With a long history of many failed attempts at IP wireless cams, Linksys creates what others could not; one that works.Configuration with WEP was pretty easy. It's a little temperamental with distance compared to the tolerances of other G devices, but it works. It does not react well to low light levels and tries to compensate via its own gain. If you are using this in a home without AMPLE light, expect a grainy picture.
Frame rate is about 20FPS and is annoying. The security feature works. It senses movement and mails a captured video file. With only 4 seconds at the medium setting, the video images were over 500Kb. This is not for a dial-up AOL user.
There is a remote viewing option that lets you use their web servers to hit your cam from anywhere. Of course expect to pay about $40 for two years access.
True Story. Everyday I check on mom to make sure she's ok. While on vacation in Australia, I tuned in at the very moment she fell off the couch in Chicago. Using Skype, I called the senior home to have someone help her get up. Although she could have slid over to the phone and called for assistance, the important thing is that I learned she falls and can't get up by herself, and she hasn't been telling us. The WVC54G works well for this application. I can even see which DVD she's watching. I had to open port 1024 to get it working so it's not plug and play. Once running, it has never gone down, very important. My only complaint is that the auto white balance isn't true. Colors and lighting are somewhat off.
Buy Cisco-Linksys WVC54GC Wireless-G Internet Video Camera Now
[EDIT]Ok, 3 weeks after setting these cameras up, I do have a few negative comments. The cameras will sometimes spontaneously stop working. I haven't been able to figure out why. I'm on the other side of the country from them now so I can't physically see them. Eventually they come back online. All 3 are just sitting there plugged in, in an empty house.
The video is fairly choppy if sound is enabled, even at 320x240.
The lighting plays a huge role in the quality of the image bright sunlight in a window makes the image almost unusable. The image is very poor in dim lighting as well.
The field of view is pretty narrow and there's nothing you can do about it I wish there was a wide-angle option.
I wish the interface to the camera was editable, and that you could show multiple cameras on the same page.
Other than that, they cameras basically work as advertised, but I couldn't recommend them for anything other than a novelty because of the image quality concerns and the reliability issues. It's fairly cheap and is good for casual monitoring.
[/EDIT]
I just set up 3 of these for my father-in-law (all the kids gave them to him) in his vacation home. He wants to be able to check on the house when he's not there. They worked fine, as advertised, as long as I was careful and made sure I had the right firmware. This is how I did it, without using the setup CD (which is confusing and was unnecessary for my setup).
If you've got a Linksys router and you haven't messed with the IP ranges like someone else who posted has, it's really easy to do the most important thing to do is set it up WIRED first! I plugged the included ethernet cable into the router and into the camera. Then I powered on the camera. It booted up and showed 192.168.1.115 or something as the IP address in the little LCD window. I opened up an Internet Explorer window on my PC. Went to The configuration utility for the camera came up. Clicked on "View Video", installed the ActiveX Control I was prompted for, and up it came the camera worked. Clicked on "Setup". Default username and password are admin and admin. Under "LAN Settings" I chose "Fixed IP Address", and assigned it the value I wanted. For my 3 cameras, the IP address I chose were 192.168.1.150, 192.168.1.151, 192.168.1.152. Subnet mask was always 255.255.255.0. Gateway, Primary DNS, and Secondary DNS were all always 192.168.1.1 (the router's IP). Tested each of those by opening Internet Explorer and going to the IP address for the camera (i.e. ) and made sure they worked under the fixed IP address.
If you have a non-Linksys router, or have messed with your routers' IP range, it's more complicated. D-Link and Netgear use the 192.168.0.xxx range (0 instead of 1), and I presume to get these working you'll have to plug the ethernet cable from your pc into the camera, use IE to go to the address it shows in the LCD window of the camera. The you should be able to change the IP address of the camera to an acceptable value (like 192.168.0.150) Gateway, Primary DNS, and Secondary DNS would be the router's IP address (i.e. 192.168.0.1). Then you plug the camera into the router and you should be able to access it through IE on your PC at that new address.
Once I was sure that worked, I set up the wireless settings. Typed in the SSID the router uses, chose Infrastructure, clicked "Enable", and hit "Apply". If you forget to hit Apply it won't take. Then I hit "Edit Security Settings" and in the popup window chose the Default Transmit key from the router, and the key from the router. Kept it on "Open System". Then hit Apply and exit.
Now I unplug the power from the camera. Then unplug the ethernet cable from the camera. Then plug the camera power back in. The lights will flash and the indicator for wireless should come up, along with the IP address I chose. Open up Internet Explorer again, type in the address again ( and it works.
Did this with all 3, then placed them in the house where I wanted them, and tested them again. All worked.
Then I went into their configuration utilities and set up the Email Alert feature. This is the only part that gave me trouble. Basically what I figured out is that the 2 cameras that had Firmware version 2.07 worked fine, and the one that had 2.11 never worked. I downloaded the 2.07 bios at ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/ (the file is called WVC54G_fw2.07.zip) and flashed the 2.11 camera back to 2.07. Then the email notification worked fine.
Oh and another confusing part was the "Outgoing Mail SMTP Server". Turns out you pretty much have to use your internet provider's mail server, which I was able to find on their website. He uses Charter Cable, and I found out on charter.net that the server is smtp.charter.net. I also just set up a new GMail account specifically for these cameras.
To make it easy to view the cameras from the internet, Linksys included this SoloLink DDNS thing which they charge for. I opted for a free option, and made a new dynamic DNS account at dyndns.org. I set up port forwarding on the router to forward alternate ports (I chose 2000 and 3000 and set up the cameras "Alternate Port" to these values) to two of the cameras. So now he can get to the three cameras by going toThat's it works great and I'm happy with them. I give it a 4 because the fact that I had to flash backward to an older bios in order to used an advertised feature is stupid. Other than that, it's great and no more difficult to set up than most other wireless networking devices.
Read Best Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WVC54GC Wireless-G Internet Video Camera Here
Hi, I noticed that a lot of people are having difficulty setting this product up. I just wanted to offer 4 pointers.1: Configuring your router: In your router's configuration, you should assign this device a fixed IP outside of the range of DHCP addresses. This is so that, the next time you reboot your router or cable modem, DHCP doesn't assign the camera a different IP. Remember, DHCP hands out IPs on a first-come, first-serve basis unless you tell it otherwise. So, if you defined your router's DHCP to start with, let's say, 100, when you set up the camera, you can give it a fixed IP of 192.168.1.99 (or whatever) and know that it will persist.
2. Opening your port: Be sure to choose a port number greater than 1024. Also, check your port forwarding page before deciding so that you don't conflict with other applications/services you have installed. When you pick your port, enable it to forward TCP requests to the IP you've specified, in my example 192.168.1.99.
3. Accessing from outside: You will need the external IP address, which you can get from your router's status page. DON'T FORGET TO APPEND THE PORT NUMBER TO THE URL! That's a common mistake. If your public IP is 60.99.60.100, then your camera's URL would be ://60.99.60.100:9999. NOTE: If, when you look at your router's status page, you're confused because your WAN (external) IP begins with 192.168, then the next step probably applies to you...
4. IF YOU USE VONAGE or some other VoIP, there's an EXTRA STEP! Don't forget that the Vonage box sits between your cable modem and your router, acting as its own little firewall. Not only do you need to open the port here too, but also this is where you'd go to obtain your external IP! For Vonage subscribers, the configuration tool is accessible via > Advanced Configuration. In this menu, forward TCP requests to the desired port number at your ROUTER's IP address (Vonage customers: 192.168.102.100), NOT your camera's. Your router will then proxy the request to the camera, so it's like this:
-> Internet -> your VoIP -> your ROUTER -> your camera
alright, that's all I got. Good luck to you all, happy WebCamming!
Want Cisco-Linksys WVC54GC Wireless-G Internet Video Camera Discount?
If you don't know too much about computer network, it could be difficult. Been using little more than 3 month so far, no problem. Used D-Link, Hawking, Axis, and Panasonic, but based on my experience, linksys had more funtions that was availabe than any other camera, plus, image quality is good if set it as best quailty picture, with best pixel. (Default is not set as best). I was able to remotely access my camera from Korea, Camera was in U.S., had about 3 seconds of delay on still images, but 3 second is good enough with today's technology. I'm not using Sololink to remotely access my camera (since it requires membership). Currently using 6 cameras in my C-Store in U.S., and all are viewalble at the sametime remotely, without any chopping or losing frame actions. People could complain due to customer serivce issues, and installation issues, but if you check on Linksys Forum, other users are far knowlodgeble than customer service, and their response is faster than customer serivce. BTW, WPA is possible if you upgrade the factory firmware to european firmware version.
No comments:
Post a Comment