Trendnet TV-IP262PI review

Priced on the right side of £200, and equipped with internal LED illuminators for night-time operation, the TV-IP262PI dome IP camera is aimed at businesses looking for affordable 24-hour monitoring.

The camera uses a standard 1/4in CMOS sensor, and 12 IR emitters surround the lens. The lens position and focus must be adjusted manually, which means removing the dome.

If you want two-way audio, you’ll need your own speakers and microphone. An external power supply is included, but the camera can also be powered with a PoE switch or injector – it worked perfectly with the lab’s ProCurve 2424-PWR switch.

With a top resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 pixels, the TV-IP262PI’s live view is impressive for a sub-£200 camera. Images are rendered sharply and exhibit good contrast and colour balance. Controls around the image can be used to change the window size, select a codec (H.264 is supported), take snapshots and run manual recordings to a local drive or network share.

It has problems handling bright sunlight and ceiling lighting, but it’s good for facial recognition up to eight metres. The digital zoom, however, is only available at 640 x 480 and up to 3x.

Trendnet claims the IR emitters give the TV-IP262PI a range of 12m, but we couldn’t see much at that distance. For practical use at night, we estimate they’re good for up to five metres.

The motion-detection feature sends snapshots via FTP and email, and records AVI or MP4 video to a network share. Up to three customisable detection windows are supported, and we had no problems setting up a motion-detection schedule.

It’s also possible to record directly to an SD card. A file manager is provided to keep track of recordings, which can be downloaded to your PC. For mobile viewing, the camera supports 3GPP and streams a low-resolution feed over RSTP.

At this price, the TV-IP262PI is great value – you won’t find many day-and-night megapixel IP cameras for less.