Tenda CP7 PRO — 5MP Security Pan/Tilt Camera

Buying it, and when not to

The CP7 Pro is a 5MP security pan and tilt camera. It moves, so one unit can cover a whole room or sweep a yard rather than watching a single fixed angle, and 5MP is enough resolution for the detail most people actually need.

This is the volume camera sale: a shop interior, a reception, a corridor, a store room, a house, a nanny or staff camera, a small office. Pan and tilt is what customers like, because they can look around from their phone instead of discovering the one thing they wanted to see was just out of frame. For a single-camera or two-camera job where somebody simply wants to be able to check on a place, this is the right product and the right price.

For an outdoor position, use an outdoor-rated unit - the CH10 is built for exposure and this is not, and a camera that fails in the first heavy rain loses you the customer. For a demanding position where identification matters, the CH10's 10MP dual-lens arrangement is a real step up. And for any installation beyond a few cameras, move to cabled PoE cameras on a TEF1110P or TEF1126P PoE switch: WiFi cameras in quantity compete for the same airtime and the system becomes unreliable exactly as it gets larger.