So after umming and ahing for the past year (while finding other things that needed money spent on it more urgently), i finally bit the bullet and bought one of the Annke FCD600 turrents (I didn't think my wife's eyes could roll that far, but now i know).
My specific model is 151DX, bought from Annke in Australia for AUD$140 (free shipping) which is US$95.
The plan is to use it in the backyard (it's currently in test/play mode in my garage), but before i mount it in the backyard i reckon i might test it out on the front yard as well which would see it replacing two existing cameras..
It certainly looks like it will do a reasonable job, but it's a little hard to tell from its position in the garage.
I've not used hik/annke products before so the menu structure took a bit of getting used to, but the basics are all still pretty much the same as any other IP camera.
It's running in onvif mode on a Dahua NVR which was interesting.
I initially set it up using the admin creds and found live view on the nvr was lagging badly by about 5-10 seconds.
I created a second account on the camera with operator level and used that for the onvif connection from the nvr and live view is in sync.
Not sure if that is a normal thing or just some weird coincidence on my part.
I was a little surprised that it didn't have cloud option for firmware updates, and i can't find anything for my specific model on the Annke website.
SADP doesn't seem to offer anything for updating firmware either which I also found a little odd based on my experience with other brand
tools.
I did see the firmware linked earlier in this thread though which was newer than the one mine came with.
It installed fine.
I've seen the comments about annke's being bricked by hik firmware so i think i'll just leave that alone.
I'm still figuring out the tuning, but most of that will likely need adjusting anyway once its mounted.
I like the smart lights going from IR to white light when it detects motion.
I'm sure over time i will find the annoyances, but for now, it's looking good.