Overall, the EM4484’s management console offers many of the basics you’d expect to find on a budget IP camera, without any unnecessary fuss. However, our inability to configure an email account to use with the camera was a major drawback. As we’ve mentioned in other IP Camera reviews, why manufacturers cannot develop a wizard based setup for these devices is beyond us, as once again we’re left scratching our heads trying to configure a very basic feature.
Recording Software
Eminent package the camera with their own recording application, which allows the monitoring of up to 16 cameras on the network. The application, IP Cam Surveillance, may well be out of date as it threw up displays issues in Windows 7, forcing the operating system to switch into the Windows 7 Basic colour scheme, which doesn’t fill you with confidence that the software is robust enough to protect your premises.
IP Cam Surveillance allows you to configure recordings on the local PC, on a one time or scheduled basis as well as configure motion recording and alert settings (which you may have previously configured in the camera’s management console – why the duplication?) However, with the flakiness of the application on first run, you may not wish to spend too much time here.
Conclusions
Eminent’s EM4484 IP Camera may well be a budget device, but it joins the list of cameras we’ve tested which are let down by basic, unfriendly management software which is tricky to configure and does not give the user any sense of quality or robustness. Both the camera’s administration and recording applications dropped Windows 7 display settings down to Aero Basic due to a compatibility issue, and email configuration simply did not work. Couple those issues with a poor stand which was unable to allow the device to stand freely without permanent fixing to a desk or wall, and we have a bit of a disaster all round. We’re still to find an IP Camera we can whole heartedly stand behind with a strong recommendation, and the Eminent EM4484 is not going to change our minds without a rethink on the stand supplied with the camera (or design of the hardware itself), and an overhaul of the management software. Next….!
