Amcrest 4MP WiFi Camera Indoor, Dog Camera, Sound & Baby Monitor, Human & Pet Detection, Motion-Tracking, w/ 2-Way Audio, Pan/Tilt Wireless IP Camera, Night Vision, Smart Home ASH41-B

I have experience with this type of camera from Amcrest as I have an ASH21, but this camera improves in several areas over the ASH21:Pros:> I never could get the ASH21 to show up in Blue Iris, with this camera I had no problems adding it to Blue Iris> The resolution is improved a little bit (4MP vs 1080), so I'm always glad about that. In real-life viewing, it is marginally better.> It feels quicker to respond to controls (Pan/Tilt) from the app> It's initial set up (finding, joining WiFi, updating) was quicker than the ASH21 did as well> I really appreciate that it returns to a user-configured "home/start" position after a motion/human event> The SD card slot seems better manufactured as the tolerance/gaps are much tighter than they were with the ASH21. Accidentally inserting the SD card outside of the slot would be much more difficult with this ASH41 where it was very easy to do accidentally with the ASH21."The more things change, the more they stay the same" – Cons and areas of improvement:> While the camera pans and tilts almost silently on the outside, in captured audio the panning is still really noisy and sounds like gears grinding -- maybe a software audio filter could kick-in just for the duration of the camera panning? I would think at a certain frequency range that would be possible to filter without compromising room audio (which is now difficult to hear over the motor sound anyway).> It tracks motion and humans well, but the camera panning can't keep up to someone walking across a room faster than "leisurely" -- its a rather robotic pan-and-stop, pan-and-stop and looses track of the human. If it did full-tracking it probably wouldn't have this issue> It would be nice if email alerts included a thumbnail image of what caused the alert (Human detection) so I could tell whether it was worth trying to open the alert and view the capture if I'm away from home.> Setting up email alerts is a bit complex with Hotmail/Outlook as it requires an app password. What would be really slick is to drop URL hotspots in some related areas of the UI that allow the user to one-tap to Amcrest’s documentation on this. Right now, it seems you really need to know how to set these up (fortunately, I do), but I think even people with relative familiarity with this might have challenges.All in all, I actually like this camera. Its very portable, I can plug it in anywhere and it does do what it needs to do when motion is enabled and especially with the human tracking. It works with Blue Iris, and if you have other Amcrest cameras (or the security hub) you can set triggers for them to activate or pan to an area if another camera is alerted.

Amazon AdThe ad has a lot of information about the device. I think the first call out feature is the baby monitor function. Whether it's the doorbell, the flood light or this one, these types of cameras are really an extension of the smarthome app. The unique attributes of the camera are features in the smarthome app once connected. For this reason I feel the “baby monitor” is the unique attribute of this device. Therefore, maybe say “Amcrest 4MP WiFi Indoor Camera, Baby and Sound Monitor, Dog Camera, Human & Pet Detection...”.Otherwise I think the camera has great extensive callouts on the hardware specs and functionality of the device.PackagingI like the packaging. The branding is consistent and it does not seem to have a lot of wasted materials. No matter what product I purchase I know its Amcrest by the consistency with the packaging.First impressionsIt is much smaller and more compact than I was expecting. I saw other photos on Amazon and could tell it was going to be a little smaller than cameras I have purchased in the past. The one thing that stood out right away was the mount. Instead of the mount screw that 99.9% of the cameras have, this has this plastic wedge type thing... why??? Why not just put the center mount on it like all the other cameras. This way if I wanted to swap it out with a camera that I already had mounted on the wall. I was not able to in this situation.InstructionsAt this point I am very familiar with the line of Smart Home products. Once you have set one up, you can pretty much do any of them with ease. Therefore “step 1” was pretty simple and consistent with my other experience. Upon flipping over the instructions you get a section by section breakout of the other features of the camera. Per my comments on the Amazon ad, I do like that the baby monitor is the best one to call our first. This is good. I do think its intuitive that you can touch the lines on the screen to adjust alert thresholds, but it might be a good idea to add a line or two in the instructions also communicating this. Something like “Touch and slide alert thresholds to the desired level...”Camera installationI am an avid camera user. I am familiar with installing these and usually have an idea on what I want to do with it once I have purchased it. As mentioned earlier this one was unique in that it did not have the mount screw on the bottom. Fortunately I have a 3D printer and was able to find an “L” shaped model to download and print (Photo 2). I know you include the little lock mount, but frankly I don’t like the look of the camera standing sideways off my wall. I like the more traditional look of it sitting upside down and adjusting the camera view in the app.I initially set it up via Wifi. It was fine and worked out well. My Access point is within two feet of the camera, so I know it was getting a good signal. I was also within range of my switch. I decided to hardline it to my network instead. Why do they keep cutting POE functionality in all the cameras? A lot of times I end up buying a separate POE converter module for $10-$15 more after buying your camera. Why not just integrate the POE back into the camera and charge a little more for the device. It's much easier to run a single network line to a camera versus having an electrical outlet nearby. As such, this camera would only work to replace a couple of my existing cameras. It would not work for all.Setup and functionalityI set things up using the Smart Home app. Within the settings of the device there are a lot of things you can do to configure this. I do like that you can set an IP address for this camera. Why can’t they make this feature consistent with all the devices...Floodlight - Can’t set IPOutdoor Wireless - Can’t set IPDoorbell - CAN set IPThis Camera - CAN set IPWhy is this not a consistent feature...?We are beyond baby monitors in our house. However I did try it and it works great. I used to use a regular IP camera and a third party app to monitor the kiddos when they were babies. It's nice to see a company like yourself put this feature right into your app for people to use.Motion detection is probably the place people spend most of their time tuning once the camera is set up. There are a lot of features in this section and depending on where and how the camera has been implemented, a lot of tuning over time will be required. I really like smart tracking. This is a really cool feature and is something I will probably look for when replacing my other camera (please do more POE integrations).I do think the motion detection is a bit over sensitive in general. As a result I find myself turning off notifications. I know motion detection can be a tricky subject, so I don’t know what the answer is. Even on a sensitivity of 1, it seems to pick up everything and continue to make my phone make noise. Detection zones don’t seem to help with this either. Again, I don’t know what the answer is... Just some general feedback on the matter.I use my camera setups with Zoneminder and Home Assistant. This camera set up and worked perfectly with the RTSP feed. This is the most important feature in the setup for me. I use the app as a supplement, but the 24x7 monitoring is the main purpose of my cameras. This camera provides me with everything I need for that.I have not been able to test the camera yet with Home Assistant. This is another area where I see a lot of inconsistencies. It would really be great if you would lead your own integrations here in this space as it seems you have a lot of different manufacturers you work with. This results in fragmented integrations with limited features in the home automation space. Support this and your cameras could climb to the top of the list for power users like me.I have attached some photos...Photo 3 - With lights on in the room - Great qualityPhoto 4 - With blinds and curtains open for natural light - washed out / not good qualityPhoto 5 - Blinds and curtains closed with lights off but still daylight outside (IR on) - good qualityPhoto 6 - Blinds and curtains closed with lights off but still daylight outside (IR on) - good qualityOverall I like the camera and would recommend it for people. Especially those with babies. As I mentioned a few timeless already I don’t like some of the inconsistencies with the devices you come out with. The dropping of POE in a lot of your PTZ devices has been a big disappointment for me.

This is a lot of camera for the money. The image and video resolution is clear and lots of added features are included for a camera at this price point. I have several other Amcrest cameras, including an ASH-21, and this camera performs quite well in my network. I like that it is accessible in both the Smart Home and Amcrest View Pro App. I did not need to use the wall mounting kit, but I do worry how well the mounting bracket may work for drywall. Aside from this, setting up the camera on my network was easy as usual.I really like the image quality of this camera. I have other 4MP cameras and this camera seems to have a better picture with warmer images. The mic and audio quality on this camera are really good and are pretty sensitive. I really like the baby monitor feature as it can also be used as a dog monitor to hear when they are barking while we are gone. The AI motion tracking is an interesting feature, and can be useful particularly if you have a larger area that you are wanting covered.All in all, this is a really good camera at a good price, with lots of useful features. In the end though, I really like the camera and would highly recommend this camera to anyone looking for an easy to use PTZ camera with lots of great features for the money.