Although yours is an indoor system, it gives me a product line to research. Thanks for the info.
The trick, as someone else mentioned, that it is often "you get what you pay for" with security cams.
I had a tough time finding one that got decent reviews, didn't cost an arm and a leg, worked fairly well on a Mac, and also was supported by my Synology (which has free security cam management software).
In the case of this specific Amcrest the bad reviews centered mostly around the WiFi security being horrible. And actually, all of the low-to-mid range security cams on the market seem to have serious security issues with their WiFi functions (ironic!). Since I'm big on hard-wired ethernet I just ran a cable to the camera and turned off the WiFi access to the camera.
The zone-sensitivty software is web based and kinda odd, but once you get the hang of it, it's nice being able to designate parts of the image grid to be super sensitive, others to be ignored, and yet others sorta in-between. You can also set how long the video clip is after detection. Also, it has a very limited "pre-trigger" buffer; apparently it's always buffering a bit of video all the time so it can back-up a small amount previous to the trigger and make that part of the video clip saved. It's not alot (a second or two), but enough to catch my cat. |
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The Mobius ActionCam is another budget option, but requires a bit more DIY. But it can be waterproofed, can use a tripod mount, is tiny, has a number of lens options, and quality isn't bad. I use two as cycling safety cams (yeah, it's really come to this where I live). Apparently this little wonder if popular with the RC drone set and dashcam-for-safety folks, and has a growing following with cyclists. Hidden gem IMHO. (It does have motion-triggered features but I haven't personally tried them; also beware of third-party imitations and fakes.)