Szsinocam SZ-IPC-7032CSW, or an IP camera with a 2-megapixel resolution

As I’ve written many times, I mainly use cameras made by Hikvision and ILDVR, though I’ve been using the latter very rarely lately. Still, I’m interested in seeing how far Chinese video surveillance system manufacturers have come. In this case, I mean the country where the device was developed, not where it was made, since “everything is made in China.”

Personally, I don’t see much point in cameras like these, since they usually fall into the “standalone” category—in other words, there’s absolutely no way to connect them to my surveillance systems. But they can be useful when you don’t want to install anything elaborate and just need to put up a few cameras.

I came across several different cameras that caught my interest, but unfortunately only this one was in stock, so I ordered it.

Specifications listed on the store page:
Sensor: 1/3 inch 2.0M AR0230 CMOS sensor
Wireless: 2.4GHz / 5.8GHz dual WiFi signal adaptable
Wireless range: up to 40 m with a clear line of sight
Resolution: 1080P full HD, 25 / 30fps; 3M HD lens
IR illumination: 36 × 5mm LEDs, up to 25 meters
Built-in IR filter, automatic day/night switching
Motion detection
Sensor sensitivity: 0.1 Lux F1.6 ( Color ), 0.01 Lux F1.6 ( B / W IR on )
Compression: H.264 / MJPEG, mobile phone, UPNP
Supports ONVIF ( Profile S ), CGI, Hikvision, Dahua, XM

I’ll come back to some of the claimed specifications later in the review. For now, here are a few photos of the packaging, followed by an inspection and teardown.
The camera comes in a fairly standard cardboard box.


The ends of the box carry some important and not-so-important information.
The important details include a code for connecting through the website—which I generally don’t recommend using—the camera’s name, and its maximum resolution.


There’s nothing to complain about with the packaging; for the most part, it’s just like the packaging used by Hikvision, for example.


The package includes:
1. Szsinocam SZ-IPC-7032CSW camera
2. Power supply
3. Wall plugs and screws for mounting the camera
4. Small hex key
5. Manual


The manual is quite detailed and has plenty of pictures. I usually don’t even open it, but here I had to, because there was no camera at the IP address specified on the camera. Even with the manual, things weren’t that straightforward: I had to go to the manufacturer’s website, download the software, and so on. So despite the manual’s polished presentation, I can’t give it a thumbs-up.



The mounting hardware is a classic example of the genre. I suspect all video camera mounts are made at the same factory.
The bag of mounting hardware also contains a small hex key for adjusting the camera’s position.

They also included two antennas with female connectors. I’m skeptical about WiFi in surveillance cameras, but it might come in handy—sometimes it does.


The power supply deserves a closer look.
Power supplies are generally included with “Chinese” cameras; branded cameras rarely come with one.
I was glad to see a version with a European plug, since using an adapter with a device that stays plugged in all the time isn’t ideal.
Rated output: 12 V, up to 1 A load current.


Although I didn’t expect to find anything new inside the power supply, I decided to
take it apart anyway.


The power supply looks very budget-oriented and is much like the ones included with most TV boxes.


1. There’s no input filter, but there is a fuse. The input capacitor is 5.6 µF, which is small for the 12 W claimed in the specifications. But the camera’s actual power consumption is lower, so it may be fine.
2. PWM controller. I didn’t look up the datasheet; it works and doesn’t get particularly hot during operation.
3. The noise-suppression capacitor is decent; no complaints there.
4. The output has a diode, a 470 µF capacitor, and proper feedback, but no output filter.. My only real complaint is about the capacitor, since the camera doesn't particularly need an output filter, though it wouldn't hurt.

All in all, this is a decent 6–8 W power supply.


The board is neatly laid out, and you can see a current-sensing resistor, which usually indicates that protection is present.


The camera has the familiar “bullet” form factor and is not much different from its “siblings.”


The housing is made of metal. At the top is a sunshade with a black insert to reduce glare.


The glass is double-layered, with a plastic tube between the layers. Around the lens is an array of 5 mm IR LEDs. The LEDs are quite noticeable when operating; at night, you can see them from about 15 m away, mainly because of their focusing lenses—in other words, you have to be in the path of the light beam.


1. There is a sticker on the underside of the camera with its IP address, the default password, and a code for connecting over the internet. I think the last one is unnecessary.
2. There are two antenna connectors on the back. The mounting holes are not sealed.
3. The bracket has several degrees of freedom and holds the camera very securely.
4. There is a foam rubber insert on the underside for extra moisture protection.


It's unusual to see a reset button in addition to the power and network connectors. The last time I saw this kind of setup was a long time ago, on some branded camera.
The LAN connector is not waterproof, which is a serious drawback. If you use it, you must fit a protective box. Since the camera doesn't support PoE and there won't be any voltage on the cable, it might be fine without protection—but I wouldn't leave it that way.


With the camera assembled, the antennas aren't very noticeable. I once reviewed a recorder that came with four WiFi cameras, and their antennas were much larger.


It just so happened that I had cameras from several different manufacturers at home, and I couldn't resist taking a group photo :)
Water got into the network connector on the ILDVR. Since it was powered over PoE, the contacts were ruined, so it was brought in for repair.


I took the camera apart after testing, but I'll show the internals here before demonstrating how it works.
Remove the three screws at the back and take off the front section, just like on most cameras of this type.


The design is almost identical to the cameras in my previous review—I’d even call them twin brothers.


The IR illuminator board has a very common design: the same LEDs, a photoresistor, and a handful of other components.
The board has a connector for 12 V power. It monitors the ambient light level itself and can send an illumination-on signal through a separate connector, which is then connected to the camera board.
As with most cameras, you can't disable the IR illumination in software. You can only switch the camera between day and night modes, i.e. color and black-and-white. In black-and-white mode, the IR-cut filter is also moved out of the way.


The whole assembly consists of two boards (three if you count the IR illuminator board): the camera board itself and the WiFi module.
The lens and shutter mechanism are visible at the front.


This photo isn't really related to the board, the image sensor, or anything like that, but I decided to include it to show this tangle of wires. Branded cameras usually use special ribbon cables for these connections, but here the manufacturer chose a simpler, less tidy approach.


The lens is marked IR 3MP 4 mm, meaning it transmits IR light, has a resolution of up to 3 MP (very approximate), and a 4 mm focal length. With a 1/3-inch sensor and a 4 mm lens, the horizontal field of view is 62 degrees. I didn't measure this specifically, but based on what I saw, that seems about right.
The lens itself is secured with a screw. After all the tests, I tried adjusting the focus a little. Even with the screw fully loosened, I couldn't turn the lens more than 45–60 degrees. Most likely, the screw damaged the threads, so it won't come out without a tool. In any case, even with that limitation, I managed to reach both ends of the focus range and see the image quality deteriorate.


The first thing you notice when inspecting the board is the heatsink on the SoC. By the way, when I tested the camera at room temperature, I noticed that its housing got quite hot, so the presence of a heatsink was somewhat expected. On the other hand, the camera has a metal housing, and heat is usually dissipated through it, at least on the Hikvision models.


I don't know what the heatsink was attached with, but I pried it off without much effort. At one point I even thought it was just thermal paste, but it felt more like silicone.


"Heart" of the camera is the Hi3516 SoC made by HiSilicon. It is based on an ARM Cortex A9 core running at 800 MHz. More detailed specifications are available in the datasheet linked above.
Since I removed the material that had been holding the heatsink in place, I had to attach it with thermally conductive double-sided tape.


1, 2. RAM and flash memory for storing the firmware.
3, 4. Ethernet controller (on the right) and the EEPROM containing its firmware.
5. Driver for controlling the shutter mechanism
6. Unknown chip


WiFi module. The construction is clearly a bit of a hack, but it's put together quite neatly, if not exactly aesthetically.


The chip responsible for WiFi. I was very pleased to see that it supports not only the 2.4 GHz band, but 5 GHz as well. It's a shame that its performance leaves a lot to be desired.


At the beginning of the review, I wrote that I had trouble connecting to the camera. The IP address printed on the camera itself didn't respond, and the manual wasn't any help either. In the end, I went to the manufacturer's official website and downloaded the software.
Software can often automatically "find" its cameras using a special network packet sent to all cameras. This can even help when devices have the same IP address.

Fortunately, the manufacturer included this feature in the software, so as soon as I launched it, I saw the camera—and its IP address was completely different from the one on the label. I didn't bother figuring out whether it was configured manually or assigned by my router's DHCP server. The important thing was that I could see the camera; at that point, I wasn't particularly interested in anything else.


The program's interface is simple and familiar to many users of video surveillance systems. It has options for choosing the number of windows, control buttons, camera selection, and a settings menu.


First I tried to access the camera controls, but I figured out how to do that from the software itself much later, so I decided to take the more conventional route and use a browser.
I had some problems with Opera, so I launched Internet Explorer.
On startup, it prompted me to install a plugin, which is perfectly normal. What was strange was that it kept prompting me again several times even after I had installed it.
I entered the username and password admin/admin and got access to the camera menu.


Next comes a lot of tedious, fairly repetitive screenshots showing the main sections of the camera software's settings.
The login screen offers Russian, but I'll show the screenshots in English because some of the translations are rather inaccurate.

There are a lot of screenshots, so I decided to reduce the number by grouping them in fours. If something isn't visible in a screenshot, click it to open the full-size image. The same applies to all the photos in this review.

1. Video settings—compression, resolution, bitrate, and so on. The default bitrate is 6144, with Full HD resolution. In practice, I found that above 6000–8000 over a wired connection and 3000–400 over WiFi, the camera starts to lag. But in reality, there's no point setting it above 3000: even if the image quality improves, the difference is negligible.
2. Image processing settings. One useful feature worth mentioning is WDR, which is disabled by default. It improves image quality when dark and bright areas appear together in the frame. Noise reduction and automatic gain control are enabled by default; the image is worse without them.
There are also day/night mode and IR illumination controls, but the latter doesn't work.
The screenshot shows the corridor mode selection menu expanded, but selecting it makes the camera freeze. Not completely, though, since it can still be rebooted remotely.
3. Privacy masks. They're there, but rarely needed.
4. Settings for the on-screen display and its position in the frame. Useful, and it works.


1. ROI. I was initially pleased to see this useful feature, which I knew from the Hikvision cameras and demonstrated in my review of one. I thought, “Could it really be?” But alas, "promises don't mean commitment." What a shame.
2. Wired connection settings. Nothing unusual, just the standard parameters. DHCP is enabled.
3. The same goes for WiFi. There are a few things to note here, though: the camera can work either as a client or as an access point. The latter is necessary if you want to use the camera on its own.
4. At first, I even missed the fact that the camera supports the 5 GHz band, so finding it there was a pleasant surprise. What's more, the camera immediately detected my router at the other end of the apartment, but connected to it only at 2.4 GHz. Even then, the connection was stable but slow. It can just about work over a long distance if you limit the stream to 500-1000 Kbit/s. So I can say that I'd only rely on WiFi if the camera is close to the router. The connection is nowhere near as good as that of the DVR I reviewed recently; under the same conditions, all 4 channels worked fine on that one.


1. When I brought the camera closer to the router, it connected to the 5 GHz network without any problems. One downside: the password is visible as you type it, which can be a problem in some situations.
2. DynDNS settings, useful.
3. Setting up access through the website is simple and easy, but not secure.
4. Enabling and adjusting the motion sensor. I wasn't particularly impressed with how motion detection in the frame works; perhaps I need to experiment with the zones and sensitivity.


1. Setting up alarm notifications. I don't use this myself, but it could certainly be useful.
2. Recording schedule. I haven't tried to see whether the camera will record to the computer's hard drive (or whether it will record at all), but the monitoring software has an identical menu for setting up a recording schedule.
3. Setting the camera name, along with minor settings such as the interface language and time/date format.
4. Firmware update, but I couldn't find any firmware on the manufacturer's website, so all my tests were done with the stock version.


1. ONVIF connection settings.
2. Automatic time synchronization settings. Useful, but there's no option for switching between standard and daylight saving time, so you may have to set up an NTP server on your computer and configure the camera to get the time from it. There's an easier option, though: the camera syncs its time automatically when using its own software.
3. General information about the camera and firmware.
4. The software offers to record to the computer I'm using to connect to the camera, but as far as I can tell, it will only do that while the software is actually running in the browser, so this feature isn't very useful.

There are lots of other menus, but they either contain information that's standard for most cameras or don't work with this one, so I haven't included them.


Here are a few settings from the video surveillance software. To access them, click Configuration at the top, then click the line for the camera you need on the left, and select Remote at the top.
The menu looks different from the one in the browser, but it's exactly the same in terms of functionality.
The stream bitrate settings show a limit of 20000, which is unrealistic. The camera can run at up to 16000, but it lags terribly. As I mentioned above, 6000-8000 is more realistic, though I'd recommend 3000-4000 Kbit/s.
By the way, the Sound checkbox is enabled by default. You can turn it off, since the camera doesn't have a microphone.


These two screenshots show the same settings as the ones in the browser, but I included them so you can appreciate all the nuances of the translation—and stick to English, where everything is much more accurate.


The NTP lacework really cheered me up :)


After playing around with WiFi, I connected the camera by cable and got two cameras in the software :). That makes sense, really: the wired connection has its own MAC and IP addresses, and WiFi has its own.


But the odd part is this. When I launch the software in viewing mode, I can connect to both “cameras” and start viewing. Even with WiFi turned off....
For example, the wired IP is 226 and the wireless one is 79. I turn off WiFi, connect by cable, go to address 79, and end up in the control panel...


Now let's see how the camera performs its main job.
There will be quite a few screenshots, so I'll hide some of them under a spoiler.

First, here's how the camera looks under artificial lighting. By the way, I compared it with photos I took using the cameras from the DVR review, and the camera I'm reviewing here has a slightly wider field of view.


The same frame with WDR enabled, i.e. wide dynamic range. The image seems a little better, but I wouldn't say it's a major improvement.




At the very beginning, I listed the specs and mentioned Hikvision. Having given up on getting lucky, I installed the software—and it really does work with this camera. Why didn't I do that from the start? It would have solved a lot of problems right away. The camera settings in the software are pretty limited, though, and it's better to configure it through a browser. Still, it's much better than the software supplied by the manufacturer. Let's just say it's a whole head better—well, maybe half a head :)


That seems to be everything I could show and everything I found out. This time, it's genuinely hard for me to list the pros and cons.
On the one hand, the camera works, and it works reliably enough. I tested it at temperatures from -22–23 to +25. The 5 GHz band is also a welcome feature.
On the other hand, the Wi-Fi connection is weak, there are image issues, and there's no PoE.
Of course, I could criticize the software, and there are plenty of reasons to, but I think this problem could be addressed by trying an alternative, such as Hikvision's software.

Now that's really everything.