CUQI for Raspberry Pi Infrared Night Vision IR Camera with Acrylic Holder Case, Adjustable-Focus Webcam for Pi 4/Pi 3 B+/Pi 3, Suit for Home Security Monitors, DIY, 3D Printer

I purchased this camera to set up a home security system with a Raspberry PI 4 and MotionEyeOS. What attracted me to it was the low cost and the fact that it came with heatsinks for the camera and the IR LED's, as well as a rudimentary but functional fixing bracket. For the price, that is very good value.As far as the camera and IR LED's are concerned, it works well with some limitations. Firstly, you cannot pass IR light through most modern double glazing. At night time, most of the light will reflect back and you will be unable to illuminate the area for the camera. Secondly, the LED's have a dull red glow to them, dim during the daytime but much brighter at night. As this is an IR camera, any daylight images captured will have an unnatural pink hue to them, and there is no way to switch between daytime and night-time mode, even if you could control the IR LED's via software control. As far as the picture quality is concerned, it was pin sharp and while the IR lighting is clearly very directional, it illuminated our front gate well enough from about 15-20 feet away. Other benefits are that the camera lens focus is easily adjustable without a tool, and the IR LED lenses can be detached if required, just twist and pull . The camera lens assembly rises approximately 28mm above the board, so this camera alone would not be able to fit inside most PI cases that expect a low profile camera PCB without major modification..Overall, the biggest downside is assembling the kit. The tolerances on the front bezel where you pass the camera lens, IR LED's and sensors through is so tight that once you tighten the daughter LED boards down, if they don't fit you have to undo them, re-adjust the board alignment and try again. As you can't do this in situ, it takes much trial and error to get the complete assembly to fit without damaging it. The supplied mounting bracket is open on all sides, so it would need to be installed in some waterproof enclosure iif used outdoors.Other than than that, my PI and the software recognised the camera straight away, and there were no driver issues with the latest version of MotionEyeOS (20190911 with a 4.19 raspbian kernel.

Camera is ok, use it to monitor my 3D printer with Octoprint.IR LEDs give images a red tinge and the bracket broke the first time I tried to install it. Nightime images are clear enough however.

Easy to set up. Only issue is the wavelength of LEDs used makes them give off a visible red light. I wanted to use the camera in a nest box, but my parrots attack the lights.

Good price but not great picture quality