Hikvision IP camera experiences

I decided to try out a low cost surveillance camera, Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-IS.

The good

  • Cheap - you can get 10 of these for the price of a single European brand name camera
  • Surprisingly solid casing
  • Comes with waterproof RJ45 connection kit

The bad

  • Supposed to be web managed - however that is not really the case
    • Management "Web pages" rely on a proprietary browser plugin for essential parts of the configuration
    • Cannot see a live view - must manually open a dedicated app to see video
    • Cannot play back on-device recordings
    • Cannot download images captured on the device micro sd
    • Cannot draw area of interest for motion detection, video tampering, intrusion detection or line crossing detection
  • Something weird with the DHCP implementation, occasionally picks up a new IP address. No other device or camera in the same network does this

The unknown

  • Robustness and real operating temperature range - winter will tell whether this one will work in the sub -30C temperatures


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