Dahua camera model codes and series
A Dahua model name looks like a string of digits —
IPC-HDBW3441R-ZS. It is actually a description: housing, series, megapixels,
generation, function and lens, all in one line. Once you can read it, you can tell two models
apart without opening a datasheet.
Related page: this page is about the model —
the code, the series and getting cameras running. What the technology names mean (WizSense,
WizMind, TiOC, Dual Light, ePoE) is explained separately on
Dahua camera technologies.
1. The model code decoded
IPC-HDBWhousing3series4MP4generation1functionR-ZSlens
Vandal-proof dome · WizSense, series 3 · 4 MP · AI generation · WDR/Starlight · motorised zoom lens
Housing type — two to four letters
This tells you the shape of the camera and where it belongs:
| Code | Housing | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
HFW | Bullet camera with IR | The most common outdoor camera. Its direction is obvious, which helps as a deterrent. |
HDW | Eyeball camera | Small and low-profile, fits under eaves and on ceilings. Aimable but less obtrusive. |
HDBW | Vandal-proof dome with IR | Metal housing, IK rating. Schools, public spaces, anywhere a camera might be hit. |
HDB / HD | Dome without IR | Indoors where there is always light. |
HF | Box camera | The lens is chosen separately. Special cases, very long or very wide views. |
EB / EW / EBW | Fisheye | One camera covers a whole room at 360°. Centre of the ceiling. |
HUM | Pinhole / miniature | Concealed installations, lifts, tills. |
PDW / PFW | Dual-lens camera | Wide overview plus a close view from a single device. |
PDBW | Multi-sensor panoramic | Several sensors in one housing, stitched into one wide image. |
PT | Pan & tilt | A small steerable camera, usually indoors. |
Series, megapixels, generation and function — four digits
Right after the housing letters come four digits, each with its own meaning.
This is where people get it wrong most often: 2441 and 5442 are not
"slightly different" — they are different classes of camera.
| Position | What it says | Values |
|---|---|---|
| 1st digit | Series (tier) | 1 = Entry · 2 = Lite / WizSense · 3 = WizSense · 4 = Pro / WizMind · 5 = WizMind · 7 and 8 = WizMind / Ultra |
| 2nd digit | Resolution | 2 = 2 MP · 3 = 3 MP · 4 = 4 MP · 5 = 5 MP · 6 = 6 MP · 8 = 8 MP (4K) · 12 = 12 MP · 16 = 16 MP · 32 = 32 MP |
| 3rd digit | Generation | 0 = CMOS sensor · 1 = CCD · 2 = 2nd gen · 3 = H.265 · 4 = AI |
| 4th digit | Function (low-light behaviour) | 0 = standard · 1 = WDR / Starlight · 2 = Starlight+ · 3 = Polar light · 9 = Full-color |
Reading it quickly:
IPC-HDW2449TM-...
= Lite series (2), 4 MP, AI generation (4), Full-color (9) — a cheaper series
that still gives colour at night. ...5442...
= WizMind (series 5), 4 MP, AI, Starlight+ — a better sensor, but monochrome in IR mode.
That 9 at the
end is what most people are actually after when they say "I want to see colour at night".Suffix letters — what else is on the camera
The letters at the end are not decoration. The common ones:
| Letter | Meaning | Letter | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
Z | Motorised zoom lens (adjustable remotely) | VF | Varifocal lens (set by hand) |
E | ePoE — long-distance PoE | S | SD card slot. In practice almost every model except series 1 has one. |
A | Built-in microphone | T | Microphone and speaker (two-way talk) |
W | Wi-Fi | PT | Pan and tilt |
LED | White light illuminator | NI | Full colour, no IR |
IL | IR and white LED together (Dual Light) | H | Heated housing |
SP | Solar panel support | 4G | Mobile connectivity |
Z4, Z12 | Optical zoom factor (4×, 12×) | S2, S3 | Hardware generation |
Lens — the number at the end
A block of digits at the end is the lens focal length in millimetres:
-0280B= fixed 2.8 mm — wide, roughly 100°. Good for an overview of a room or a yard.-0360B= fixed 3.6 mm — slightly narrower and further.-27135= 2.7–13.5 mm zoom — the angle is set during installation or, withZ, remotely.
Rule of thumb: the smaller the millimetre figure, the
wider the view and the smaller a distant object appears. For reading a number plate or
identifying a face, a wide 2.8 mm lens is usually the wrong choice, no matter how many
megapixels the camera has.
2. The series — 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7
The series digit is the most important number in the code. It says nothing about resolution — it says how capable and how good the camera is.
| Series | Name | Character | For whom |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Entry | The simplest. Basic functions, often Wi-Fi and a built-in microphone. | Home, holiday house, small shop. Where the point is simply to have a picture. |
| 2 | Lite / WizSense | The most widely used level. Distinguishes people and vehicles, sensible price. | The default choice for most sites. Flats, houses, offices, warehouses. |
| 3 | WizSense | The same AI, but better optics and sensor, and more configuration. | When series 2 falls short — a darker site, a larger area, a more demanding customer. |
| 5 | WizMind | Professional level: the best low-light performance and full analytics (face, number plate, counting). | Projects where the analytics genuinely earn their keep and the system must run for years. |
| 7 / 8 | WizMind / Ultra | Top tier — the largest sensors, the highest resolutions, specialist models. | Large sites and special tasks. Order item — see below. |
About series 4: the digit 4 (Pro / WizMind) also exists
in the codes, but that series is no longer in production. If you come across a
model starting with 4, it is an older product — when planning a new installation or an
extension, choose series 3 or 5.
Series 7 and stock: top-tier cameras are project items —
they are not normally held in stock but ordered for a specific site. Videovalve is the
official Dahua importer, so we can bring them in; ask for a quote
and tell us what the camera has to do.
How to choose: start at series 2. Move to series 3 if the
site is dark or the area is large. Move to series 5 when you need specific analytics or the
installation will be maintained for years. Changing series usually buys you more than adding
megapixels.
3. PTZ and panoramic cameras
These are a world of their own and have their own model code, starting with
SD, SDT or PSD.
PTZ (Speed Dome) — SD
SDPTZ5Ahousing2MP32zoomXA-HNRAI tier
PTZ means pan–tilt–zoom: the camera rotates, tilts and zooms. Three things are readable from the code:
- Housing size (
2A,3A,4A,5A,6C,8A) — in inches. A larger housing means a larger lens, longer IR range and a stronger motor. - Optical zoom —
25,32,40×. This is optical, not digital: 32× means real detail from a distance. - AI tier —
YLite,RPro,PProfessional,FUltra,Ino AI.
When a PTZ: when there is one vantage point over
a large area — a car park, a port, a yard, a quarry. A PTZ does not replace fixed cameras: while
it looks right, nothing on the left is recorded. The classic answer is a few fixed cameras plus
one PTZ for detail.
Panoramic and multi-sensor — PSD, PDBW, SDT
When one wide lens does not cover enough, or stretches the image too far, several sensors go into one housing:
- Fisheye (
EB,EW,EBW) — one camera in the middle of the ceiling covers a whole room at 360°. It is the fastest and cheapest way to get an overview of a large room: one mounting point, one cable, one recording channel, and practically no blind corners. Software can also de-warp the circular image so it can be viewed like an ordinary wide shot. - Multi-sensor panoramic (
PDBW,PSD) — 3, 4 or 9 lenses, covering180,270or360°. The images are stitched into one wide view. One cable, one IP address, one recording channel. - Panoramic plus PTZ in one (
PSD,SDT) — the wide view keeps recording continuously while the PTZ part zooms in on what matters. You do not lose the overview while the PTZ is looking elsewhere. - Dual-lens (
PDW,PFW) — wide and narrow views from one device.
A fisheye is an overview camera, not an identification
camera. One sensor's pixels are spread across the full 360°, and the distortion grows
towards the edges. For following what happened in a room — who moved where, and when — a fisheye
is excellent and saves a lot of cameras. For recognising a face, reading a number plate or
watching a till, you still need a separate camera aimed at that spot. The usual
good answer is a fisheye in the middle of the ceiling plus a couple of fixed cameras at the
critical points.
Panoramic and multi-sensor cameras often beat three separate cameras: fewer
cables, fewer mounting points, and one image from one moment in time. In exchange they cost more
and need more storage.
4. For home users — Dahua Wireless
For a domestic need with no plan to build around a large recorder, the professional range is usually overkill. That is what Dahua Wireless is for — Dahua's home range: Wi-Fi connectivity, simple setup from a phone, indoor and outdoor models, pan-and-tilt cameras, 4G models for sites without internet, and the range's own Wi-Fi recorder.
Model names here are shorter than on the professional side (for example H4C,
P5B-PV, P4F-PV-4G), but a few familiar suffixes still apply:
-PV— active deterrence: the camera responds with light and sound instead of quietly recording.-4G— mobile connectivity where there is no internet on site.LED— white light illuminator, so colour at night.
Where the line is: Dahua Wireless suits a handful of
cameras connected over Wi-Fi and watched mostly from a phone. If you want PoE power over a
single cable, a reliable wired connection, or more than a couple of cameras on one site, the
professional range is the right place — and then all the model-code logic above applies.
Browse Dahua Wireless cameras → · the whole home-user range →
5. HDCVI — cameras over coaxial cable
Not everything is IP. HDCVI (models starting HAC-) is Dahua's
technology for sending a sharp picture over ordinary coaxial cable.
The code follows the same logic, with three tiers: 1 Entry,
2 Professional, 3 High-end.
| Advantage | Limitation |
|---|---|
| Cheaper. At the same resolution, both cameras and recorders generally cost less than on the IP side. | Every camera needs its own cable to the recorder; on IP a single switch is enough. |
| Practically no latency. The picture travels to the recorder as an analogue signal — nothing is encoded, sent over a network or buffered. An IP camera always adds anything from tens of milliseconds to a couple of seconds from encoding, the network and buffering. | The trade-off between distance and resolution is stricter than on IP. |
| Existing coaxial cable stays — an old analogue system can be upgraded without pulling new cable. | The choice of analytics and features is more modest than on IP. |
| Simple: no IP addresses, subnets or network configuration. Power and video can share one cable (PoC models). | Expanding the system and viewing remotely is clumsier than on IP. |
Where latency matters: wherever an operator acts on the
picture in real time — a gate, a barrier, a weighbridge, a stage or a sports hall. A couple of
seconds of lag makes that job awkward. For ordinary recording and reviewing afterwards, latency
is irrelevant.
When HDCVI: refurbishment where coax is already in the
walls. For a new site, IP is almost always the better answer.
6. Getting a camera running
A new Dahua camera is uninitialised — it has no password yet and will not work until one is set. That is a security requirement, not a fault.
The shortest route: plug the camera into the NVR's PoE port.
If the recorder has PoE outputs, it does all the work for you. Dahua's NVR guide says it
outright: when a camera is connected to the NVR through a PoE port, the NVR automatically
initialises the camera, and the camera adopts the password and email information of the NVR by
default. In practice the recorder hands the camera an address, sets the password and adds
it to a channel — no need to open ConfigTool and no passwords to type in
separately. With ten cameras that difference is measured in hours.
When this does not apply: when the cameras go to a separate switch rather than the NVR's PoE ports, when the recorder has no PoE outputs, or when the cameras are connected to software rather than a recorder. Then the route below is the right one.
When this does not apply: when the cameras go to a separate switch rather than the NVR's PoE ports, when the recorder has no PoE outputs, or when the cameras are connected to software rather than a recorder. Then the route below is the right one.
Cameras behind the NVR's PoE ports live on the recorder's own
network, not the office LAN. That is usually a good thing — the cameras are not
directly visible from the rest of the network — but worth knowing if you plan to reach a
camera's web interface separately.
- Connect it to the network. One cable to a PoE switch carries both power and data. A cloud managed switch also lets you power-cycle the port remotely if the camera ever hangs.
- Find the camera. Run ConfigTool — it discovers devices on the local network even when the camera's IP is in a different subnet from your PC. No guessing addresses.
- Initialise it. Set the administrator password and a recovery email. This can be done for several devices at once.
- Give it an address. DHCP or a fixed IP. A whole batch can be set at once as an address range.
- Add it to a recorder or software. From there it is the NVR, Smart PSS Lite or DSS — see the Dahua software page.
There is no default password — and that is the point.
Unlike many cheap cameras, a Dahua device does not leave the factory with a known password: it
is uninitialised and forces you to set one. That removes the single most common security hole,
where an internet-connected device still carries the manufacturer's default password that mass
scanning looks for. Two other things do need attention:
- The password must be strong and site-specific. When initialisation happens through the NVR's PoE ports, every camera inherits the recorder's password — one weak password, or one reused across sites, opens the whole system at once.
- Set the recovery email properly. Without it, a forgotten password leaves only a physical reset — and after a reset the device is uninitialised again, so the entire configuration has to be redone.
7. Larger batches — bulk configuration
Going through ten cameras one by one in a web interface is tedious; with fifty it is a day's work. ConfigTool does the same job in batches:
- Initialise together — all new devices in one operation.
- IP addresses as a range — give a starting address and the tool distributes consecutive addresses across the devices.
- Firmware upgrades in batch — cameras of the same model at once.
- Export and import configuration — set one camera up properly and copy that configuration to the rest.
- Password and permission management — including resetting a forgotten password.
If you have several sites and will be maintaining them afterwards, look at
DoLynk Care cloud management — the same batch work runs over the
internet and fault reports reach you on their own, without a site visit.
Download ConfigTool — free
Dahua's official configuration tool: it finds devices on the network, initialises them, changes IP addresses, upgrades firmware and manages passwords and permissions. The same page also carries the user manual.
Open the Dahua download page →Sources: Dahua's official model naming rules "Name Rule V20231012" (network cameras, PTZ, panoramic series, HDCVI) · Dahua's "Network Video Recorder Quick Start Guide", section 1.4.1 (automatic initialisation via the NVR's PoE ports) · Dahua ConfigTool download page · dahuawiki.com/ConfigTool. Code meanings can be extended as new series appear — when in doubt, check the datasheet of the specific product or ask us.