I purchased 3 of these for use around my home. They provide the most basic video surveillance for the price. These upgraded units offer better apparent resolution and much better color fidelity due to the IR-cut filter. All three samples I have offer slightly different picture quality. One unit is very sharp relative to the others and one appears to be somewhat out of focus. They all work well when it comes to moving around when using the pan and tilt features. Wireless range is also improved compared to the older FI8910W model I own. The GUI interface built in to these units works well. Setting up the device takes only a few minutes. The sound feature does function, but not well enough to consider using it. For the price, you can't do much better. The black models are covered in a flat black material while the white models are shiny white plastic. They have also started to include a nifty mounting system with the camera that works well.
-The camera has good night vision and decent video but not HD.
Unlike some comments about the previous model, the lights on this model are discrete, especially the IR LED, not so much the LED at the back (on off and Network activity)
You can turn the network light off
Sleek design allows almost 360 patrolling or movement
Up and down movement is acceptable and the product comes with a articulated mounting bracket
The AC converter and camera do not heat up enabling long service
Patrolling and scanning has a silent motor
The Bad (And no, I don't think I have a fake camera (Hologram and SN number is on the bottom):
The setup guidelines were written in so-so English and are very unprofessional. ShenZhen Foscam could have sprung a few bucks and paid a document writer for the couple of pages instead of the cusin who took English in school.
The software is not great and I read the reviews for the mobile app (they say it's like a prototype not a working release (again, that's what happens when cousin Li also does mobile apps)).
The promised secondary features are mostly false claims:
-Forget IR-CUT. There is no IR-CUT. (Now do you care that a black suitcase shows up white at night. maybe not)
-Email alerts (for who accessed the camera or to receive footage via email) not working.
-Easy setup? My &?%!, It took 4 hours, also had to use youtube. (on youtube a side-coment told me to restart the camera software that was helpful amongst other things).
-What else do they promise? Ah, audio in and out. Well, it's not in the box. The camera can probably do it but not the software. i.e it's not provided even if you are a geek and try to find the missing plug-ins it will not get you anywhere. If you build your own then maybe, hence it's a false claim. Now you can use CamViewer (from the Appstore) to get the Audio but that's like building your own product. I expected this and bought a $30 FM monitor as a reliable detection device (with no lag)
-Audio is really bad. pretty much as bad as night video is good.
-Security (to be fair they do not promise that) is very limited for enabling a internet camera.
Barrel distortion is phenomenal. Do you care? Not on a security camera.
Power cable is too short out of the converter, if you want to install this closer to the ceiling it will leave the converter hanging, quite unsightly.
Conclusion:
Buy it for the video only not the audio, home use, night vision. Ignore the manual and monitoring software, as there is better free help out there. Do not believe that its bad communication or that you must have misunderstood what to do. They pretend the features are there but they aren't. When cousin ShenZhen writes about a feature, it's not a mistake it's a false claim. I paid $100 and I keep it but I'm not happy.This is a very cool camera. Still working on port forwarding and learningn how to do all that. I am thinking of getting another one
No comments:
Post a Comment