Defender STEALTH1 Covert MPEG4 DVR Recording System with Built-in Color Pinhole Surveillance Camera Hidden in a Motion Sensor
- Wire-free monitoring–up to 12 hours of continuous use
- 45 days of recording with included SD card
- With motion activation capability the unit will only record only when movement is detected
- View footage by hooking up to your TV, or remove the SD card to view or archive footage
- MPEG-4 compression–store weeks of high quality footage
my default software is able to play the videos that are captured with this unit, so I didn’t need to install any additional software of drivers. I just put the card in my card reader and everything is there. You do HAVE to connect the unit to your TV to set it up. There is a built in menu that must be setup before you can use it. You can set it to record all the time or motion sensor. You can even set the times it should record if you know who or what you want to check on. The setup is a little confusing, but not too difficult. Once it’s setup, it works really well. I set it up for motion sensing recording. The videos are just OK quality, about like most inexpensive surveillance cameras. If you know who you’re looking at, it’s easy to make out, sort of like a cell phone video recording.
The unit is a little bigger than I expected, so it’s not really “hidden”. If you have an alarm system in your home, with motion sensors mounted inside, you can mount this and people might think it’s just another, larger, sensor.
If you’re concerned about personal property, or need a nanny cam”, this will do the trick. I just think it’s expensive for what you get.
Rating: 3 / 5
Works well, pictures and video are very clear. Battery life is short if there is a lot of video taken. Pluggin it in with included ac adapter solves this problem. However this then makes it more conspicious. Make sure to put this is a location that is hard to reach. If someone figures out what it is it can just be stolen and all the incriminating video with it.
John
Rating: 4 / 5
My husband and I have had quite a few issues with our next door neighbors of our townhouse, so we decided to install a security camera in hopes to document their actions. We just installed this past weekend and so far love this product! I read the directions and installed it on my own in less than two hours. Though the video input cord is short, we were able to install it only two feet away from a TV. The plug in cord is pretty short as well, and we wanted to use that instead of batteries so we were a little limited on where to install it. The options are awesome for this tiny inexpensive product, and I easily programmed it to the motion detected setting. The picture on our TV is amazing – clear and in color! So far so good, but we would definitely recommend this product!
Rating: 4 / 5
that the programming is a little clunky.
Why four stars — The unit delivers good quality images and if you set the motion detection level correctly you can get a lot of time coverage on the included memory card. Bought the unit specifically to monitor a location based on movement in that area. Unit has performed flawlessly.
How it could earn a fifth star — the programming is a little complicated but manageable with some patience. As remarked by others the manual could be written a little more helpfully. The biggest issue (for me) is that you have to rely on an external monitor to program the settings. This means that either you have a portable tv to connect at the location you are placing it or that you have to program it where your monitor is. If you do the latter you place it at the location and do some testing to determine whether the settings are working as desired. This is done by removing the memory card, downloading the images to a computer and viewing how it is recording.
A small thing that would get it an additional half star would be if the mounting bracket had two ball joints instead of one which would give it a little more flexibility in adjustment the way in which the unit can be angled from its bracket.
Rating: 4 / 5
This recorder is pretty decent – I just have a few complaints. It has no sound (which I knew when I bought it) but still, that should be a VERY easy thing to add. Secondly, it doesn’t come preset to record on the highest resoulution, and I have no idea how much time is able to be recorded at the highest resolution. The manual covers lower resolutions, but not higher ones. Finally, while the manual was decent and the interface to configure options not bad, it seems like $200 for this thing is a little much.
Rating: 3 / 5