Wansview Wireless Security Camera, IP Camera 1080P HD, WiFi Home Indoor Camera for Baby/Pet/Nanny, Motion Detection, 2 Way Audio Night Vision,…

My review is based on the experience of using several IP cameras from different vendors over the past 4 years.

Overall, 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:

Pros:
+ Setting up the first time is quick (5 min for both software and hardware) with their easy-to-follow instructions.
+ Camera hardware is well-built, good-looking, and small in size which I like.
+ The wide-angle lens is the best I’ve seen in terms of clarity and coverage.
+ Crisp & clear images and videos – day and night (see images attached).
+ Excellent audio & mic (considering the small-size factor), definitely better than that on their Q3 and K3 cameras, and other cameras I’ve owned.
+ The Wansview cloud android phone app is easy to set up, easy to use and to configure.
+ 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!

Cons:
– No audio-detection alert capability (only motion-detection).
– Viewing saved images, they don’t auto-rotate along with the phone’s rotating to a horizontal orientation (from a vertical orientation)
– It would be nice if the phone app’s white background can be manually set to a darker theme like black.
– 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.

Fácil de instalar, buena definición, yo no he necesitado contratar los servicios de la nube para guardar grabaciones, ya que por el.momento solo la uso como monitor de bebé en tiempo real. Me encanta que tiene audio bidireccional. Buena relación calidad precio.

*Updated – see update at bottom*
I 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….

There 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.

*Update* – read all this, because it’s important to know before buying!

-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!