[Review] Instar: What I wish I'd known before

GentlePumpkin

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This is actually just copied out of an answer to another thread, but I think it might be interesting for others aswell. It's about the german manufacturer (well, Made in China but advertised as "Engineered in Germany" oho :D) Instar and two of their current bullet cameras. I give a little bit of general information and try to convey what I wish I had known when I bought their cameras. If other owners have additional experiences, please add them!

IN-5905HD (720p)

I initially tested a 720p camera IN-5905HD. It's very pricy, but excellent for newbies because, among other aspects, it has an excellent documentation, an outstanding customer service (references are Hikvision [equal to no service] and Wansview [committed but incompetent]) and is easily set up.

The image at daytime is good (although one should keep in mind that 720p is quite limited and at least from my point of view only appropriate for overview cameras [so you know "ok there is somebody" but don't expect to be able to recognize or even identify sb.]). The WDR functionality is something I miss on many others cameras, so that's really nice.

The image sensor is not very light-sensitive, so the camera has to switch to night-mode (b/w) when other cameras still have a very bright and colorful image.
At night, the sensor is limited to 3-5fps and, to put it in a nutshell, the image is crap. Ok to be fair, the IR-LEDs illuminate the scene quite well and the image is practically noise-free (looks cool), but even the shutter time at night is bad so that you see moving persons only as a tail - :poop: aaaagggrrr! So the night images do look sexy, but are useless.

One thing one should also be aware of is that if the camera looses the wifi signal for a few minutes, it will stop trying to reconnect. That's absolutely dumb behavior, but it is generally a bad idea to use the wifi functionality permanently.

In my opinion, combined with a good external motion detector, this camera still makes a solid overview camera.

Conclusion IN-5905HD
Pro:
A good start for - financially well set - newbies.
Good customer support.
Good daytime image.

Con:
Overpriced.
Terrible night image.

So I would definitely not recommend this camera to an intermediate or experienced surveillance camera user. But for a first project, why not?

IN-9008HD (1080p)
This camera costs around 300€. As I sometimes see here, other users do pay this much and even more for a single camera (admittedly usually with significantly better resolution etc), but in my opinion, 300€ is not adequate anymore for "home" users like most of us here (I guess ;)). I'd say that this price is simply unreasonable.

The image is pleasant at day as well as at night and the image sensor has a good level of light-sensitivity.
Additional plus points are the mentioned good documentation, customer service and the easy set-up.

But one thing has got to be mentioned: Instar as well as ehm well certain german, 30 years old, crawling, bald-headed home surveillance influencers whose brand name rhymes with "Popoficks" (PM if you don't figure it out :D) constantly promote the IN-9008HD as a zero false alerts system. The truth is: yes, they've integrated a PIR detector. Another part of the truth is: no, that does not enhance false detection rates by any means. If one does not enable the option "combine alarms" (in this case only when the PIR and the video motion detection are triggered, an alarm is triggered), the false alarm rate is higher than on the other Instar camera at night (well, after 400 false alerts during one night, my email account blocked the cameras sender address). And this even comes with the disadvantage that one can not connect an external motion detector to the camera.

Conclusion IN-9008HD


Simply overpriced. I'd recommend to inform yourself here and on other sites and then buy a more decent priced IP camera. But if you are willing to spend the money and don't care about external motion detectors, a good start for newbies aswell.

As @fenderman (angrily) mentions in reply #4, a good alternative for newbies who want to install multiple cams is to let an installer do the job. That might even be cheaper, although one still has to grapple with what the installer proposes.

So no simply solution anyhow.

Edit: added wifi-information, added installer idea
 
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fenderman

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This is actually just copied out of an answer to another thread, but I think it might be interesting for others aswell. It's about the german manufacturer (well, Made in China but advertised as "Engineered in Germany" oho :D) Instar and two of their current bullet cameras. I give a little bit of general information and try to convey what I wish I had known when I bought their cameras. If other owners have additional experiences, please add them!

IN-5905HD (720p)

I initially tested a 720p camera IN-5905HD. It's very pricy, but excellent for newbies because, among other aspects, it has an excellent documentation, an outstanding customer service (references are Hikvision [equal to no service] and Wansview [committed but incompetent]) and is easily set up.

The image at daytime is good (although one should keep in mind that 720p is quite limited and at least from my point of view only appropriate for overview cameras [so you know "ok there is somebody" but don't expect to be able to recognize or even identify sb.]). The WDR functionality is something I miss on many others cameras, so that's really nice.

The image sensor is not very light-sensitive, so the camera has to switch to night-mode (b/w) when other cameras still have a very bright and colorful image.
At night, the sensor is limited to 3-5fps and, to put it in a nutshell, the image is crap. Ok to be fair, the IR-LEDs illuminate the scene quite well and the image is practically noise-free (looks cool), but even the shutter time at night is bad so that you see moving persons only as a tail - :poop: aaaagggrrr! So the night images do look sexy, but are useless.

In my opinion, combined with a good external motion detector, this camera still makes a solid overview camera.

Conclusion IN-5905HD
Pro:
A good start for - financially well set - newbies.
Good customer support.
Good daytime image.

Con:
Overpriced.
Terrible night image.

So I would definitely not recommend this camera to an intermediate or experienced surveillance camera user. But for a first project, why not?

IN-9008HD (1080p)
This camera costs around 300€. As I sometimes see here, other users do pay this much and even more for a single camera (admittedly usually with significantly better resolution etc), but in my opinion, 300€ is not adequate anymore for "home" users like most of us here (I guess ;)). I'd say that this price is simply unreasonable.

The image is pleasant at day as well as at night and the image sensor has a good level of light-sensitivity.
Additional plus points are the mentioned good documentation, customer service and the easy set-up.

But one thing has got to be mentioned: Instar as well as ehm well certain german, 30 years old, crawling, bald-headed home surveillance influencers whose brand name rhymes with "Popoficks" (PM if you don't figure it out :D) constantly promote the IN-9008HD as a zero false alerts system. The truth is: yes, they've integrated a PIR detector. Another part of the truth is: no, that does not enhance false detection rates by any means. If one does not enable the option "combine alarms" (in this case only when the PIR and the video motion detection are triggered, an alarm is triggered), the false alarm rate is higher than on the other Instar camera at night (well, after 400 false alerts during one night, my email account blocked the cameras sender address). And this even comes with the disadvantage that one can not connect an external motion detector to the camera.

Conclusion IN-9008HD


Simply overpriced. I'd recommend to inform yourself here and on other sites and then buy a more decent priced IP camera. But if you are willing to spend the money and don't care about external motion detectors, a good start for newbies aswell.
Both of these are overpriced garbage - not sure why it makes a difference if its a first project or not. Only a fool would pay that kind of money for this crap. There are MUCH better cameras available for half the price or less.
 

GentlePumpkin

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No I strongly object to the statement that they are "garbage" and "only a fool" would buy them.
Yes, they are overpriced. Yes indeed, there are MUCH better cams available for significantly less money.

But they have one advantage crucial to newbies: simply good support.
The support is helpful, friendly, competent, answers fast and is natively speaking german. And four years ago, for me as a complete newbie and a German native speaker, that was great! And I don't see a reason why the english support should be worse.

I had contact with them two times:
1. The image had a pink tone and the colors were wrong. Three hours after I contacted the support via email, I was reassured and followed the guide they wrote me to fix it. The IR-cut filter was blocked and I caused the ir-filter to move for a few times and everything worked fine.
2. I have an external motion detector I connected to the camera. Back then, Blue Iris didn't support the PullPointSubscription feature for this specific camera (yes, that probably is Instars fault because they have chosen to implement it in an unusual way). I contacted the Instar support and after one day, I had a chinese document ("Engineered in Germany" - we remember:D) with all the information Ken at Blue Iris needed to implement this feature.

I think the fact that we are in such a forum like Ipcamtalk.com already suggest that we somehow are professionally blinkered, at least regarding the requirements of bloody beginners. Instar takes our hand and guides us into the CCTV domain, their cameras can be installed with little technical knowledge and they do a good job with their customer support.


My experience with Hikvision cameras in contrast to that looks like to following:
1. All Hik cameras came with a fixed IP in a wrong subnet. So my network is 192.168.178.x and the camera had 192.168.0.1 (or something similar). This makes the camera unreachable for me. As I said, I'm not a professional. Luckily I somehow managed to find out which subnet Hikvision uses by default, so I could set up a test router with the correct subnet, then access the camera and change the IP to something in my actual network (in how many average households can you a) find a spare router and b) a person how knows how to manage that?) .

Edit: simple solution: Hikvision SADP tool, see post #6.

2. Yes I know some will say "buy genuie Hiks". And I was absolutely sure I did, but in the end they turned out to be genuie but Hikvision still won't help me because the camera is a China-version and not supposed to be sold in other parts of the world. So I asked them to aid me reset the password (because that was set to whatever aswell), but they conducted an inquisition on me whether I am a Hikvision buyer they like rather than helping me. Thanks to the awesome Hikvision passwort reset tool that luckily worked with my fw version (again, which newbies knows how to read a firmware version out of a locked camera?), I was able to log in to the camera after 8 hours of researching on the internet.

An experienced person like @fenderman solves the mentioned problems during breakfast, no doubt. But a newbie, probably with limited computer knowledge, won't get such Hiks working.

And that's where Instar has its strength. So they are a fair deal for newbies who don't want to spend to much time on their CCTV (btw: anyway you will spend much more time that you ever expected :D) and who don't have a problem with the prices.

But if you are willing to spend more time on researching, you will find cams way cheaper and technically better.
 
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fenderman

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No I strongly object to the statement that they are "garbage" and "only a fool" would buy them.
Yes, they are overpriced. Yes indeed, there are MUCH better cams available for significantly less money.

But they have one advantage crucial to newbies: simply good support.
The support is helpful, friendly, competent, answers fast and is natively speaking german. And four years ago, for me as a complete newbie and a German native speaker, that was great! And I don't see a reason why the english support should be worse.

I had contact with them two times:
1. The image had a pink tone and the colors were wrong. Three hours after I contacted the support via email, I was reassured and followed the guide they wrote me to fix it. The IR-cut filter was blocked and I caused the ir-filter to move for a few times and everything worked fine.
2. I have an external motion detector I connected to the camera. Back then, Blue Iris didn't support the PullPointSubscription feature for this specific camera (yes, that probably is Instars fault because they have chosen to implement it in an unusual way). I contacted the Instar support and after one day, I had a chinese document ("Engineered in Germany" - we remember:D) with all the information he needed to implement this feature.

I think that we are in such a forum liek Ipcamtalk.com already suggest that we somehow are professionally blinkered, at least regarding the requirements of bloody beginners. Instar takes our hand and guides us into the CCTV domain, their cameras can be installed with little technical knowledge and they do a good job with their customer support.


My experience with Hikvision cameras in contrast to that looks like to following:
1. All Hik cameras came with a fixed IP in a wrong subnet. So my network is 192.168.178.x and the camera had 192.168.0.1 (or something similar). This makes the camera unreachable for me. As I said, I'm not a professional. Luckily I somehow managed to find out which subnet Hikvision uses by default, so I could set up a test router with the correct subnet, then access the camera and changed the IP to something in my actual network (in how many average households can you a) find a spare router and b) a person how knows how to manage that?) .

2. Yes I know some will say "buy genuie Hiks". And I was absolutely sure I did, but in the end they turned out to be genuie but Hikvision still won't help me because the camera is a China-version and not supposed to be sold in other parts of the world. So I asked them to aid me reset the password (because that was set to whatever aswell), but they conducted an inquisition on me whether I am a Hikvision buyer they like rather than helping me. Thanks to the awesome Hikvision passwort reset tool that luckily worked with my fw version (again, which newbies knows how to read a firmware version out of a locked camera?), I was able to log in to the camera after 8 hours of researching on the internet.

An experienced person like @fenderman solves the mentioned problems during breakfast, no doubt. But a newbie, probably with limited computer knowledge, won't get such Hiks working.

And that's where Instar has its strength. So they are a fair deal for newbies who don't want to spend to much time on their CCTV (btw: anyway you will spend much more time that you ever expected :D) and who don't have a problem with the prices.

But if you are willing to spend more time on researching, you will find cams way cheaper and technically better.
You can strongly object but you are wrong. you admit yourself these have serious performance issues. it would literally be cheaper to have an installer come in and put in a quality camera and provide support. Only a complete idiot would buy this garbage. You can get better and faster support on this forum. Next time by your Hikvision from a seller who can provide the support to you. simply because you made a mistake and didn't do proper research doesn't make this garbage camera a good choice for a newbie it's crap and can't provide proper frame rates or good quality images. It's unfortunate but you got scammed by this German company selling 100% Chinese design engineer that made cameras. We are selling you low and China garbage at a premium price, German scammers.
 
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knedit

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instar is insanely overpriced, they are just generic cameras running generic firmware. you can get literally the EXACT same model off ebay for £20. they run the hipcam firmware, just reskinned.
 

alastairstevenson

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1. All Hik cameras came with a fixed IP in a wrong subnet. So my network is 192.168.178.x and the camera had 192.168.0.1 (or something similar). This makes the camera unreachable for me. As I said, I'm not a professional. Luckily I somehow managed to find out which subnet Hikvision uses by default, so I could set up a test router with the correct subnet, then access the camera and change the IP to something in my actual network (in how many average households can you a) find a spare router and b) a person how knows how to manage that?) .
Just for future reference - and for any unaware readers - in common with all brands of IP cameras that I've had my hands on (a few ..) Hikvision provide their own search tool called SADP that works across IP address segments to automatically find their devices whatever address they are on.
And allows the device IP address to be arbitrarily set without changing anything on the router or PC.

(again, which newbies knows how to read a firmware version out of a locked camera?),
Anyone who uses the Hikvision SADP tool, and a few other of their tools.
 
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