Axis M1054 Review

Axis is well established as a market leader for high-end projects within security. Education, commercial office space, transportation, and retail are just some of the verticals in which Axis has enjoyed tremendous success.

Competing at the entry-level section of IP is something most of us don’t associate with the brand, so with its small, sleek M1054 model, what can we expect? Will it sacrifice on some of the principles and features that have made the company what it is, or will it make this camera pack a punch?

720p resolution

A key reason Axis is so widely used is the quality images its cameras can produce. Axis is well known for producing powerful cameras that process images at the edge to ensure colour, sharpness, and noise reduction are maintained.

Despite being an entry-level camera, the image quality is good. The 720p resolution really helps with facial detail, and colours appear very true. There is little noise or blemishing in the image, and just by looking on the monitor this would not look out of place in an established installation.

At night time, more noise and picture breakup is introduced, as we would expect. To help keep costs down, the sensor quality isn’t quite to the level of higher, more established ranges, but for the money (and intended usage) the night-time quality is very good.

PIR sensor

Most professional cameras have some form of motion detection built in. Most cameras do this in software, so extra processing power is needed for accurate movement detection. The M1054 has an actual PIR built in, meaning accurate detections occur and less processing power is required.

It’s a very good feature but nothing new for this level of camera, necessarily.

Power-over-Ethernet (PoE)

A bugbear of mine, historically, for this section of the market has been good-quality cameras that require local power for them to operate. If we install cameras in a museum or office in the modern world, we expect them to have PoE support, as more and more devices use this. Cameras for SME or residential use typically still require DC power, which is sometimes impractical depending on where the camera is being installed.

Fortunately Axis has included PoE (and optional 5V DC power). This enables us to cable an SME property as we would for any other install, using Cat 5/6 cable and powering the camera from the same cable run.

For residential use, we can power from the mains using the supplied power adaptor or, as is becoming more common, we can use power-over-mains adaptors to provide a PoE plug for the camera. Again, this just gives us more options, and it is a great credit to Axis.

Additional features

A nice touch with the camera was the decision to include two-way audio. The camera features an internal microphone and tiny speaker, allowing us to mount the camera at a door and provide a door entry system.

The audio quality is good, however due to the small speaker the volume isn’t mind blowing.

Axis has also provided an I/O port that can be used to wire the camera into another system — an alarm system for a premises for instance — to toggle the PIR on/off if the building is empty.

One frustration with the camera is a lack of an SD card slot. This is a technology that has become increasingly standard within IP video, and competitors at this level have included it. The benefit would be we’d have an all-in-one surveillance product. Without it, we are reliant on PC (VMS) or NAS storage for recording images.

The verdict

All things considered, this camera is very good. It is an entry-level camera, so with price being a key selling point, a feature or two is always going to be missing.

The M series is a range encompassing many models; some have WiFi and some have SD card slots. The only downside is that no single camera boasts the lot, so we are left a little wanting regardless of the model we choose.

The plus side is the range gives us great options. When building a small SME solution, we can create a great system made up of homogeneous cameras, each with a slight USP depending on what we want at each camera location.

Given that it is a budget camera, the most impressive feature is the video quality. This camera produces excellent images, day or night, and allows us to choose to record all the time or purely for special events, thanks to the PIR.

I am a bit greedy, thanks in part to the flux of features and development in the last few years. WiFi and, especially, an SD card slot would have been the icing on the cake. But for a cheap, quality, cabled camera, the M1054 is a great choice.