This was incredibly easy to set up, and the only thing I am using it for is to see who is at the front door (I live in an upstairs apartment). The camera is fairly well-suited to that task, and it seems to stay connected just fine with my iPhone 4, but I'm not actually using it that often or asking that much of it. The video quality suffices to show me whether it's the UPS driver or a person here to give me a copy of Watchtower.What the camera supposedly *does* but doesn't do well:
It's not good for video chatting. The video quality, while supposedly HD, is considerably worse than the front camera on my iPhone 4, and audio is lousy.
Motion sensitive security: way too sensitive and annoying.
Recording video: Nope. It's like a strobe sequence in a horror movie. Just, nope.
Bottom line -> this is not a good value in an IP camera. As of this writing, it is every bit as expensive as the higher quality cameras that are available. If it were selling for about 1/3 of its current price, I would add a star for value. At its current price, it gets three stars for mostly serving its purpose.
Wow i saw the other reviews, but thought, surely it can't be that bad. It is. The app has virtually no functions and no options. I thought, well, that's okay, I can use it with IPCamView or even Blue Iris on my computer BUT NO it is NOT COMPATIBLE with any other software and apps that almost every other IP camera is compatible with. WHY? Why did they choose to limit it like this and render it virtually unusable. You can't even adjust the image, or set motion detection zones.
The app is so basic that you can only log in, and view the camera. If you go into settings you can turn the audio on or off, turn the IR on or off, turn image auto adjust on or off, and set emails on or off and that's pretty much it! This camera and it's pitiful app mean that it is only good for real time viewing forget about it if you want to record anything automatically or use it for any kind of home security. Maybe Belkin will wise up and add some better features in the future, but as it is, this camera is really not good for much other than viewing real time activity. And because it's not compatible with other software besides Belkin's own, you can't use it to mix and match with other cameras in your home security system. Trendnet and Foscam both have similar cameras that have all the features this is missing. IE the ability to record to SD card or computer when motion is detected, the ability to use it with any software and app that you prefer and I believe both of them are similar, if not cheaper in price than this Belkin. I may be trying one of those two for my next WIFI camera. The logitech alert cameras are more expensive, but also have a much higher feature set than this, as well as really nice desktop software for recording activity and scheduling alerts, etc.
Motion detection alerts seem to work okay and it will email you two frames at the time it is triggered, but again, since this is meant for phone/tablet use only, why only email alerts? There should be an option to have it send push notifications so you can look right away and not have to wait for an email to come thru. And without it having the capability to automatically record when motion is detected, it is useless unless you happen to be able to drop everything and go into the app and press the record button. If someone breaks into your house forget it, you cannot have it record them ripping off your stuff so you can give the video to the police. This makes it basically a glorified nanny cam or pet cam. And if that's all you want it for, I would get something a lot cheaper than this.
Also, at this price point, I feel like it should have an sd card slot to record motion events to, but unfortunately it does not.
These Belkin cameras seem to be released prematurely they advertise easy setup, and sure that is true, it is easy to setup because they are so limited in functionality. I think they are planning on these cameras as part of a whole home automation system, but right now I would say they are in pre-beta stage and have a lot of work to do they are starting out with less than other makers have had available for years. I'll be interested to see if they improve functionality of these over time.
It does deserve at least one star, because it is so simple to setup that any novice user can do it, and for those that don't want to have to mess with port forwarding, dynamic dns, etc but still want to view their camera from anywhere, then maybe this is the best option and they won't mind all the missing features. I have a half dozen different wifi cameras in my house. This is the easiest to set up. It has you create an adhoc wifi network with you iphone, then it simply attaches itself to your wifi network. It all runs through an iphone app. The antenna is internal, so not very good.
The camera gives a decent picture looks pretty HD to me. Colors are accurately reproduced.
The app is not optimized for the iphone 5, so it clips the top and bottom. There is no dedicated ipad app, so only a tiny window iphone emulation.
I cannot figure out how to access the camera using other software I can only get it to work through the Belkin app.
The app itself is pretty bare bones. There are no brightness controls. There is no portrait orientation (only landscape). You cant even pinch to zoom. Audio streaming is patchy at best maybe due to a weak signal. When recording video, the frame rate drops to an unusable level.
The app allows you to do motion detection, but that is completely useless. Even at the least sensative setting it detects every minor movement of a cloud changing the lighting in the room a tiny bit. And the emails it sends you are all have the incorrect time in the subject unless you happen to be in CA, which the camera knows I am not.
I give this three stars. It has potential to be four or even five if the software were improved.
The setup was very easy, so that is a major plus. UPDATE 6/12/13:
I have successfully connected this camera to ISPY as an IP Camera. There are numerous posts on the Belkin forums that describe how this works basically you'll connect to the IP address of your camera like this: http://[ip address]/goform/video. Username/password is: admin/admin. Not very secure, right? ISPY will connect to this style of camera with no issue just use the Wizard and select Belkin / HD NetCam and you should have no issue. I can't speak to connecting this to things like webcamXP, but it should be a similar process.
PRO:
Night vision is excellent with this camera. Visibility can be set to day/night or auto and the camera will automatically switch when the light level is too low for normal vision.
Responsiveness is quick...movement on the camera is reflected in the mobile app within about 2 seconds, and does not have any significant lag time.
Application works on both apple and android products, and is quick and easy to install and use app is fast and has all the relevant configuration options for the camera plus live view and share.
CON:
Like other network cameras this one can't be connected to a home surveillance system like a webcamxp or ispy camera device. It creates its own wireless network (which you can't completely customize), and so you must use the Belkin app in order to view the video. This is a huge downside if you already have a home camera solution and just want to add a night-vision camera to it. So if you have a solution, this is a second solution vs. an add-on.
Installation is very quick and easy the camera creates a wireless network that you connect to and configure using the interface, plus the app that you download from either iTunes or Google Play allows for configuration. You can turn audio on/off and quality settings as well.
We accidentally left the phone connected to the camera's wi-fi network after config and wondered why we had no internet access just remember to connect it to your home wi-fi and then move back to your normal setup. You might have to look at the channels of your wi-fi network and move things around so you don't have overlaps, because the camera default isn't configurable as far as I have found. That's another CON for me. I like to fully customize anything on my network, right down to the nitty-gritty.
I took two points away for the network inflexibility...otherwise the quality of the camera is very good and in both day and night mode it provides a clear picture with very smooth quality over a mobile connection (4G and wi-fi tested).Love how all the Belkin people have rushed in to thumbs-down my review. Typical.
Let's begin. First off all, this is not made by Belkin. It's an off-label brand that they have rebranded as their own. Yet it actually has less functionality than the off-label product.
Pros:
The video preview quality is decent. That's it.
Cons:
The software crashes all the time.
A 3-second animation plays every time you open the app, even if the app was just idle!
The camera keeps losing the connection to the iPhone app, so you need to quit the app and relaunch it constantly.
The video recording on the software is limited to about 2 frames per second.
The buttons for recording or taking a photo have childish sounds attached to them and they can NOT be turned off. Even if you put your phone on silent.
The recording of video stops at random places, probably caused by notifications on your phone.
You have to sign up for their service, giving them a username, email and password in order to use the camera. There is NO way around this. This means at any time Belkin can watch your camera!! Now wait a minute, you think this won't ever happen? After I sent 3 emails through the app to Belkin, a notice popped up on the screen of my iPhone stating:
Logged out!
There has been a log-in of the same
username and password from
another computer device.
They were looking at my camera!!!!
SEE the photo I added above!!
I sent it back within 3 hours. You will too.
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