super easy.\nThis new Q5 is my favorite along with my other Wansview cam (top photo). It is very compact (see bottom right photo). It also has a microUSB port for power (left pic). I hope this review has helped you."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'My review is based on the experience of using several IP cameras from different vendors over the past 4 years.\n\nOverall, the Wansview Q5 Cloud Camera performs very well and the initial setup / install is super easy and quick. With some of my other cameras, I sometimes spent hours (even days) in setting them up. I like the Q5 new form-factor which is nicer and much smaller than the previous Q3 camera. It feels well-built and I expect it to last for many years. The phone software can use some bells and whistles available from other competing IP cameras. That said, it is very intuitive and easy-to-use. In summary, I would recommend this camera because of its well-built hardware, functionalities, and price. Below are some more details:\n\nPros:\n+ Setting up the first time is quick (5 min for both software and hardware) with their easy-to-follow instructions.\n+ Camera hardware is well-built, good-looking, and small in size which I like.\n+ The wide-angle lens is the best I’ve seen in terms of clarity and coverage.\n+ Crisp & clear images and videos - day and night (see images attached).\n+ Excellent audio & mic (considering the small-size factor), definitely better than that on their Q3 and K3 cameras, and other cameras I’ve owned.\n+ The Wansview cloud android phone app is easy to set up, easy to use and to configure.\n+ Upon detecting motions, the camera sends me alerts on my phone, and 10-sec video clips in the mobile app. This a new feature. Nicely done Wansview!\n\nCons:\n- No audio-detection alert capability (only motion-detection).\n- Viewing saved images, they don’t auto-rotate along with the phone’s rotating to a horizontal orientation (from a vertical orientation)\n- It would be nice if the phone app’s white background can be manually set to a darker theme like black.\n- It would be nice if the multi-camera screen can be set to load as default upon logging in. Currently it requires an extra click.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': '*Updated - see update at bottom*\nI bought this camera to use with Alexa as backup security. The camera initially worked. The picture quality certainly isn’t the HD quality it claims, but it did work...Did! I’ll get to that in a second....\n\nThere are 2 major annoyances/issues I have with this camera. The first is that the required phone app to set it up and control it is very clunky. The pan feature works, but it’s not a crisp control. Very jerky and I never know if a quick movement will move the camera an inch, or if it will pan across half the room. There is also a horrendously log load screen to open the app. They cared more about a fancy (but useless) animation than getting to the video feed, so good luck if you hear a noise and want to quickly pull up the camera. The second problem is that it buffers a LOT. This causes issues when pairing it with Alexa. Regularly, Alexa can’t access the camera. Even when she can, the feed will drop after a few seconds. The buffering happens via the app too though initially not as bad. Even with a strong and fast internet connection that plays other video feeds fine this camera buffers more often than not. Making it basically worthless for displaying on fireTV. Today, after only 2 weeks of use, it now drops the connection regularly. Mysteriously, even though the app says it can’t connect to the camera, it can reboot it via the app. After reboot sometimes it will stream for a few seconds - usually it won’t. I took a risk on a cheap camera...and that’s exactly what I got. A cheap camera that doesn’t work a majority of the time.\n\n*Update* - read all this, because it’s important to know before buying!\n\n-Since my initial review there have been multiple firmware and software updates. The software still favors unnecessary loading screen animations that take too long, but the camera buffering has improved greatly. Which is good....however, today a neighbor called the police on a person going house to house looking in windows and trying to open doors. I instantly checked the SD card on this camera (which sits at my picture window looking outward) where I discovered the file structure is archaic. It writes four 10-12 second video files into individual folders - meaning lots and lots of folders to sift through. Difficult to search but still useable. The BIG PROBLEM is that between each folder’s contents is a 2 minute gap. So when looking for the window peeker I see this person leave my neighbors yard and walk into mine. Then, as they walk up to my window the 10 second file ends, and being the 4th file in the folder I have to move to the next folder - which picks up 2 mins later. I check all the folders and there is 2 minutes of no footage between them all. Worthless! Who would make a security camera that records 24/7, but has 2 minute gaps between every 40-45 seconds of recorded content? Crazy and super sad considering there have been improvements on most of my other initial complaints. A security camera that misses more content than it records though....that makes it useless to me!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Absolutely do not buy if you want to save your video recordings for free! If you want to save the captured video clips you have to subscribe to their cloud service. I tried to save my video clips. It somehow allowed me to save 5 total to my storage but that was it. All the others that I tried to download and save turned out to be blank. I do like the quality of video and sound but that is all. I cannot save my videos to my storage without subscribing to their cloud service. This should be my option not theirs. Will never purchase this brand again. I have purchased and am currently using Zmodo brand cameras they have the cloud service purchase option but you can still save to your memory the video clips that you would like to save for free. A much better system and more user friendly. I suggested the Zmodo camera to a neighbor and they are very Happy with it and already saved their own video clips.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': " I wanted an inexpensive camera to monitor my well room, solely for peace of mind. I decided to give this product a try, because the price was right, and on paper at least, it had what I was looking for. The verdict? I'm blown away by how much value is packed into this device and its cloud service offering.\n\nAfter testing this for a few days, these are my final thoughts:\n\nPROS:\nDecent 1080p HD quality\nPan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ)\n2-way Audio\nEcho Show Interoperability\nMicroSD-based local storage\n30-day free trial of cloud storage\nExcellent Instructions\nINCREDIBLY LOW PRICE\n\nCONS:\nCamera hesitated on pan, about once per second, for maybe a half second. (Not a big deal, but it would be nice if it were smoother. Realistically though, I pan to where I want it, and leave it there for a long while, so after the first time testing it, it really didn't matter to me at all. I'm just mentioning it to be complete.)\n\nSUMMARY:\nGREAT PRODUCT for the price. Highly recommended."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Gave this camera to my dad. Here is his review:\n\n"Just got this new Q5 IPCam to add to my other Wansview IPCameras. First thing I noticed was the ease of setup.\n\nA couple of items to note:\n- Setup and operation are ONLY with WiFi. Plugged in LAN is not an option.\n- Your phone and Q5 will have to be in same 2.4GHz connection frequency. Q5 will only connect to 2.4GHz and your phone may be on a 5GHz spectrum, not gonna work. If your home WiFi shows two separate SSID’s for each frequency then it should be easy enough for you. I’ve setup my WiFi router to use one SSID only for both frequencies, I had to go into my router setup and temporarily disable the 5GHz radio to force all devices I have to the lower frequency. I turned the 5GHz radio once the Q5 was completely setup.\n- Like the fact they’re finally using micro USB connector from DC supply to IPCam and not the old 3.5mm plug in type\n- The Q5 will not work with the previous Wansview IPCam App but instead you’ll need to download their new Wansview Cloud App which is fine as well.\n- Image sample looking from my home office window is not that bad. I’m sure I can clean it up some more later.\n- No DDNS support. Camera will only work using Wansview Cloud App. I use a third party IPCam viewer App to use on all my other IPCameras (Foscam, Amcrest and Wansview), no luck on this one or at least not yet. Hopefully they will upgrade it for future capability.\n- The new Wansview Cloud App still need some work to refine minor UI issues particularly on the chat section.\n- I’m not a big fan of IPCam paid cloud subscription regardless who the service provider is. I’ll continue using the memory card option on this camera. I could save all recording to my own cloud system if only DDNS is supported on these Q5 IPCam\n\nTechnical support either email or chat using the chat option on the App (even on Wechat!) was amazing. These guys are extremely helpful, particularly Simona!\n\nWill definitely order more again from them if only they can help on the DDNS option. Otherwise their customer support team’s ability is what pushed them to 5 stars."'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': "The camera setup was pretty straightforward. Download app, follow on screen instructions, plug in camera, voila! I have a security camera in my garage.\n\nI'm always a bit wary downloading apps and having to create an account. I was lazy, though, and logged in using my Google account so I didn't have to create an account. Camera was fine and I set up some notifications.\n\nI jump on my computer 30 minutes later and Google says all accounts linked to that account has been compromised and I need to change the passwords.\n\nSO don't buy this. If you do, don't use the app... but then you won't be able to use the camera. Just don't go near this camera. I'm going to quit being so cheap and buy a legitimate camera."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-4 review-rating', 'review_body': '** update\nI’ve been having some issues connecting to the camera when I am away from home. I did purchase the memory card and I’ve been getting a weird message when trying to review video , again when I am away from home. Trying to resolve. Says a need to have my phone and camera in a LAN. Not sure what this means. Will update again if I figure out solution.\n** Update\nI was told that you can only view memory card motion recordings when you are connected to the same WiFi network that the camera is on.\nI’ve had some issues with the camera randomly dropping my network or needing to be reset a few times. Not sure why this is happening. Also I decided to try the 30 free cloud trial. I will update with that experience. I have 3 cameras and the one that had a memory card in it didn’t not want to stay connected to the cloud. When I took the card out that issue resolved.\n\nI posted pictures of what was in the box as well as a few screen shots. Also a picture of the correct app to look for. My husband downloaded the wrong app and it took us a while to figure out why he couldn’t connect. But after that it was simple. I purchased this camera as a baby monitor and also to check in on our dogs when we are out. I haven’t had the baby yet so we are just testing it out to make sure it works good before the baby comes. My husband is in the army and will be deployed overseas the first 13 months after the baby is born. This will let him view live video , take screen shots and hear his child while he is away.\nIt gives you the option to purchase a monthly cloud subscription for recording. Or you can purchase a micro SD card which is what I did. You do not need to do either. It still works and records 10 second clips of motion. But that has limited storage without the cloud or card. I have included a picture of the hardware for mounting and the slot for the SD card on the camera body itself. I plan on adding a second and third camera. You can add up to 4 devices.\n\nPros:\n+ Setting up the first time is quick (5 min for both software and hardware) with their easy-to-follow instructions. (After we used correct app 🤦🏻\u200d♀️)\n+ Camera hardware is well-built, good-looking, and small in size which I like.\n+ The wide-angle lens is the best I’ve seen in terms of clarity and coverage.\n+ Crisp & clear images and videos - day and night - surprisingly good quality.\n+ Excellent audio & mic. You will get feed back if you open the camera with sound and you are close to it. Also don’t place near a fan.\n+ The Wansview cloud android & iPhone phone apps are easy to set up, easy to use and to configure. I have an iPhone , husband has an android. Both apps work good.\n+ Upon detecting motions, the camera sends me alerts on my phone, and 10-sec video clips in the mobile app. We have dogs so we turned this feature off or we’d get constant alerts. You can do this via the app.\n+ Allows you to use a SD card for more recording capabilities.\n+ Allows the main user ( the person who first sets up camera with phone app) to send an invite to up to 3 other users who will need to download app, make an account and then will be able to view the camera as well.\n+ We have both tested out the connection on the app while we weren’t home ( he’s in another state right now) and neither have had an issue connecting or viewing the camera.\n+ Has a feature on app that allows you to set multiple favorite positions which I love. So if you are moving the angle around you can hit a potion and it will automatically go back to it.\n\nCons: (only one so far)\n- No audio-detection alert capability (only motion-detection). Maybe this will change in the future )\n\nOverall for price and quality and ease of use I would definitely recommend this camera.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I have had nothing but problems with this camera. The camera and app constantly stop working or the feed continues to buffer. I get a grey screen while trying to watch the live feed half of the time. It constantly has to reconnect to play the video. The motion detector is extremely delayed, if it even picks It up. I use this camera as a baby monitor and find it far from reliable since the app continues to shut down. I am very disappointed in this product.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'At first my camera wouldn\'t connect to the server even tho I was following the instructions perfectly. I tried until I broke down and went thru customer service, which I should have done from the start.\n\nDuring their normal hours a chat icon will pop up in the "contact us" section in the app. The customer service person in the Wansview app helped resolve my issue, with step-by-step instructions and a helpful video.\n\nThe solution was needing to update the firmware of the camera, which was completed by connecting the camera to my cellphone\'s Hotspot, then the customer service remotely initiated the update, which allowed the camera to properly connect to their servers thru my home wifi (2.4ghz) network.\n\nAlso, I don\'t know what others expect but I think the free features of the app are okay for what they do. You can always set up a temporary subscription for a month at a time if you are leaving town and want to be able to use the cloud features (which has a 30 day free trial).\n\nDon\'t be stubborn like me and try to connect 100 times and waste time searching the internet before seeking help. Wansview\'s Friendly Customer Service helped resolve this issue painlessly!'}]