I've come full circle with Amcrest. I work in video surveillance, and over time Amcrest just continue to work. I think of them like the consumer priced Axis. As far as their app, ditch it - they are ONVIF compatible. I'm currently using mine with both a rebranded hikvision NVR and a home brewed NVR I'm coding myself, plus a few RaspberryPIs running VLC in different rooms.

I love their cameras but the app is so abysmal. Whenever I connect over vpn to access the cams remotely it goes effectively into a boot loop. I hate it. I keep reporting the crashes on android but no updates come.

Any app that supports RTSP will work too, you're not stuck on the official app!

How do you power your outdoor cameras? Just drill a hole for a PoE cable?

That's what I do.