COOAU 5MP 360° Solar Security Camera Outdoor Color Night
COOAU 5MP 360° Solar Security Camera Outdoor Color Night Vision, Rechargeable Battery Wireless CCTV Camera Systems,PTZ Camera,Motion Detection,4 Spotlight,Cloud storage,2.4GHz
From the brand
| Weight: | 8 g |
| Dimensions: | 16 x 15 x 10 cm; 8 g |
| Model: | Q01 |
| Part: | Q02 SP |
| Colour: | 5mp Solar Camera |
| Batteries Required: | Yes |
| Batteries Included: | Lithium Ion |
| Manufacture: | COOAU |
| Dimensions: | 16 x 15 x 10 cm; 8 g |
I am very impressed with the Q01 ptz camera and solar panel.
Worth every penny
I have contacted Cooau on a couple of occasions for advice on using the app properly.
Cooau customer service is from my experience very good.
I bought this to go in am outside shed to watch my mare who is due to foal. Impressed myself with setting it up. Clear pictures. Only downside is I have to charge it every other day as she obviously sets it off a lot spending time in the shed. My wi fi signal not great but it copes fine. Will be going on the house after. Impressed
Charges via USB hopefully once every six months.
Easy to install, comes with a template for wall bracket. Once bracket in place the unit just clicks onto it.
Controlled via phone. Picture quality is excellent. Night vision & clarity is brilliant, the four spotlights ensure excellent vision which is in full colour.
Sound quality is great meaning you can listen into what is being said & with being able to speak to intruders.
So far very impressed. Shown to several neighbours who are now looking at buying these.
Very easy to setup provided you can remember your WiFi password!
Particularly like the phone app , it tells you whether or not where you want to install the camera has a good signal ( 2.4ghz only, doesn’t support 5ghz ).
Paper template for the 3 drill holes, insert the provided raw plugs and screw the bracket to your chosen surface.
Clip the camera onto the bracket , turn on the camera power , open the Cloud Edge app and have a play , check picture quality and operate the pan, tilt, zoom function. Gentle taps on the direction arrows and the camera turns fairly smoothly and quickly.
SD or QHD image quality, picture is clear, light function turns the video into colour at night.
The USB connection is the c type, comes with a usb-c lead to charge the batteries.
Only found out after I’d bought this that you can buy a solar panel version. I’ve ordered a solar panel to connect to this which hopefully will mean I don’t have to take the camera down to charge up the batteries.
I bought a 128gb Kingston micro sd card, format the card in the app.
Detected my Mrs and sends messages to your phone when movement detected.
So far so good. For the price I’m very pleased.
**UPDATE** Bought a solar panel and installed near the camera, it now just stays fully charged. One thing I didn’t mention in my original review is that there doesn’t seem to be an app available to use on a windows pc. I contacted the manufacturer and they said, no, there is no pc app, just a mobile app.
Arrived well packaged within 24 hours of ordering.
Really, really easy to install. There’s even a helpful little stick-on template highlighting the screw positions for the bracket.
It took about two minutes to setup on WiFi after downloading the app, and as it arrived fully charged, it was up and running more or less straight away.
Really clear picture both day and night, with the light triggering immediately upon detection, changing the monochrome night picture to full colour.
It’s also really easy to set up the area to be recorded by blocking out the sections which you don’t need to see. In our case there is a small part of a footpath which would cause the motion detector to trigger each time someone walked past, but we’ve blocked that out, so now it only triggers when someone crosses our property boundary.
PTZ is great! With just a small adjustment, as well as monitoring our front door, we can now also see our electric car’s charging point when it’s plugged in and charging, which is a big bonus for us. Especially when it’s charging overnight.
All in all we’re really happy with this camera and will probably buy another for the back garden.
Fantastic piece of kit!
First thing I had to do was charge up the camera indoors and install the app on your phone. I should point out that I was forced to use the CloudEdge app as the default COOAU app you were directed to in the instructions no longer exists on GooglePlay (if using an Android phone) The CloudEdge app appears to work though and does everything I would expect it to
Using the app you could then measure the wi-fi signal to your camera and you were advised to do this when selecting where you were going to install the camera outdoors. A strong wi-fi signal is required although where I have it installed I’m getting about 70% signal which is fine.
After initial set up on my phone by installing the app, I can connect to the camera live feed from my phone and even rotate the camera from the phone (PTZ) albeit quite slowly. Note this can be done from anywhere your phone has access to internet so doesn’t even have to be at home. As well as live footage you can view any footage recorded when the motion detector has been triggered.
The motion detector can be configured from the app and so far there has been a few cases (out of probably 50 or so) where it hasn’t picked up people in its range. By default, it is set up in the app to detect human sized objects only so I’ve tried switching this off to see if this improves the hit rate. In addition, you can change the sensitivity of the detector so I guess it may just be trial and error to find the sweet spot.
Battery life has been OK. I’ve lost about 15% in a week although I was probably looking at the footage more in the last week than I would do normally (footage is watched on the app using micro SD card in the camera). I would say 4 to 6 weeks it to be expected rather than the 4 to 6 months stated although the figure they’ve stated may be based on over 90% wifi signal at all times. The 4-6 weeks recharge is fine for me though and you can always buy the solar panel for it if you don’t want to have to recharge it ever
I currently have the footage being recorded to the micro SD card only although there is the (paid for) option to have it uploaded to the cloud if you want extra security from having additional copies and in case the camera itself gets stolen. I have put the camera out of most people’s reach, as advised.
At night the pictures are in black and white but the image is still good. Once motion is detected the in-built light will switch on and the image changes to colour. There is an option to have the light on all the time at night although I suspect this would drain the battery much quicke
The camera arrived quickly and was packaged very neatly. Setup instructions are clear and fixings are included in the box. We decided the best location to site the camera, so then it was down to configuration.
I have installed a number of smart devices on my WiFi recently, most of which used 2.4 ghz rather than the 5 ghz standard. All the others required me to disable the 5 ghz on my router for installation, although I could re-enable it once things were working. The COOAU camera worked first time without this fiddling; and as I had already installed the COOAU software, the installation was completed literally in a couple of minutes.
There are a lot of software settings to play with, simply by selecting the camera in the COOAU software, then setting the options as required. We are wall-mounting ours, so we tested the camera (hand-held) and software options before final installation. We were very impressed by the daylight picture quality and the range of the pan / tilt / zoom. We tested the night vision, too, which was great. I’ve included a video of this to demonstrate. (We downgraded the picture quality to reduce the file size).
All in all we’re very happy with our purchase.
Set up of the camera was very simple and straightforward. Unlike other cameras, there wasn’t even a requirement to connect the camera directly to the wi-fi router itself with an ethernet cable, which was a bonus.
To get started you need to download the Cooau Cam App on Android or ISO which took a few seconds. Once installed it was just a matter of following the on-screen instructions, which were simple and clear. I chose the option of connecting the camera to wi-fi by showing the camera lens itself a QR code that was generated on my smartphone within the Cooau app, i simple lifted my phone to the camera lens and after a couple of seconds the camera read the QR code and played a tune to acknowledge it had registered. It was all complete within a minute or two.
Once connected to the app and wi-fi all that is left is installing the camera to your wall or ceiling. Supplied in the box is a packet of screws and wall plugs and a drill screw guide (see attached images) to make installation a breeze. Don’t forget at this point to also install your micro SD card if required (maximum 128GB) before securing to a wall. It is best to ensure your sd card is a high quality, class 10, for maximum performance.
Once thing to note in terms of installation, a USB cable is only supplied inside the box and no wall plug. The USB cable is quite short, but can be easily extended using your own USB cable. A simple USB wall plug is required to complete power to the security camera, should you wish to have a constant direct power supply.
Once installed, the app itself is responsive and displays a clear HD image from the camera (see attached images). I love the fact this camera has ‘PTZ’ functionality – enabling you to rotate the camera left and right, up and down from the app itself.
One key feature about this security camera in particular is it has a built in battery, allowing you to monitor your property without a constant power cable. According to the manufacturer, upon a full charge, the battery can last 4 to 6 months, depending on usage and the amount of security alerts, although I am yet to confirm this. The app will alert you when the power has reduced to 20% automatically. This option is fantastic for those who do not have access to a constant power supply nearby and who can simply charge the device once and then leave it for a few months. The camera will still need to be connected to a wi-fi signal, regardless whether a constant power supply is provided or not.
Overall I am very happy with this camera and love the fact it includes two key features, PTZ functionality and an included battery for easier installation.
I opened the box up and found the camera inside along with a charging cable, mounting bracket with screws and a manual. I read the manual all the way through before starting.
Firstly, I installed the SD card. I fixed the bracket to the Garden wall which is where I want it to go. I then downloaded the COOAU App onto my phone using the supplied scan code, which installed with no problems, you just have to follow the onscreen instructions. I then turned the camera on.
The setup instructions are very easy to follow, and I was able to get as far as scanning the QR code the the phone offered up very easily, but after that It would not actually connect to the camera. I tried for quite a few times, before looking at the instructions again and reading that the camera + router + phone need to stay close together until after they have made the first connection. I was trying to connect from all the way out in the garden lol. Once I realised this, they connected instantly, and I was then able to move the camera out into the garden location where I needed it to go.
It has been working brilliantly so far for over a week now, and I can log into my phone at any time to see what going on in the Garden, even when I am not at home. The camera records any human movement it picks up onto the SD card, so you can scroll back to see older videos. The battery level has not moved yet, so it looks like the battery will last 4 to 6 months as they say it will. The picture quality is great even if turned down to SD quality, and the SD card has hardly been touched yet.
All in all, I am very please with the camera and would definitely recommend it if you are looking for a new one. 10 out of 10…