HooToo Wireless HD IP Security Review (HT-IP211HDP)

Keep Watch Over Your Home from Anywhere with This IP Camera

Buy it at Amazon: HooToo Wireless HD IP Security Camera (HT-IP211HDP) [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: This camera has a number of decent features that you'd expect to find in a security camera.

Features: motion detection, IR night vision, occlusion detection, alarm trigger capabilities, email notifications, remote access/control from anywhere on the web, two-way audio, and is wireless, except for the power plug.

Build quality:
The construction is a hard-shell, lightweight plastic with a glossy exterior. It's solid, but you'll want to make sure this is firmly mounted to the wall or ceiling because it probably won't tolerate a fall onto hard surfaces. With that in mind, also note that this camera can only be used indoors and is not weatherproof for outdoor use.

Video/image quality:
While the images are captured at a decent resolution of 1280x720, the image and video compression make it look like a blown up lower resolution picture, so I hesitate to use "high-definition" here. The quality is fine for Closed Circuit TVs, baby monitors or security systems where you're not looking for super fine detail.

Setup following the instructions was straightforward but a bit tedious. The driver CD did not work out of the box, I had to download three utilities to set up the camera on HooToo's website. I was surprised to find that the web browser viewers had more functionality than the stand alone Windows program and mobile app. But here, too, there were parts of the web app that didn't function, like Zoom and Focus. I also wasn't able to get it to work in Firefox of Chrome, only Internet Explorer. Recording video from the web app sometimes yielded video with dropped frames, skipping audio and mixed bit rates: random parts of the video played back in fast-forward, some slow-mo, and the audio was not synced properly.

It has a nice range of functionality and options. I like that it can rotate to get nearly every viewable angle and that you control it remotely; though note that the panning and tilting controls can be jerky. I also found it useful that you can listen in on the audio or send audio to the camera through its built-in speaker or separate audio output. However, the microphone doesn't pick up sound more than a few feet away and it tends to sound hollow and far away. The speaker in the camera isn't terribly loud and there's no volume control on it; it also has a tendency to sound boxy and staticky.

The infrared works well. You can see everything in the video in total darkness. I didn't test the alarm feature since I don't have one for it to hook up to, but you can set the camera to trigger an alarm or even send you an email, say if the motion detector is set off. There's also and occlusion monitor in case someone tries to cover up the camera lens that can trigger events as well.

It works and does the job of a security camera, but isn't best in its class and its software could use some much needed patches and updates.

Buy it at Amazon: HooToo Wireless HD IP Security Camera (HT-IP211HDP) [Affiliate Link]