Amcrest 720P 4CH Surveillance System

The assembly and setup of the WLD 895 could not have been easier. I plugged the first power adapter into the display and a wall outlet, then plugged the second power adapter into the camera and a wall outlet, turned the display on and within a few seconds the system was running with no buttons to push, no pairing, no setup decisions, etc. The recording features of the system were automatically activated after the memory card was installed. I have turned the power off and on to each component. The system returned to normal operation after the power was restored. An internal battery keeps the system functioning and holds the settings for at least 4 hours if power is lost to the display. My display is mounted inside my house and the camera is mounted outside on a shed about 100’ and 4 walls away from the display. The camera is about 60’ from the house in the attached videos. I haven’t had any reception problems and the two antennas on the display are still folded behind the display.The WLD 895 system comes securely packaged and comes with the best, most organized manual I have seen in years. The touch screen is very responsive. I “tapped” my way through all of the setup screens with no problems or confusion. I can’t see any improvement on the 7” WLD display when changing from VGA to HD, but the field of view gets slightly wider. A total of 1 3/4 hours of HD recordings filled 1 GB of memory on the 32 GB Micro SD card. The open format “.ASF” files on the card play without any problem in my Windows 7 laptop. The recorded videos can be viewed and deleted on the WLD display screen but are not easily deleted while viewing the files on a computer since Amcrest sets the attributes as “archive” for the files and “read only” for the folders.There is an LED on the frame of the display that illuminates when the camera makes a recording and stays on until acknowledged with the Home Key. The display also periodically sounds a tone until the recording is acknowledged. The LED and/or the tone can be turned off. The display has a power saving feature that turns the screen off after a length of time that can be specified. The screen does not turn off when the power saving feature is disabled. Firmware updates are downloaded through a supplied cable between the Ethernet port on the display and your router, not your laptop and not through a wireless connection. The WLD 895 seems to be an orphan in the Amcrest system. The system, cameras, and update information, etc. are either absent or very difficult to find on their website.As a rule of thumb, a person will trigger a recording when they are approximately 45’ or closer to the camera. The motion detection sensitivity chosen, the weather and the ambient light levels can lower the trigger distance. Some records will have 5 to 9 seconds of recorded ambient background before the person or vehicle that triggered the video shows up in the video. That anomaly is especially obvious in the attached car videos. The microphone on the camera is sensitive enough to record footsteps on a gravel driveway. The field of view is fairly wide and is appropriate for watching large areas of property. You would be able to watch a 50’ long wall with the camera located about 50’ back from the center of the wall. A camera with a narrower field of view may be better if you are trying to identify individuals at a distance or watching small areas. I have not had any issues with flicker, so the system is still set at the 60 Hz default.Amcrest doesn’t provide any holes or brackets to mount the display on the wall. Wall mounting is complicated by the Ethernet port that extends about ½” above the back surface of the display. The attached pictures show a custom designed frame that I made for the display. The camera is designed to be mounted using the pipe flange screwed into a vertical or horizontal surface. Three screws are provided for mounting the flange directly onto wood. Mounting the camera on any other surface would require hardware for that surface that is not provided. The camera can be pointed in an infinite number of directions using the adjustable elbow and the threaded and set screw connections.I considered similar two camera systems from Harbor Freight and Lorex, but decided against Lorex due to the poor “before the sale” service I experienced and online comments that their “after the sale” service is lacking. Harbor Freight doesn’t provide sufficient technical data to analyze their system. Amcrest representatives were fairly responsive and spoke fluent English. Would I buy this system again, most likely “yes” for the same reasons I bought it the first time.Is the WLD 895 perfect, absolutely not. The system produces a lot of recordings with no obvious triggers. When I walk toward the camera counting footsteps out loud, the visual portion of the recording is fine, but the audio portion does not play properly. On one recording the numbers 1 through 6, then 19 were repeated 3 times. After that the count picked up at 23 and finished correctly. Another time the system played 1 through 3, 10 through 12, 1 through 3 a couple more times, then 25 through 30. Audios made while walking away from the camera are always correct. I will update this report when I see how Amcrest handles an actual problem.6/23/17 UpdateOn the 6th try someone finally answered the Amcrest customer support line to discuss the defective display. The fact that I could not understand the representative didn’t make any difference since the land line call was dropped within a couple minutes, before he even had my name. I have traveled internationally and I successfully work with many individuals who use English as a second or third language, but I could not understand the Amcrest representative. I decided to call the Amcrest Sales Department and have them transfer the call to a support representative that speaks English. The sales rep would not transfer the call but did e-mail a repair procedure to fix the playback problem with the display. The fact that the procedure was for re-establishing communication between the display and a cell phone, a feature I have never used and we didn’t discuss, didn’t make any difference since the camera had filled with condensation by now. This time I decided to try the Amcrest e-mail support line. About a week later, I received an e-mail instructing me return the camera. About 3 weeks later, I received a refurbished camera with a broken lens. There was no visible damage to the shipping box or the manufacturer’s product box to explain the damage to the lens. Next I received an e-mail instructing me to return everything, camera, display, manuals, brackets, etc. About three weeks later I received another refurbished camera even though I had e-mailed and enclosed explicit instructions with the return that I would not accept a downgrade to refurbished equipment. I paid for a new system and I expect to receive a fully functional new system. In addition, this camera is useless without a display, which Amcrest did not send. E-mails explaining the situation to the support team that hides behind an electronic wall have not been answered. A contact with Nelson Day on the Amcrest Chat Line was a waste of time. He kept referring me to the 888 support number even after I told him at least 3 times that no one answered that number. I even dialed the 888 support line while talking to Nelson and I was still on hold after Nelson disconnected from our 35 minute chat. Near the end of our chat, Mr. Nelson promised to have someone call me, which never happened.If you decide to take a cruise on the Amcrest ship, beware you will be traveling with pirates and you may end up on the plank. If the plank breaks, the best you can hope for is that one of the pirates may throw you a second hand, inflatable vest that will probably not hold air. Neither Jono F., Gerald Levertt, Nia, Nisha J., Maria, nor Christen McBride from Amcrest’s on-line support, nor Nelson Day, from Amcrest’s on line chat, threw a working vest to me or responded to numerous requests to speak to a live person.Bottom line, Amcrest never delivered a fully functional WLD895 security system or working component to me during the past 6 months and immediately tried to downgrade me to refurbished components when their equipment proved to be defective. Why 2 stars rather than 1 star? Amcrest has a nice looking ship if you don’t end up on the plank. Incidentally, Amcrest appears to have been formed by former Foscam executives if you decide to check the quality of the company. If you want to know what is wrong with a company, listen to their advertising and they will tell you. Posts about Amcrest support fill the internet. You should also be aware that each exchange takes about 4 weeks total for the initial contact, Amcrest’s return authorization, FedEx ground transport back to Amcrest, processing by Amcrest and FedEx ground transport back to the customer. There is no trust or assumption that the customer is right and no apparent concern that the customer will be without their security system for an extended period of time.This experience has turned into a wave of changing emotions. My initial enthusiasm for the WLD 896 system turned to disappointment when both the display and camera turn out to be defective. My disappointment turned to frustration when a non-responsive product support group sent me a damaged replacement camera and decided to downgrade me to a refurbished system. My frustration turned to anger when Amcrest Product Support representatives refused to speak to me about the situation and displayed an attitude of “We will do whatever we want and there is nothing you can do about it.” My anger turned to joy when Amazon stepped in and resolved the problem. My joy has turned to concern that these people who moved from Foscam to form Amcrest may move on to form another company with the same business approach. My concern has turned to amazement when Maria (the person or computer who asked me to return the complete system and replaced it with a refurbished camera) sent me an E-mail stating:Hi there!We'd love to hear what you think of our customer service. Please take a moment to answer one simple question by clicking either link below:How would you rate the support you received?The irony is that all of the prior e-mails discussing the problems, including the one to Maria asking what I am supposed to do with a camera and no display, were attached to her message.Fortunately, Amazon has come to my rescue and this will be my last update for the WLD895 and my only review for any products sold by Amcrest.Addendum, Amazon informed me that Amcrest was attempting to charge a restocking fee of $36.04 for the camera I had told them I would not accept and had never opened. What chutzpah.About 2 weeks after returning the camera and receiving a refund from Amazon, I received a new system from Amcrest. I sent an E-mail to Amcrest stating that I did not order a new system, I would not pay for this new system and I would be happy to discuss the return with a LIVE person. Amcrest never contacted me via any format. After waiting about two months for a response, I applied silicon caulk around each penetration on the back side of the camera and set up the new system. The audio does not play back properly, but the video portion has functioned correctly with no condensation inside the camera as of July, 2018.