Mini Pinhole Security IP Camera, HD 3MP Small Indoor Camera 3.7 mm P2P H.265 CCTV Video Camera(I706-2 Black)

A bit of a journey with this neat little camera. Mine is the Revotech model 1706-P-16EV2 POE version with 3.6mm lens. Which I want to use with iSpy Connect, on PC, using its rtsp: stream. Rare on small, cheap cameras.If you want plug and play, and bundled software, probably with its own cloud account, this is not the camera for you. But if you want a cheap small camera to work with iSpy or BlueIris or similar, designed to work with almost any IP camera... like most similar cameras, even much more expensive, getting it set up and working is an adventure.First off: the camera includes a card with QR codes for 'manual and software'. I tried both. There is no software at either Googledrive, or Onedrive, just a manual. The camera allegedly needs 'CMS'. Can't find that anywhere, so ignore that for now (it's deliberate, as we'll find out!)...You need to find out the camera's IP address nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn. (Netscan on Android is really good for this or you might find it in your router), and hey! Point your browser at that IP address and there is a web browser interface. User is already set to admin, password is blank. It prompted me to set a password, so I did, and logged in. And there's a very comprehensive web interface with lots of configuration options... looking good.BUT there is a gotcha to messing with settings, as you have to. I guarantee you WILL need to reset the camera at some point. But there is no reset button anywhere. I took the back off. It is surprisingly well made inside as well as out, but still no reset button. No obvious jumper points.Resetting was no doubt something the missing CMS software could do...Fast forward several hours. Here is what I learned:- Don't bother with the CMS software. It does exist, but is completely broken (I wasted 2 hrs on trying to get it working in various compatibility modes), and won't run on any modern windows machine. This is probably why the manufacturer doesn't supply it. Do yourself a favour, pretend it doesn't exist.- The best and probably ONLY way to reset this camera is to use Onvif Device Manager from https://sourceforge.net/projects/onvifdm/. This will allow you to login with your user username & password (that you created before you broke things), and restore factory settings.- Once you have done that, you should be able to access the Web Settings UI at http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn and do necessary stuff. In my case that meant- turning DHCP back on,- doing a firmware upgrade (downloads and installs from the web)- setting the stream type and sizes. I set the main stream 1980x1280), fps and best quality but left it set as H265 because if I set H264 the image froze often. Nevertheless the H264 stream works and without that problem, into iSpy using VLC input.- changing the time to UK time with UK DST. It was also set to send emails to some obscure address, so I changed that too.- I also turned off the date/time and camera overlays, since iSpy provides its ownYou can use these feed addresses directly in Videolan's free and excellent VLC if you want to check they are working.Use your camera IP in the following nnn.nnn.nnn.nnnrtsp://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:8554/live0.264 is the main H264 streamrtsp://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:8554/live1.264 is the secondary(for most purposes you can and should embed your username and password in the link to avoid having to login - egrtsp://admin:[mypassword]@nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:8554/live0.264)And the result in iSpy is as good as other more expensive 1080p cameras I have. It's oversharpened a bit, but the stream image is sharp, smooth and clear with good colour, and little noise. it's stable, and it's a great little camera. It copes well with fairly dim rooms, but not dark (there's no IR) and there is no microphone so no sound capability.Attached is a dusk image from testing in my messy office.I'll probably buy another one now I know how well it works.EDIT: DO NOT FORGET YOUR PASSWORD! That is the one thing that must work, without it there's no way to reset the camera. If you can use the web interface, you can reset it there - or Onvif Manager. But you will need the password for either. I also forgot to mention that I had lots of problems with the camera going offline every couple of minutes. I eventually figured out that I had upgraded the firmware (from the web UI) but hadn't bothered to reset the camera to mfr defaults. Once I'd done that, and recreated settings, it has been rock solid ever since. If at all possible set your router to issue a static IP address to the MAC address and leave the camera set to DHCP. I'm not confident that setting a fixed IP in the camera web UI wasn't part of the problems I had.

For the money this isn't a bad little camera, however getting it working is not a trivial task.1. The instructions seem to vary as to how to set it up, there are different ip addresses given in different instructions, they all suggest the range 192.168.1.???.2. I used onvif device manager, this found finds the unit , in my case at 192.168.1.105. I tried ping this no joy, I then enabled a dhcp server on my network it allocated its ip in the 192.168.0.0 range, I was then able to log in to the admin console, disable dhcp and allocate a static ip address, I unticked everything on the network/basic page.3. I would recommend that you set these cameras to a different IP range and block external access i your firewall, in my case my computers are in the 192.168.0.0/24 range and the cameras are set to 192.168.1.0/244. Block external access for the above range, as these cameras seem to have a tendency to call external servers.

Camera only supports the management UI out of the box on statically defined ip the 192.168.1.0/24 range. So if your network is say 192.168.16.1/24 then your going to either change that network or have another router handy for offline config or spare network port on your computer or RJ45 dongle for your phone to enable configure on a second subnet.This camera phones home to a lot of places.. DO NOT INSTALL THE CAMERA ON THE SAME NETWORK AT YOUR PRIAVTE DATA OR CRITICAL SYSTEMS. (See above about having a second router for offline configuration)The image is OK, compared to my Reolink gear with the same Megapixel count, ReoLink is twice as clear.the 1.44mm is a good fisheye and when I used it with Synology and corrected the aspect ratios it works pretty well.THIS Camera is novices.. if you don't know your subnet from your RTSP then this ain't for you.DON'T download the app the instructions tell you to... not only does it not work without providing explicit permission to you location, media files and microphone, it is of zero use without getting it on your network first, in which case you should use the port 80 web UI.The booklet says it comes with a CD, mine did not. If yours does, I would put a condom on it before putting in my DVD drive because of the above.To add this to sinology you want to specifyport 6688Brand [ONVIF]Remember to change the default password!!!!! (I even deleted the default admin account after creating a new one) just to be sure.

It's small and light, also very black so it's easy to hide in a corner.It's also light enough that you can use bluetac or double sided tape to keep it secure.The PoE works perfectly, and it also has a separate 48v power input if you ever move it somewhere that no longer has PoE.That's the positives aside.The negatives are that the picture quality is not great, even when above 1080p.The software provided is not easy to get. It's also very trashy software. Crashes my computer constantly when changing settings.You can connect to it from a web browser using it's ip address.If you use Internet Explorer 10 or 11 then you can watch the live stream from there, and also change settings.However when changing settings they never stick.This is a camera that you place somewhere where it's well lit, and there's a very strong chance nothing will ever happen there. You should not rely on this camera. Maybe use it with another camera in order to get a second angle, but that's as far as I would go with this.I would not buy it again.