Cop Cam Review: As Seen on TV Security Cam 

The Night vision, infa red makes you look like the zombie things in I am Legend

SOUNDS TO ME LIKE IT'S WORTHLESS FOR WHAT THEY CLAIM IT WILL DO. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HONEST REVIEW. I WAS GOING TO BUY ONE, GLAD I SAW THIS FIRST.

Excellent review. It's nice to see someone do an actual review rather than a 30 minute long video of someone who thinks they are funny or entertaining when they are just nauseating to watch. This review is all about the product and I thank you for that. Great job.... Keep them coming.

Call 911 and describe the thief wearing a purple shirt. No wonder the thief was never found!

Nope would not buy this. Thank you for the review.

I used to use cameras like this for my RC videos. To disable/change the time stamp, it’s normally required to place a text file inside the default directory. Additionally, the “motion activation” features really only work when connected to continuous power. These little cameras use up a lot of battery quickly and judging from the size, there’s probably not a lot to go around.

You are the only review person I trust. Bought my dashcam and other things that I wanted to buy, and so far I am very , very happy with my choices, thanks to you... especially my dashcam.

I just love your reviews! Something about your tone & personality... You're soft-spoken & have no foul language! What a relief... You're reviews are honest & just detailed enough to be informative & not overwhelming or boring. Plus... You're a dog lover which makes you a good human being in my book! Thx for your time & effort so the rest of us can purchase things the educated way, being "informed".... 🗯👌😯🐶🌹🌵🌴🙂

13:19 who the heck is this? That's just creepy.

I just saw this camera ad on tv today and now that I have seen your review, I just saved some bucks! Thanks!

Bought it and it sucked. First it recorded in purple then it broke and won't work after 3 days. can't get a hold of anyone. my bank did a charge back. what thieves.

Thank you! Came close to purchasing this yesterday and decided to find a review! You've saved me so much frustration! Subscribed!

It's odd how old the night cam mode made you look. It's almost like looking at a completely different person.

Thanos makes an appearance at 13:18

These cop cams are repackaged Chinese cheap cams from literally years ago. Ones like them were sold for under 10 dollars and were plagued with issues. Stopped recordings, bad jittery video, poor battery life, corruption of recording files etc. They came in many styles, such as pen, box and lapel mounted covert cameras. The cameras underlying design remained the same. As for changing the time, those old cameras required saving a specific text string formatted a certain way, including the date and time to the root of the mini sad card, and upon restart with card installed, the camera would write the date to the camera. Avoid these, unless it’s under $3.00 with mini sd card included.

When it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Nice review. My Wife picked me up one for a stocking stuffer when she was in line at Menards. I didn't open it yet. I decided to check reviews before. You saved me such a headache. BLESS you and thanks 4 posting.

You legit scared the hell out of me when it went to night vision. It makes you look INSANE LMAO

Sounds more like cop scam.... Thanks for another great review. Keep up the great work. ATB : )

First impression: a lot of packaging for such a small unit. Next impression: Not impressed. More E-junk.

Glad someone put a video out on this product, I keep getting emails about it about every other day and of course in their videos everything works perfectly, even the color and motion. Knew it was too good to be true, thanks for the video.

The night portion of this video was extremely creepy! Appropriate for October but far too creepy for everyday use!

This product looks like it is right up there with the Perfect Polly for the shittiest products I've seen you review. Thanks for showing us the stuff that sucks along with the stuff that works. I love your channel dude keep up the great work.

Thank you for your review! You saved me money! Please keep the reviews coming!

I was thinking of getting one of these... thanks for the video!!!... glad i found your channel.... definitely subscribing!!!... thanks again!

better off using an old android phone with detection mode turned on, much better quality more storage more battery and costs nothing since its a old device

Thanks for sharing this with us...! You saved me from getting ripped off...! Have a great day and be blessed.

You are a much needed service. Thanks for all the reviews! Grateful.

Thanks for the review bro. I was so close to buying one. Awesome video.

Thank you for this review. You saved me some money!!! Keep doing what you do!!!

You can find this camera in a million brand variations and they all suck just like this one. Same junk different packaging.

13:36 Here we have a rare glimpse of Voldemort with his nose

Thank you so much for the review. Did you test any mini and worth Dash cam ? Thank you again.

Thank you for the honest, extensive review. I almost bought this as an extra "security" cam, but will not now. That TV hype can get you when you least expect it! Sadly, most ASOTV stuff turns out to be crap.

Always love ur reviews but this was fantastic.....if it's ever sold in Ireland, won't buy it!!!! Great video & was super seeing so much of Bailey ❤️

Wow. Wish I'd seen this a couple of weeks ago. Good video, substandard product. Just subscribed. Thanks.

Oh crap!!! Cop 's-cam is not as it should be. One person got ripped off paying a larger amount. This review was spot on and easy to understand. I have a tac cam almost like this one with the same problems. I cannot get it to record. Maybe it was because I charged in the wall, and not on the computer. They have a lot of work to do to make these tiny camera's work. Love Bailey.

Saw their ad earlier today, and I was like there's no way it's going to be that good for that price.

Thanks James, The Black turned purple during the day, and you seemed to become clean shaven during night filming. Very weird. I am looking for a decent priced cam. But it wont be that one. Be safe

Thank you for sharing this video, it really helps to know that this camera doesn't work well at all. My husband got one for Christmas and we will be taking it back .

Thank you for the very thorough and fair review. It helped with decision making!

I bought a similar item . From what I was able to figure out about the time stamp was that you have to go into a txt file and manually set the date and time and save the file . I remember it working that time but the quality was bad so I never really used it again .

The reason you were having issues playing and importing the files is while they are in AVI containers, the video is stored in m-jpeg codec format (yup, like the picture format). The reason they do that is encoding chips for good compression formats like h.264 (what most cameras record in nowadays) are expensive (relatively speaking) and have higher battery demands, so they use chips that are extremely simple, cheap, and power sipping that use this dated crummy format. Another plus (for them) is they can usually cheap out even more with the battery because it really takes almost nothing at all to power these chips. That's probably the issue you had, a terrible battery and a almost non-existant battery management/charging circuit. You'll see this a lot with any Chinese cameras sold on Ebay for under 50 dollars (dash cams and 'spy' cams are famous for this format) These exact cameras are sold all over Ebay as "Cube Camera"s. They've been around since the Polaroid Cube first came out years ago. This just seems like an investor was browsing Ebay and got the terrible idea to import these things and market them without realizing the poop build/design quality. And yes, as people pointed out they have no InfraRed filter, since the moving shutter required to move it out of the way for night shots costs money and somewhat increases size. So that's why the colors are off. In fact: if the sensor was more sensitive to IR, the color would really be bad but it doesn't look like they used a sensor that's very IR sensitive (again, they gotta save money) so they probably used a bargain basement sensor not really intended for night shots (because all sensors are at least a little IR sensitive). That would explain the crummy night time preformance. Anyway, keep in mind I'm no expert, and just doing some speculating on the sensor. Hope that helps.

I appreciate the effort put forth to really review these products. You don't seem to gloss over or avoid performing certain tests. I will mention here, as it was mentioned in a comment on the article you wrote, about changing timestamp w/cop cam. Now I haven't bought this product nor do I know for certain the efficacy of this info but I've seen it mentioned via several comments. To CHANGE the timestamp, to change date and/or time, you must alter the "time.set.txt" file changing the values in said file to the current/correct date and time. I've also seen it posted that the values go "date" first then "time" and that the time should be set using military time format. So I hope this helps anyone still trying to set this.

Great review, thank you. To take a picture, power on as per instructions, then hold power button for 2 additional seconds, then each time you want to take a picture you have to push the button. Robert

James your the best! Keep these coming!

reminds me of the Keychain Spy Cameras (808 Car Keys Micro Camera #16?) and the time stamp you have to make a text file for it to change at the next boot if I remember correctly.

Oh my god, you look super scary in the dark on the cop cam. Nightmare fuel @ 13:26

Fantastic review many thanks I was looking at this no more.Cheers

See like it is just on the verge of being awesome for the price. Unfortunately the recording stopping whenever is the deal breaker. Maybe it is a faulty SD card it came with can you try another card that is known to be good? Maybe try hooking it up to an external battery pack too

Almost bought this. Thanks for the review.

Great video. I was going to buy a couple and I changed my mind after watching your video. I think you are a very honest man. Thank you for your video.

Thank you for the most in-depth review on this camera. I agree it looks like a nice first attempt but needs more bugs worked out to make it a better all around camera.

Can you look into the SQ11 mini camera. The cop cam is a variant of the SQ11. The SQ11 can be found on Amazon for $15. It also can be used as a webcam/dash cam? For the date try this: Connect the mini video camera to the computer. Setting the time is done by creating a text file named «TIMERSET.txt» in the root directory of the device's memory card, with the following content: «YYYYMMDDHHMMSS» «Y» (or «N», if you do not want the date and time stamp displayed on video files) For example, «20170625140003 Y» After saving the file, disconnect the video camera from the computer and turn it on.

Honestly, I think you're being way too generous on this product, especially with the video quality. In addition, what's up with the excessive amount of packaging for such a tiny product? lol

Very thorough and informative review.. thanks!

Just got one of these and I am glad I watched this video thank you!

You know I saw the infomercial on this, and I wondered if it would be worth the money or not just to have it around in case I got picked up or something. Thanks for the review because it's definitely not worth the money!! And I will definitely not be buying it! Keep up your reviews they've been saving me a lot of money!!

This review is crazy good. Got this as a Xmas present and you basically did everything I wanted to do to 'vet' this little cam. THANK YOU! Subscribed!

Today was my first day using it. I found it very jumpy when walking. It worked a lot better outside than inside. I was able to take photos after seeing the green light come on. I took them one by one, and they did show up in a photos folder on my laptop. As for the video player, I use VLC which read the .avi files flawlessly plus many other file types. Thanks for the review. I'm gonna look at others as well and try to learn as much as I can about this. Thanks, also, for clearing up my confusion about the inaccurate time stamp and date. That is definitely a big negative.

2:42 lmao I'm hearing the f word young man 😂😂😂

I just bought one but after seeing this, I am bringing it back. Thank you for your help.

The night version makes you look like one of the dudes on “I AM LEGEND” 😂

Just wondering if you have videos on Spy Camera Sunglasses or Camera Sunglasses? I would love to know if they're worth buying? What would you recommend beside buying a GoPro? Thanks.

The 🐕 “Everyday!” 😂😂

This is literally an off the shelf rebadge of the SQ11 Chinese Cubecam, you can get it for 5 dollars on aliexpress and it's the original, just as good product ( i have one)

Just an SQ11 cube camera from china, I have one myself (the SQ11, not this cop cam version) and tried it out recently, it's not too bad so long as you're expecting it to be pretty rubbish. I've stuck an IR cut filter over the lens of mine though as the stock lens has no IR cut hence why things look purpley-red...

Dude you done a AWESOME job explaining this cop cam. Thank you sir!!!👍👍👍

How long does it hold a charge

I've said it once and I'll keep saying it. Everytime I get ready to purchase something I look to your channel to see if it's been reviewed and again I get slapped back into reality of " don't buy it" or " buy it" ..thank you for always fully testing the products.

Also going to new jersey and while I am there I might pay a visit to see if this company really exists and if they do I will take my cop cam and stick it up there a..

I have the same thing... got it about a year ago and it was confusing for me too lol! And knowing how it was orientated the video when it did work was upside down on one test. Glad to know I was not the only one to have had problems with this or thought it was confusing

You did a great job explaining everything and now I am set to do 30 minute video clips with jumpy vision with coloration that makes black look purple and not to mention the lack of view which is less than 140 degrees

This is really funny dude, I'm at the shop at the moment and I wanted to buy this camera, exactly the same camera, but I did a search and found your review, so I took the time and watched your review. Actually I decided not to buy it. Well I bought a $68 one, which is - I really hope - a bit better. Thanks for that correct review! 👋

Early todayy, You look like a vampire with nightvision on

I think you just happened to get a bad one. My wife came home with one of these and SHE quickly figured out how to turn it on, charge it. I added a bigger SD card (16GB) and she has been using it during her 30 mile drive to and from work for the last 2 days and it has worked perfectly. I also had to use Windows Media Player to view the video clips, but the color on them was awesome, and the motion sensor worked perfect. She is going to keep using it until the battery finally dies. But I was impressed that, even though she never turned it off during the day at work, its still going. When her car was parked, the video recording would stop until there was motion detected. I agree, the instructions sucked about the timestamp. It uses the wrokd date to NAME the video clips, but for some reason the timestamp recorded IN the video frames just started working correctly. I have no idea why. I liked it so much, I am going to buy one for myself to play with. . Thanks for your video.

So glad I checked this out. Saved me some money. Keep up the good work!

Demon James!

I am so glad I came across your Channel I wanted one of these cop cams so bad I could not stand it thank you again for doing this video . I have real bad anger issues and I believe if I bought this and it did not work as much as I want something like this I would have probably took a bulldozer and bulldoze down my house and everybody else's in the neighborhood . Again I would like to thank you .

The time/date stamp is controlled through a file when you connect the cam via a USB cable. You just go in and edit the file by overwriting the time and date. I used mine outside 4 times with my dogs and it worked fine thus far. I am currently testing it now by strapping it to my fence post where there's a ton of squirrels that run around back there.

Thanks, great review. Unfortunately I got mine from Christmas and am stuck with it. I think you have to edit the time stamp in the folder file, but haven't figured out the format.

You should do the commercial then do the review :P I never heard of this thing

I hate to see such wasteful packaging

Great video, got good info 👍 hey got a question do you have a option that works?

Thank you for posting this. I was going to buy one. Glad I didn't waste my money. Thanks again!

You did a good job in reviewing this proto-type video cam that im sure not going buy until they ever decide to improve it (which i think they never should of marketed it) ... get your refund ,people!

So, let me get this straight. It’s marketed as a security camera but has a very, very narrow field of view, poor picture quality, no real night vision or IR no battery life and to top it all off, it also has horrible CMOS tearing. What a complete scam. That thing probably has a total cost of not even $5 from China. Somebody’s making bank on these... This demonstrates why real cameras like the Arlo or even Blink cost so much more.

Can it be recharged by the USV cable plutgged into the camera and then plugging the other end of the cable into a cigarette lighter adapter?

Do you take the SD card out and put it in the computer or hook the cop cam to computer?

13:19 to 14:13 Damn you look like Thanos out of Avengers.

Thanks James. Reminded of 'let the buyer beware'. Glad I watched your thorough presentation and saved myself Aus$80.

Thanks for a really good idea what this thing does. Saved me some frustration and money.

A cop cam add is playing on my tv right now. Glad I did my homework. Will be saving my money, thanks.

I think given this and the dash cam you reviewed a while back, the conclusion is that you should never buy an As Seen On TV camera

The time stamp may be changed in a file on the SDCard, look in the rout directory with a usb cable attached to the camera to the computer, see if there are any files look at all files with a text editor and see if any have a time and date that you change to the correct time and date. Also there may be other setting you can change like the amount of time you can record each video segment. My friend bought a cheap Chinese dash cam that work this way you had to set the time and date, also other settings on a file on the SDCard but it explained how to do it in the instructions also anyone thinking about buying this thing and you were misled by there faults advertising saying it’s wireless well it’s not truly wireless no WiFi but I guess since it’s rechargeable i guess you can kind of say it’s wireless but the correct term would be cordless not wireless! Another issue with these cheap cameras is the included SDCard are junk the one that cam with my friend dash cam failed within a couple of days and he needed to replace it!

I just brought a Mini Cam the same one just not the Cop Cam. Your reviewed is spot on. Having a same problems with the time and date stamp. Can't get the setting right between the 720p vs1080p(looks the same) and getting the night vision to work. I think is best use for is getting footage of baby talking and learning how to walk.

Very helpful I was about to buy two of them off a friend of mine now I know why he's selling them so cheap thanks for the review very helpful

😔 Darn I had such high hopes 😏Thank you dearly for saving me the headache 💜 ✌️

This was just released in Australia. Thanks so much for saving me my hard earned money.. .

Thanks for the heads up on the cop cam . I was wondering if it was worth getting.

Thanks for that very good review. You really put it through its paces. I saw it on TV yesterday and actually went onto their site to look closer at it last night but thankfully held off buying. It fails in so many areas. The footage of you at night was a disaster - it didn't look like you in the least! The daytime coloring didn't bother me and still could be used as evidence. But without a current time stamp, well, the cops would not accept it. I once had a very small camera I bought from a spy camera store, was supposed to film for two continuous hours. The most was 25 mins - around the same as the copcam. That was for the first few times. Thereafter, it would film for about 10 minutes before closing down with a dead battery. I ended up tossing it.