Amcrest HDSeries 720P WiFi Wireless IP Security Surveillance Camera System IPM-721S

The Amcrest HDSeries 720p Wi-Fi video camera helps you stay in touch with what you love anytime, anywhere. With its quick mobile setup process, you will have secure access to your camera's video stream in no time. Stream live and playback recorded video of your home, your kids, your pets, or your business on the go with the Amcrest View app. Amcrest Cloud offers optional cloud recording with free live viewing and 4 hours of free video storage accessible from any device including Apple Mac, Windows PC, iPhone, iPad or Android devices. Amcrest cameras also record to an internal MicroSD card (not included), upload to an FTP as well as record to any Amcrest (or ONVIF compliant) Network Video Recorder (NVR) (not included). Each Amcrest camera features two-way talk, night vision, remote pan/tilt, enhanced digital zoom, a 85º viewing angle, smart motion alerts, email alerts and snapshots, advanced recording options, secure SSL/HTTPS connection and wireless AES WPA2 encryption. With the Amcrest HDSeries, you'll never be out of the loop again. Amcrest cameras are compatible together with Foscam cameras only when using AmcrestCloud, Amcrest NVRs, Blue Iris for Windows PC, Live Cams Pro for iOS and TinyCam Monitor for Android.

Amcrest HDSeries 720P WiFi Security IP Camera IPM-721S (Silver): Quick Second Setup / Wide 85° FOV / Remote Web Access from Smartphone or Tablet / Storage to MicroSD, NVR, or Amcrest Cloud / Pan and Tilt + Intelligent Digital Zoom / Night Vision Up to 32ft / Two-Way Talk / Smart Motion Alerts

User Experience :
I've got about 6 different IP cameras I've bought and used over the years. I use them to keep tabs on my house, to make sure my kids arrive home safely when we're not around, the pets aren't destroying things, etc. My main requirement for an IP camera is that it be compatible with Blue Iris software.

When I was offered to purchase this at a discount in order to review it, I was a bit hesitant. It wasn't a brand I'd seen commonly referenced for use with Blue Iris, and I'd been recently burned with a nice looking camera, that only worked with it's own proprietary app, that wasn't very good.

I'm glad I opted to try this out. Taking it out of the box I was immediately impressed with how well made it was, no flimsy plastic, no blingy chrome. It's a good looking camera, at least as good looking as you can make one of these things.

I tend to mount these upside down near the ceiling. I've had to make/buy extension cables for all my other cameras, as the included AC adapter usually only has about a 6' cord. This one appears to be about 15', easily going from a wall outlet, up to the ceiling, and having plenty extra for concealed routing.

Setup was fairly easy. They all claim to be "plug and play", and I think that's a bit of a stretch of the term, but they've gotten much better over the years, and this is no exception. There were no surprises here, followed the quick install guide even though I knew what to do, and it worked as claimed right away.

Most of these require some sort of browser plugin to see the video. This one is no exception, but with Chrome, rather than a browser plugin, there's an app in the Chrome marketplace that doesn't require any special setup, other than entering the IP address of the camera. If this was my primary method of viewing the camera, I'd have knocked off a star, since you can't seem to "save" the IP, and have to enter it each time. Other than that, it works well. I also tested the free version of their Android app, and feel it's better than most similar offerings for other cameras.

Digging into the software, I was very pleasantly surprised (and impressed) and the configuration options provided. The web interface is quite pleasant, and well done. This thing has settings galore... multiple Profiles, so you can configure different settings for day, night, and other with each having control over exposure, white balance, day/night sensitivity, and more. You can overlay privacy masking on the video, add text and date/time overlays as well.

The networking is equally robust... all ports are definable, you can limit the number of connections. There's even IP filtering QoS and Multicast support.

Storage for snapshots and video is also flexible, offering options for saving on a microsd card (not provided), FTP, or a NAS device. You have full control over how media is captured, via events (motion/sound) or scheduling. There's quite a bit of flexibility.

Video quality is also quite good, better than all my other cameras. You have a choice between 1280x720 or 640x480 streams in a variety of encodes, H.264H.264H/H.264B/MJPEG. There's an IR cut filter, so daytime color isn't all washed out. At a certain darkness level, the cut filter kicks in giving you a very clear B&W night image. One annoying trait of these cameras is the cut filter kicking on and off with an audible click, sometimes annoyingly so at dusk. I've yet to hear this camera's cut filter click into place.

I mentioned at the start, I need my cameras to work with Blue Iris... no problems at all connecting this to Blue Iris. It's big brother, the 821 is listed in the BI config, and this works just fine set to that. It's also correctly scanned and picked up as an ONVIF device as well.

I've got 9 cameras tied into Blue Iris. On any given day, a few of them will disconnect/reset or reboot. So far, this hasn't rebooted once, and it never drops connection. It's been rock solid.

There's just more to this than can be covered in a review. This is now the camera I recommend to people looking to get into these types of cameras.

Update: I like this camera so much, I picked up the 821 version. The 821 is identical to the 721, having all the same features. It adds a higher res @ 1080p. It appears as though it also has a slightly wider angle lens than the 721.

These Amcrest cameras have been put in place monitoring the 2 main areas in my house, replacing the previous models I had been using. I plan to continue swapping out the various brands I have, some of which cost more than these do. 

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