H.View AI Human Detect Security Camera

An 8-channel recorder. You pick the cameras.

You get back to the shed and the door is standing open. The genny is gone, the good drill is gone, and all you can tell the insurer is roughly which night it happened. No footage, no plate, no description — so the claim comes down to your word against nothing, and whoever did it now knows the place is soft.

This is the wired answer to that. One eight-channel recorder, and you choose whether four, six or eight pan-and-tilt cameras go on it. Each camera runs on a single Ethernet cable that carries the picture, the sound and the power together. Nothing to charge, nothing to drop off the Wi-Fi, nothing to get the ladder out for when a battery goes flat.

Two things to get straight first, because they are what people get wrong on this sort of kit.

• 8CH is the recorder: it means the box has eight camera channels on the back. It does not mean eight cameras are in the carton. How many cameras you get is the option you choose on this page — four, six or eight, and the recorder is the same one either way.
• The drive is a separate choice: the supplier packing list shows no hard drive included. You pick None, 2 TB or 4 TB here. Choose None and the system still runs and streams live, but there is nothing for it to record onto until a drive goes in.

What It Does

• Runs off the mains: the recorder and every camera are fed from the one 48 V supply, so once a drive is fitted there is no battery deciding when it stops watching.
• Pans and tilts: each camera swings 355° and tilts through 90°, driven from the app or from the recorder, so one camera covers a yard instead of one fixed line.
• Sorts people from movement: the detection is set to look for a human shape rather than anything that moves, and the supplier states it ignores pets, insects, shadows and light changes. It is a filter, not a certainty — see Limits.
• Lights up and speaks: when a person trips a zone the spotlights come on and the camera plays a warning — one of eleven preset messages, a siren, or a line you record in your own voice.
• Puts it on your phone: the same trigger pushes an alert to the app and can send an email, with a snapshot and a recording of the event.
• Three ways of seeing at night: infrared black and white, full-time colour with the spotlights left on, or smart mode where the spotlight only fires when a person is picked up.
• Talks both ways: every camera has a microphone and a speaker, so you can hear the yard and answer back from the app.

Key Features

• Eight-channel PoE recorder: eight powered network ports across the back, plus a separate RJ45 uplink to your router, HDMI and VGA outputs, audio out and two USB 2.0 ports.
• Four, six or eight cameras: your choice on this page, in either 5MP or 8MP. The recorder has eight channels whichever you take, so there is headroom left over.
• 8MP is the 4K option: the supplier puts 8MP at 3840 × 2160. The 5MP cameras sit a step below that and are not 4K — do not buy the 5MP expecting it.
• Eight LEDs per camera: four white spotlight LEDs and four infrared LEDs around the lens, which is what gives it the three separate night modes.
• Detection you can shape: person and face detection, line-cross, intrusion area, drawable motion zones and adjustable sensitivity, all set per channel.
• Warning voices built in: eleven presets including keep out, no parking and you have entered the monitoring area, plus a custom recording. The alarm sound can be switched off.
• One cable per camera: an 18 m network lead is supplied for each one, carrying video, audio and power in the same run.
• IP66 rated housings: the supplier rates the cameras IP66 for outdoor mounting, and packs a weatherproof lid, a screw pack and a surveillance sticker with every one.
• H.265 recording: the supplier states H.265 uses up to half the bandwidth of H.264, which is what makes a given drive stretch further.
• XMEye app: Android and iOS, with Windows and Mac clients as well. A remote control and a USB mouse come in the box for driving the recorder directly.

Limits

What this system will not do. Read it before you buy, not after.

• It is not all 4K: only the 8MP cameras are 4K. If you pick a 5MP option you are getting a lower resolution camera and the page is not going to pretend otherwise.
• No drive unless you add one: the None option ships with nothing to record onto. It will show live pictures and stream to the app, and that is all, until a drive is fitted.
• It is wired, and that is work: every camera needs a cable run back to the recorder. You get 18 m per camera. Anything further than that and you are buying your own cable and doing your own terminations.
• No night vision range published: the supplier prints no distance figure anywhere on its material, and we have not measured one. We are not going to invent a number for a spec that decides where you mount it.
• Human detection is not accurate: it is better than plain motion, and that is the honest ceiling. Heavy rain, a spider on the lens at night and headlights across a wall will all still set it off. False triggers are the usual complaint on this whole category. Budget an evening tuning the zones and the sensitivity.
• The camera does not follow people on its own: the supplier material describes pan and tilt driven from the app or the recorder. It does not describe automatic tracking, so do not buy it expecting the camera to chase somebody across the yard.
• A light and a voice is not a barrier: the spotlight and the warning move on the opportunist. Somebody who has come for your gear and does not care will keep walking. This records what happened; it does not stop it.
• The menus are basic: the recorder interface takes some working out and the manual is thin. Set aside a night for it rather than an hour before dark.
• Housing material not confirmed: the supplier does not state what the camera bodies are made of, so we are not calling them metal or anything else.
• We make no legal claim about the footage: nothing here makes a recording admissible as evidence or compliant with any surveillance or privacy requirement. Filming people, boundaries, neighbours or a workplace is regulated, and the rules differ by state and by country. That part is on you.

Q & A

How many cameras actually come in the box?

Four, six or eight — whichever you choose on this page. There is one recorder either way, and it has eight channels. The supplier packing list for each option shows the cameras plus one 18 m network cable, one weatherproof lid, one screw pack and one surveillance sticker for each camera.

Is a hard drive included?

No. The base configuration has no drive in it. You add one here as an option — 2 TB or 4 TB — or choose None and fit your own later. We are not going to print how many days of footage a drive holds, because it depends entirely on how many cameras you run, which resolution, what frame rate, and whether you record all the time or only on events. Any number we quoted would be a guess with a decimal point on it.

Do I have to run cables to every camera?

Yes. This is a Power over Ethernet system, not a wireless one. One cable per camera goes back to the recorder and carries the video, the audio and the power in the same run. That is the trade: more work on the day, no batteries and no dropped signal afterwards.

Is the whole system 4K?

Only if you take the 8MP option. The supplier rates 8MP as 4K ultra HD at 3840 × 2160. The 5MP cameras are a genuine step down and the supplier does not publish their pixel dimensions, so we have left that row blank rather than fill it in.

Can I watch it from away from home?

Yes, through the XMEye app, provided the recorder is plugged into your internet connection with the supplied uplink port. Expect some lag when you are a long way off or on a poor mobile signal — that is the connection, not the camera.

Can I add more cameras later?

There are eight channels and eight powered ports, so if you buy four now there are four spare. What we cannot confirm is which other brands of PoE camera the recorder will accept, because the supplier does not state it. Matching cameras is the safe path.

What happens if I cannot get it working?

Tell us and we will work through it with you. On a system with this many moving parts — a network, a router, an app and a recorder — the first setup is where people get stuck, and we would rather spend the time on it than have the kit sit in a box.

Specs