FOSCAM 3K 5MP Outdoor Security IP POE Camera, Home Security Surveillance Camera with AI Detect Human/Vehicle, 66ft Color Night Vision, 2-Way Audio, Motion Alert Spotlight & Siren Alarm,120° FoV, IP66

I’ve bought about a dozen Foscam cameras over the past few years for homes in both the US and overseas. I love them because I can use them anywhere in the world and so long as I have an internet connection, the cameras work perfectly. In addition, the few times I’ve needed technical support, I was able to get answers by email in 24 hours or less that always solved any issue I was having. Let’s talk about this V5EP camera, the latest one I’ve added to my stable of Foscam units. This camera is incredible. Setup is the easiest of any of the cameras I’ve purchased. Using the POE feature, I simply attached a network cable from the POE port on my router and it was up and running in less than a minute. The camera adds in some new features that I love. First of all, the AI for detecting humans or vehicles is built right into the camera. No need to subscribe to the cloud service to get his feature any more. The built-in detection works far quicker and easier than that available on the cloud service. The camera also adds in a built-in siren and built-in floodlights, so upon a detection, the siren immediately goes off, and if it’s dark, and the detection is activated by the IR lens, the flood lights immediately illuminate so you can get a clear, color image of what was detected. I like to put SD cards in my cameras, so you can immediately look at the video of what the camera sees and then download it for safekeeping if needed. Foscam has also done a number of upgrades to their application over the last 2 years that really make it fast and simple to use. I use the app on both my phone and my tablet and the imagery is stunning. I’ve looked at a number of other cameras over the years, but for the price and features, nothing comes close to the Foscam products. I highly recommend them for your home or business.

I was skeptical that this 5MP camera would be very good, but I was wrong! This is good for basic users and advanced users as well. I'll explain, so this may be a long review. I prefer hardwired (non-wifi) cameras for many reasons. They don't slow down my wifi, more reliable, and better image due to more bandwidth. However, the most difficult part of setup is getting an ethernet cable to your location. If you have a POE switch or injector, you only need that one cable. Adding a POE injector is easy but would increase your cost a tad. The camera does have a DC input connection, but the camera doesn't come with a power supply. POE is so much easier anyway. Please look up POE or POE injectors if you are not familiar with the terms. I have a POE switch and ran the cable under the siding. The RJ45 connection to the camera is typical, and a bit bulky to hide under the siding but my install turned out just fine. I do like that the camera connector has connection and activity LED's on it so you can see if the camera has power/connectivity. Now that it's installed, setup was easy with the app. For basic users the app is great and gives some nice options. The camera is very usable without paying for the Foscam cloud service. It has some basic motion and/or sound detection, and after setting up email settings in it's setup, it will email you alerts. I use Gmail, and set it up using SMTP settings with an app password. Google "gmail app password" and gmail SMTP setup if you need help. If you pay for the Foscam Cloud Service (there is usually a 30 day free trial), you'll have many more options for intelligent detection (packages, vehicles, animals, people, etc). I personally don't need the cloud services as I'm running a PC with Blue Iris software that does all the features I want. Blue Iris involves a bunch more set up though. What I like about this camera is that I can have both Blue Iris running and if that fails, I can enable the built in features of the camera and still get alerts via emails directly from the camera. I don't typically use the Foscam app because it accesses the camera through their servers. I prefer a direct control (I actually have another app that can access it directly, but that again is a whole different way of doing things requires more advanced setup). I do find myself using the Foscam app more often because it is actually very easy and quicker than going through my Blue Iris app and you can access many Foscam cameras from their app (even those at different locations). Foscam does provide PC and Mac software (Foscam VMS) as well, but I found for my more advanced setup (i.e. Blue Iris) I needed the phone app to setup all the advanced settings properly. My one dislike is that this camera does not have a built in web-server so that you can set it up using a direct IP address connection to it with a web browser. At first this slowed down my setup, but once I realized the app worked best for setup, I was up and running in my advanced configuration. And it's been working great. One more thing, firmware updates are very easy as well. This is important to me as Foscam has been around for a while and provide updates now and again for their products. The app actually has an indicator on it too when a firmware update is available. Other features... I've never had good luck with my other cameras using two-way audio, but these Foscam cameras work pretty well, especially with a hardwired connection. This camera also has a built in alarm sound that can be enabled manually or set to go off during motion/sound detection. Another interesting feature is that even though the camera works in complete darkness with it's IR LED's, you can turn on a "floodlight" to turn on a white LED to illuminate the area a bit. I wouldn't call it a "floodlight," but it's bright enough to illuminate my deck if I needed a light on back there. Final thoughts.... I miss the direct web server set up on this camera, but that's the worst of it. It's a great high definition camera with some pretty awesome features. I very impressed with the quality and ease of use, both for basic cloud use or advanced user setup!

This camera is great! Setup was easy and fast. The picture is good. Much better then the 2MP camera that it replaced. As you can see from the picture, the area that I have the camera has a lot of shadows and high contrasting areas, so the WDR helps even the picture out during the day. I’m not using the 110° view, but it looks wide. I’m also not using any of the recording functions, so I can’t really comment on it, but it does looks like it has a lot of options. The night time view works really well. The gate at the end is around 33ft away and it's lighting up the wall next to it pretty well. The gate itself is dark, so it wouldn't reflect the IR, but if someone came through, it would. Even with the house wall being so close to the camera and making that section white, you can still see the details in the other area. That side of the house is very dark, so I'm very happy with how it looks at night. The POE connected and powered up right away with my existing POE switch. I would definitely recommend this camera for anyone looking for a bullet POE camera. The price was reasonable and the camera is great. I have a bunch of other Foscam cameras and they just work. Their support is always great too.

Camera has nice features. Video resolution is good as well as low light performance. Motion detection is also good. The only downside is the snapshot function does not work like previous Foscam cameras - snapshots are stuck in low resolution despite trying to set it to high res in the Foscam app. In addition the camera does not obey the time duration for snapshots - instead it seems to randomly provide anywhere from 3 to 10 shots regardless of the time settings. Not great for timelapse snapshots. Basically the snapshot function is poorer than previous cameras. If you don’t use this snapshot function then this is an adequate camera.

purchased this 3 weeks ago, and hooked it up to my POE switch. Amazing fast setup. Scan the QR code via your foscam app and it guides you through the short process of adding the camera. was up and running in less than 3 minutes. The picture quality is much better than my Revo cameras (POE and way more expensive). Added feature is the light and much better audio quality. Overall, the image is very clear and provides a good field of view. The push-alerts can be configured to your taste. The night vision is crisp. The on-board LED flood lights add some punch to uninvited visitors when you combine with motion detection and the audible alert. I enjoy the POE option, as you only have to get a single network cable to the camera and not have to worry about the nearest wall outlet. On top of that, you have the option of adding a microSD card to bypass the Foscam+ added service. Added a 256GB card and I can view recordings via the app. Very pleased with the purchase.