Annke FCD600 security cam review: A dual-lens camera for pros

It’s uncommon for a even a wide-angle safety digital camera to supply greater than a 110-degree area of view, offering sufficient distance and width to cowl a typical residence’s total yard. You might use a number of cameras to cowl extra space, however that will increase your value. Some digital camera producers are tackling the difficulty by integrating two lenses in a single digital camera physique, splicing the 2 feeds right into a single panoramic video picture. The Annke FCD600 is such a digital camera.

It’s necessary to notice up entrance that the Annke FCD600 isn’t your typical shopper safety digital camera. It’s primarily designed for use with an NVR (community video recorder), a field that features a storage, a server, and a PoE (energy over ethernet) injector. The injector sends {the electrical} present wanted to energy the digital camera down the identical cable that carries knowledge to and from it. The FCD600, nevertheless, can be used with a standard AC adapter and with out an NVR, making it viable for small-business and residential use.

This overview is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the very best home-security cameras.

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The FCD600 might be put in indoors or outside, nevertheless it has been engineered for the pains of the latter. The bullet-style digital camera has an all-white metal-and-plastic housing that’s proof against corrosion and bodily impacts, and it boasts an IP66 weatherization rating, that means it’s dustproof and may face up to highly effective jets of water, akin to from a strain washer, from any path. A metallic bracket, mounting {hardware}, a 3-foot community cable, and a water-proof connector are additionally provided.

The digital camera’s twin lenses present an combination 180-degree horizontal area of view and an 81-degree vertical area of view, adequate to cowl expansive areas like backyards, indifferent garages, and parking tons. When not paired with an NVR or network-attached storage (NAS), the digital camera makes use of an inner MicroSD card (capacities as much as 256GB, though none is offered within the field) to document video at a maxixmum decision of 3632 × 1632 pixels. Two front-mounted spotlights allow full-color evening imaginative and prescient, and two-way audio can be supported.

The FCD600 has no wi-fi functionality, so for the standalone setup described earlier, you need to join the digital camera to your router with the provided ethernet cable, after which scare up a suitable AC adapter as one isn’t supplied with the digital camera. You’ll additionally want a screwdriver to entry the microSD card slot on the underside of the digital camera, connect the digital camera to its bracket, and mount the bracket to a wall.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

Configuring the FCD600 is significantly tougher than your customary shopper good gadget. The difficulty is each the complexity of the system itself and the absence of clear documentation. The provided person handbook affords a number of completely different choices for establishing and working the digital camera utilizing numerous Annke software program instruments, nevertheless it assumes a stage of familiarity with IP cameras the typical residence person isn’t prone to possess. In the end, I needed to flip to Annke’s on-line help center for the steerage I wanted to get the digital camera on-line.

To arrange the digital camera, I wanted to obtain Annke’s SADP software program to activate the digital camera and uncover its IP deal with, after which enter the deal with in an internet browser to attach on to the digital camera. Right here you’re introduced with an especially technical configuration system for manipulating each conceivable aspect of the digital camera’s operation. Once more, it’s assumed the person understands the technical intricacies of IP safety cameras, so anticipate to spend a while querying Annke’s on-line assist middle and discovering your manner by trial and error.

You’ll must return to the browser interface to handle many of the digital camera’s options, together with movement detection (customary choices akin to human and car detection in addition to superior choices together with entrance and exit detection and “line crossing”), alarm settings, scheduling, occasion notifications, evening imaginative and prescient, and extra. Every day digital camera duties are dealt with by the Annke Imaginative and prescient app, a blunt device that permits you to view the reside feed, overview recorded video, function digital camera options akin to two-way discuss and optical zoom, and little else.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The Annke FCD600 data glorious daylight and nighttime video, and when you dial in your required settings for movement detection, alerts, and occasion recording it delivers a reasonably seamless expertise. Mounted to an exterior wall of my residence, it offered full protection of the car parking zone of my residential complicated and was flawless in detecting human and car motion. The Annke Imaginative and prescient app isn’t as refined as most different safety digital camera apps I’ve used—or because the Annke Sensible app used for the corporate’s Wi-Fi cameras—nevertheless it’s easy to make use of as soon as recover from the preliminary hurdle.

At $159.99, the FCD600 isn’t significantly costly, nevertheless it does require an enormous time funding to get probably the most out of it. That’s doubtless not an issue for individuals who need to deploy an array of cameras with an NVR, however the system’s overwhelming complexity might be a major hurdle for the typical residence or small-business person who’s in search of a turnkey setup, easy navigation, and a sublime cell expertise. All of these issues might be present in one of many Editor’s Picks in our home security camera buying guide.