[pcdoodle]

IP cams are an interesting animal. On one side, very versatile but on the other side a huge waist:

Most IP cameras use 3W just creating a RTSP stream. add another 5W for IR LEDs that come on in the evening.

If i was shopping, i'd look for sensors with very high sensitivity that don't need 5W of IR to get good night images.

I have a few where i've physically disconnected the IR array and the shutter will adapt and still get very good static images and a little bit of smearing when something moves. It all depends of your use case though.

[Kirby64]

Broadly, cameras designed to be used with IR are going to look like trash if you can adjust the shutter to work in dark conditions.

Smearing is bad. If you want to identify anything, it's worthless. If the goal is to just see if anything is there, then almost any camera works... But that's not useful for much.

[hello_computer]

High sensitivity isn't a solution. It's a basic signal-to-noise issue. If you have a large area and want a crisp image, the light is essential.