Imagine a bullet security camera with full 24/7 color illumination, long-distance IR night vision, human body detection, flashing light active deterrence features, all rolled into an affordable and easy-to-use camera housing. Sound impossible? Well it’s not, thanks to Uniarch by Uniview! Introducing the Uniarch Dual Light Bullet Camera, the IPC-B213-APF40W.
Uniarch is Uniview’s consumer-oriented line of security products. The cameras are designed to have the same premium video quality that professional installers have come to love with Uniview, but are simplified in both cost-efficiency and easy-of-use to satisfy the DIY crowd. This camera fits that bill perfectly as it has excellent 3MP video quality, a build that is designed to stand out, and unique features that make this camera one of a kind, all while staying user-friendly and inexpensive.
But the IPC-B213-APF40W is a little bit different from the other cameras in our Uniarch catalog. Other Uniarch cameras maintain the Uniview standard when it comes to video quality. The Dual Light Bullet, on the other hand, takes this a step further. It packs several additional powerful features into the body of a Uniarch camera.
ColorHunter illumination gives the user the option to see color at night via embedded white lights. This is something we’ve seen in Uniview cameras for some time now, but this is the first time we’ve seen it in a Uniarch camera.
The camera supports also supports artificial intelligence detection features for the first time in the Uniarch lineup.
Finally, active deterrence, which uses bright flashing lights to alert potential vandals that they are being watched, is a feature that is available on higher end Uniview cameras. But I don't think anyone expected to see active deterrence on a Uniarch model. Yet, here it is!
The IPC-B213-APF40W is an excellent camera with more features than it should have at this price point. Let’s take a closer look at what this camera offers.
IR & ColorHunter
First, let’s talk about the name of this camera: the Dual Light Bullet. This is a strange description for a camera that actually has six LED lights embedded underneath the lens. That’s a lot of lights! But these six LEDs perform two illumination functions, hence the “Dual Light” terminology.
First, like most security cameras on the market, this Uniarch bullet supports standard infrared illumination for exceptional, albeit black & white, night vision. The two powerful IR LEDs allow this camera to see up to 165' at night.
But what about the other four LEDs? Well as we’ve already mentioned, this camera also has ColorHunter illumination technology built into it. This means it has on-board visible white lights that provide the camera with enough light to see in color 24/7. Unlike most ColorHunter cameras, this camera has four bright white light LEDs. This means that the Uniarch Dual Light camera has a white light range of up to 100', which has over a 3x further color-at-night range than a typical ColorHunter camera with one or two white light LEDs.
Why do you need two different light modes? It’s all about giving you the flexibility to dial in your camera’s settings the way you want. If the long-range 165' IR distance is more important to you than capturing color detail, then you can leave your camera in IR mode. You’ll still be able to use the white light LEDs for active deterrence (which we’ll talk about in the next section). If viewing your footage is crisp, clear, and color detail is more important to you, then you can leave your camera in white light mode and enjoy 24/7 color footage.
But what if you want to take advantage of both the IR LEDs and the white light color mode? Well, this camera isn’t called Dual Light for nothing. But before we talk about how you can use both lights interchangeably, let’s talk about the other two game-changing features.
Active Deterrence & Human Body Detection
We haven’t seen active deterrence in a Uniarch camera yet, and I think that’s for a good reason. If you want a reliable active deterrence camera, you’re going to need more than just your standard motion detection events. This is why you’ll really only find active deterrence cameras inside of Uniview’s smarter lineup, with cameras featuring artificial intelligence and more advanced events (think “line crossing” or “intrusion detection”).
Uniarch cameras never supported advanced events with artificial intelligence, due to the price point and the target consumer. But that all changed with the Dual Light Bullet. We now have more advanced events, which means we’re also able to have active deterrence. But how did Uniview manage to add these more complex features without changing the fundamental usability of Uniarch? Well, instead of giving this camera its full Deep Learning technology, Uniview opted for a lighter and more usable version.
First, there is only one intelligent event in this bullet: human body detection. So instead of hopping into the intelligent event menu and having to pick from four, five, six, twelve events that basically do the same thing, you only have one event that does everything you need it to do. And it works really well with just a few clicks, contributing to this camera's sleek and user-friendly design.
Second, there is only one object type to target: human body detection. There's no extra configuration you need to do, no choosing between different target types, no dialing in the minimum and maximum target sizes. Just enable the human body detection event and you're done.
Third, there aren’t many options for you to adust. Once you click into the intelligent event menu, you can simply turn the Human Body Detection event on or off. Once enabled, the event starts working right away, looking for human bodies. On the live view, you’ll see green boxes appear around any human bodies. But once the camera recognizes a body, it won’t do anything by default. In order for an actual event to trigger, you have to set up a couple of parameters.
First, you must add a snapshot area, turning this into a modified intrusion detection event by drawing a square on the screen. With the area created, the event will trip once it detects a human body within that area.
Once you set a snapshot area, you’ll notice the green box around human bodies turn red once someone enters the intrusion area.
In addition to setting an area, you can also adjust the sensitivity of human body detection, enable active deterrence strobe light functionality, tell the camera how many times you want the light to flash when an event is tripped, and set up a schedule for when the intelligent event should be active.
As you can see, there’s really not a whole lot going on in the intelligent event menu. It’s all pretty much happening in the background, allowing you to focus on more important things. Because of this, Uniarch is able to maintain its ease of use and its cost efficiency, while also providing its users with more great features.
Illumination and Deterrence at Night: Three Modes of Functionality
So, we have two light modes. We have two advanced features. How do these four elements work together? Remember, there are two different kinds of light on this camera: infrared and visible white light.
If you have your camera set to infrared mode, the camera will be hidden in the shadows, passively capturing footage. But when it detects human body movement, the strobe will flash a configurable amount of times just like it does during the daytime. The IR lights will remain on the entire duration of the strobe. On the recording, you’ll notice that the CCTV footage remains in black & white, but you’ll be able to see the contrast change as the strobe flashes.
The camera set to "Infrared Mode." (Click to view full image.)
In IR mode, the camera's strobe flashes during an event.
This Active Deterrence feature is a fantastic way to alert would-be-no-gooders that there is a camera watching them. You can choose how many times the white lights flash. This is great for dumpster drivers, trailer theft, and any other scenario where you need to send a noticeable alert.
If you have your camera set to white light mode, the camera will leave the white light LEDs on all night long, whether or not the camera senses a human body. When the camera does recognize a body and trip an event, you won’t be able to tell by looking at the camera. There will be no change with regard to the white lights. However, the camera will still register the event and save that clip as an intelligent event. When you look at your playback timeline, you’ll still be able to see the different timeline colors between regular recording and event-based recording.
The camera set to "White Light Mode." (Click to view full image.)
In White Light mode, the camera's lights are solid during regular time and during an event.
But that’s not all! Remember how I mentioned there was a third mode that allows you to use the both IR LEDS and white light LEDS? This is called Dual Light mode, and is where the bullet derives its name.
When night falls, the camera will turn on its IR LEDs, allowing you to take advantage of the full 165' viewing range. But when the human body detection event is tripped, the camera flips into color mode, giving you the crisp and colorful detail only when you need it. During an event trip, the camera’s IR lights turn off, and the white lights emit a solid beam of light. The solid beam will last for the same amount of time as the flashing strobes, so you can change the length of this color mode by changing the number of strobe flashes.
When you look at event footage, you’ll see that the camera shoots initially in black & white. When a human body enters the intrusion area, the solid white lights will flip on and the camera will switch into full color mode. Once the event is complete, the white lights will turn off, the IR lights will turn on, and the footage will once again record in black & white.
I hope you’re able to see just how powerful this camera is, and how rare it is to find a camera like the Uniarch Dual Light bullet at this price point.
Built-In Microphone for Audio Surveillance
So far we've discussed the main functionality of this camera. But we've only scraped the surface. Have we mentioned that this camera has a built-in microphone, allowing you to capture not only video surveillance, but also audio surveillance?
With the audio settings in the camera, you can turn on and off the audio feature, you can adjust the volume of the mic, and you can turn noise suppression on and off. In the "Events" menu, you can also set up audio detection, which will trigger an event if there is a sudden increase or decrease in sound.
Check out the video below for a sample of this camera's audio. Keep in mind that this camera is positioned by a busy road, so you will hear some distortion from the noise suppression. Even with all the background noise, the microphone works really well.
Additional Specs
There’s more to this camera than we’ve been able to touch on up to this point. So in case you’re curious, here are a few more of the powerful spces.
- 3MP video resolution @ 25fps
- Built-in microphone
- 4mm fixed lens
- IP67 weatherproof rating
- NDAA-compliant
- PoE-powered
- ONVIF compaible
- Quick & simple remote viewing
- Lightweight - not even a full pound
Ease of Setup
If you've read this far into the blog post, you're clearly interested in the Uniarch Dual Light Bullet Camera. And I don't blame you! But you might still be asking yourself how easy this camera is to set up and use. We've already told you that it's easy to use, but we know you want to see it with your own eyes. So in this section, we'll do just that.
Unboxing the Uniarch Dual Light Bullet Camera
The unique design of this camera is a bit different than other modern security cameras. This camera almost resembles an older box model, but with a sleek and modern look to it. I'm a fan of this design myself. But it does require a bit of set up.
As you can see from the image below, the camera ships in two pieces: the camera and the mount. Currently this camera includes a wall mount, but the mount style is subject to change in the future.
Screw the camera onto your mount, run the Ethernet cable through the hole in the bottom of the mount, and your camera is ready to install.
The camera comes with a drill template which you can use to drill holes at the installation site in preparation for installation. Usually most people just ignore these templates, but it's actually pretty helpful in this instance. When you're ready to install the camera, you'll put the two top screws in first, so it's helpful to know where these should go.
Once your top screws are in place, sticking out ever so slightly from the wall, you can hang your camera's wall mount from the screws. Now you can add the two bottom screws, tighten up the top if needed, and your camera is done.
Installation is a breeze, and setup is even easier. Once you connect your camera to a PoE switch (or an NVR with a PoE switch in the back), it will turn on and start working.
If you've connected your camera to a Uniarch NVR, it will automatically pull the camera into the NVR, allowing you to start recording your footage or adjusting settings as needed.
You can also connect this camera to a Uniview NVR for full plug-and-play compatibility. This is helpful if you need to put together a large CCTV system, because our Uniarch NVRs are limited to 16 channels.
Accessing your camera from a cell phone is also a quick and speedy process. All you have to do is enable the Uniarch app from the NVR interface or the camera's web interface, launch the Uniarch app on your iPhone or Android device, and scan the QR code on your camera's quickstart guide.
And that's it! This camera is set up to work pretty much out of the box. There may be some setting you need to adjust, especially once you start setting this up for human body detection, active deterrence, and selecting your night image mode.
Slick. Simple to use. Beautiful imagery. Powerful functionality. This camera has a lot going for it, so if you haven’t already, be sure to click the links below to check out this camera and purchase yours today. If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to contact us anytime!
