I purchased this camera to use as a cheep wireless IP webcam. It offers the ability to hook into your network either with the wireless WSP functionality or with an ethernet connection. It is fairly small with the camera being about the size of an iphone (maybe about 80% that size). The base allows for you to mount it in multiple settings, but be clear, this is a very simple design...not rocket science by any means. The ac power cord is about 4 feet long.
Setup: I ran into an issue when I was trying to set up the wireless connection. I could not get my camera and wireless router to talk at all. I called tech support (the free version) and they were useless. The rep had no clue about the specific devise and it is clear that he was just in a large call center that probably supports dozens if not hundreds of products. I had NO problem when I hooked it into my network via an ethernet cable. The set up application runs very nicely and easily gives you the option to select either wireless or wired set up as needed.
Back to my wireless problem. I decided that I would pay $32 for D-Links premium support for 30 minutes of help...I rolled the dice, as they do not guarantee they will fix your problem for your investment, but I had a feeling my issue was something simple with my network configuration...and I was right. The rep was great, she remoted into my pc, checked out my wireless settings on my router and determined that I had a bad character in my site name. None of my other wireless products had a problem with the character, but the D-Link cam did not like it. She changed the name of my wireless network, we restarted the router,and instantly the camera linked in wirelessly.
I am absolutely convinced that if I had not had a dash in my wireless network name, then this wireless set up would have been a breeze. So, I can't place blame for this issue on D-Link, but it was interesting that no other wireless device I use had a problem with the naming convention of the network.
Once that hurdle was cleared, it has been smooth sailing. I really like the ease of use and the functionality included with the set up...through a web interface, you can control video size, audio (yes it has a mic and sends the audio over IP in realtime), you can set motion detection, auto emailing on detection, and it even has a built in ftp server to send the images where ever you like.
Simple camera that does exactly what it says...it provides decent video and audio wirelessly to your network and then you can do with it what you want.
Pros: Simple, straight forward, nice setup application used on your pc, D-Link offers free remote viewing via their web portal MyD-link, and they also offer a free iPhone app (no audio on the iPhone app).
Cons: Seems somewhat fragile...I would not want to drop it form more than a foot off the ground. A fall from any higher seems would shatter it.
Overall I think this is a really good value.
((Update Dec. 18, 2011)
So I have had this camera in service for over a year now...and it has been installed outside, under an eave of my house. It has no additional protection from the elements...just its own casing and the few inches of cover provided by the eave. It has been subjected to all the weather Atlanta receives in a year...heat 95+, cold 9, wind, rain, humidity, etc. The verdict...GREAT..not one issue with it. So, I just purchased three more for outdoor viewing around the house. I put one into service yesterday and had NO problems with setup at all. Used the auto network connect feature on the camera and my Netgear router and it hooked in within a minute. Great little camera and with the price dropped to $70, I think it will be hard to beat it.
This is the easiest way I found to monitor our home remotely.
I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly everything came together I had the camera installed and transmitting in less than 15 minutes. I plugged the camera into a power outlet, popped the CD in (on a Windows 7 64-bit computer), entered my wireless network credentials, set up a DLink account from which to monitor the camera, and presto!
What works well:
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1. The lens is reasonably wide angle it can cover most of a normal size room.
2. It has audio! And it works very well.
3. Image quality is decent you can recognize people, but it isn't broadcast quality by any means.
4. Moving the camera kills the feed for a couple of minutes, but it's back on the network in less than 2 minutes.
5. The iPhone app is cool! We were able to watch the camera just as well on an iPod Touch. As another reviewer suggested, Tiny Cam (the free version is sufficient) worked great for me on Android.
6. The admin interface for the camera is stellar. You can control the refresh rate and resolution of the camera; the saturation, brightness, and contrast of the image; and the volume for the audio. You can even turn off the annoying LED light on the front of the unit!
7. Setting up motion detection is also really easy. You just pick the sensitivity of detection, and click on parts of the frame where you want detection to trigger. That's it! When motion is detected, you can ask the camera to email you the images.
8. Setting up email notification is simple too. I looked up the SMTP address and port for Yahoo, entered my email address and password, and was soon receiving emails from my camera!
9. This device supports WPS. What this means that you can automatically configure it to access your router, with just a couple of button presses. You press the WPS button on this camera, and within 60 seconds press the WPS button on your router (or in your router's admin screen). Then, magically, within about a minute, your camera configures itself with the SSID and password required to connect to your router.
10. It connects via Wireless-N and has an awesome range. It connects without problems to my router from across the house, through multiple walls.
What doesn't:
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1. The camera does not work in low light conditions as it does not have infrared capabilities. You need at least a 40W lamp for it to be functional. This tends to be a bit annoying for me, as the camera becomes fairly useless once evening falls. The infrared-capable DCS-932L may be a better choice in this regard.
2. No pan/tilt options on this camera. For me, this is not as big a deal as the low light issue, especially given its wide angle of view.
3. The camera feels a bit delicate, but should hold up well given that it isn't going to be handled much. It did take a couple of falls and has survived.
4. The camera needs to be plugged into an electrical outlet. Its short power cord does limit the locations where it can be placed.
Conclusions:
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Overall, this was plug and play installation at its best.
I also can't believe there is a simpler way to get all of this functionality in a single unit. This device is extensively customizable. I was particularly impressed that the designers had thought about putting in a way to turn off the blinking LED in the front of the camera. This LED is a very useful diagnostic tool (it flashes amber when it is setting itself up, and green when it is broadcasting), but it drove me nuts, until I found this option in the admin panel.
Updated Feb 06 2011:
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Okay maybe I spoke too soon.
Access to the camera that I tested when I wrote this review was from within my internal network. Unfortunately, the feed from this camera was not visible from outside my home network. My router and this camera were UPnP compatible but that didn't seem to help.
Networking Primer:
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Before you begin, remember that you only have one publicly visible IP address and this is allocated by your ISP, and is assigned to your router. Inside your network, your devices are allocated private IP addresses, in the range 192.168.x.y. These addresses are termed "private" because they only make sense within your own internal private network.
A computer outside your network only recognizes the public IP address of your router. It has no idea how many devices you might have on your internal network.
The workaround below, lets you use the mechanism of [port forwarding] to uniquely identify one of your internal devices, and make it addressable over the Internet. You do this by reserving a particular port (say, 81), and telling your router that any attempt to access that particular port on the public IP address, should actually be sent directly on to the internal device (say, a camera) identified by a given private address (say, 192.168.1.5).
You have roughly up to 65535 ports that you can forward, though many of these ports are reserved for well known applications (such as a web browser on port 80). Ports between 49152 and 65535 are considered private and usable for reasons such as this one.
For each camera you want to expose externally, you'll need to pick a port number, and then add a port forwarding rule to your router.
The workaround:
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1. Log in to your camera's settings page:
...a. on the Network Setup tab > set Port Settings to listen for HTTP requests on port 81.
...b. Disable UPnP
2. On your router
...a. Turn off UPnP
...b. Add a new Port Forwarding Rule
.....Service Name: DCS930L.
.....Protocol: TCP/UDP.
.....Starting/Ending Ports: 81.
.....Server IP Address: set this to the internal network address for your camera.
.....This will be of the form 192.168.x.y, where x usually is 0 or 1, and y will vary.
A port forwarding rule causes any request coming to your router's IP address at this port to be forwarded to the server IP address that you specify.
3. Now access the camera using your static IP address as assigned by your provider @ port 81.
...This will take the form: . Note this is your externally visible IP address (not of the form 192.168.x.y)
...Provide login credentials.
If you want to get really fancy, and are tired of keeping up with changing IP addresses, then you might wish to register at dyndns.org. My router Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router WNDR3700 actually keeps dyndns informed whenever my ISP changes my IP address. You can then use a simple textual host name and it will be automatically converted to your IP address whatever it may be set to currently.
Hope this helps.
Happy Monitoring!
~Damodar
Buy D-Link DCS-930L mydlink-Enabled Wireless-N Network Camera Now
4/4/2011: The day and night video is pretty good. The installation process was flawless. Unfortunately I can't use the camera as a baby monitor since the audio static is awful. The static is so loud you can't hear anything. Hopefully Dlink will address my concern. I'll update my review once I hear back from them. See my video if you'd like to hear the bad static. Also Dlink hasn't fixed the audio problem with the Iphone App. You only get video with the Iphone. I have the Iphone 4 with iOS 4.3 installed.
4/5/2011: I contacted Dlink support. They said they know about the audio problem and they don't plan to fix it. Ughh! I'm going to return this one and see if a new one sounds better. I'll post more once I get the new one.
4/14/2011: I received my new DCS-932L from Amazon today. The audio is just as bad with this camera. What a shame. I even upgraded my java version to 1.6.0_24-b07. Ughh. Time to send it back or pray for a firmware fix.
8/31/2011: We've started to use this camera all the time since our baby is older and Iphone support has been added. The audio is good enough where we can hear him. I just wish Dlink would get rid of the static.
3/5/2012: This camera has become our primary baby monitor for our 14th month old. The iphone apps work very well. Our Philips Iphone dock works great with the Dlink Iphone app. It amplifies the audio and cleans up the audio a bit. I'm adding 1 more star back. I still wish the the audio didn't have so much static, but this camera has turned out to be a great baby monitor.
Read Best Reviews of D-Link DCS-930L mydlink-Enabled Wireless-N Network Camera Here
I purchased one of these cameras several months ago and it worked so well for the first month that I decided to get a second one. I have now had both for about two months and am finding that my first camera's wireless connection has slowly gotten less and less reliable. It had been in a fixed location the whole time with two walls and a floor between camera and wireless router (about 25 30 feet away). Router settings have not changed. I have performed extensive diagnostics, i.e. went through camera setup several times, changing router settings (removed all wireless security, used fixed IP) and nothing worked. Reset button on camera did not help. Firmware update did not help.
I have finally found that the camera now only works within 15 feet or so of the router, and it must be on the same floor as the router with no walls in between. This is unacceptable for a wireless camera, and my concern is that the wireless card within the camera is losing strength. The other camera I own once worked outside of the house entirely and now will no longer work there nor in the location of the first camera (which is closer and less obstructed than being outside). All other wireless devices we own have ample wireless signal throughout the house, our garage, and most of our yard, and as far as I can tell none of that has changed.
As I am using an Airport Extreme router and thought that there might be some sort of compatibility issue I have even tried running the camera wireless through my old D-Link DIR-615 wireless router with a fully open wireless connection and have not had any luck...the signal range for the camera is the same. DLink support has been no help, other than suggesting only using their routers (which didn't help) and rebooting everything and reconfiguring the camera (also did not help).
I cannot recommend this camera to anyone due to this reliability issue. It is fairly easy to set up and has a useful iPhone app available, but will likely be no use to anyone unless they can keep the camera within 15 feet of their access point with no obstructions in the long run. All I can do is wait until I have the money to replace these cameras with something better. Don't let this happen to you. Start with a different camera first.
Want D-Link DCS-930L mydlink-Enabled Wireless-N Network Camera Discount?
I was looking for a low cost wireless camera with better image quality than the Linksys WVC80N cameras that I have been using for a while. Side-by-Side, this is how the cameras compared.
Bottom Line: Unless you need Night Vision or need the mobil phone apps, the Linksys WVC80N performs better at a lower price. Linksys has better image quality than D-Link at any distance, handles outdoor scenes when the D-Link won't and will deliver video clips (not just snapshots) by email or ftp. The Linksys does not have phone-apps, but it can email a 5 second motion triggered video clip that can be viewed on your android phone.
Best Useage: The D-Link would be great as a baby cam or pet cam. The cute design, better audio and the night vision outperform the Linksys for these uses.
The Linksys WVC80N would be better for any other use where the video quality under all lighting conditions (except dark) is the highest priority.
Compare Image Quality @ 640x480
1. Color Quality D-Link is a little better than Linksys, unless it is an outdoor view. The D-Link exposure control cannot manage any sunlit surfaces. Even grass and trees are completely washed out to white if they are in direct sun. There are no settings to fix this. In moderate light, the D-Link color is better than Linksys because the Linksys has a color hue gradient of red in the center to green at the perimeter. This color balance problem is distracting when viewing a white scene like snow or other very light backgrounds.
2. Image Clarity With the two cameras side-by-side with the same scene of near-and-distant objects, the D-Link by comparison looks optically out-of-focus, though neither camera is great in this respect. If you want to recognize a face at a distance Linksys is better. The D-Link video clarity is fine for a baby's bedroom, because a near-field view does not demand the same sharp focus as a distant view.
3. Sound Quality The D-Link has good audio performance on an wireless "N" lan when accesses directly within your home using the camera's local IP address. Very little "noise", no skipping or break-up and good microphone pickup. I didn't check it out across the internet or with the "MyDlink" connection, but I am guessing audio would not perform so well there . . as other reviewers have noted.
The Linksys has more audio artifacts and is more vulnerable to the audio breaking up when the video settings are too demanding even on the local network. Across the internet with high speed cable service at both ends, the Video has to be set at "Low Quality" and 2 or 1 frames per second for the audio to work without breaking up.
Some Feature Comparisons
1. The one obvious advantage with the D-Link is the night vision. It works pretty well up to 20 feet but the pictures are very soft-focus. For your night-time application you may want to consider that the 4 red LEDS are very bright and draw your eye to the camera.
2. The D-Link camera cannot stream video to a PC without using the full web management interface or using the MyDLink web service. With the Lynksys you can play the video stream directly on an iPad or on a PC using Google's Chrome browser without the surroundings of a web interface. Internet Explorer will only show 1 frame of a video stream if you bypass the full management interface explaining why Google Chrome is mentioned. With the Linksys camera, Right-Click on the video in the normal interface to get the URL for the direct video stream to used on your iPad or Chrome.
The D-Link can display a single .jpeg snapshot without the managment interface. This feature can be enabled in the camera's web interface and it tells the address format to use. This is for direct access, not using MyDink.
2. The D-Link cannot upload a video clip to an ftp server when it sees motion. It will only upload a single .jpeg snapshot. This will often give you a useless premature snapshot of a shadow but not the person, or a door opening but not the person. With the Linksys .mjpeg video clip, no video compression is used so each frame is a good .jpeg snapshot. You can select the best frame from the 5 second video that would give you the best view of the motion event that triggered the clip.
3. The D-Link will only email 6 frames when it sees motion. You can choose 1 or 2 frames per second. It will include the 3 frames it had buffered before it saw motion which is a good feature. This makes the email feature much more usefull than the D-Link ftp upload of a single .jpeg snapshot.
For motion detection features, you may prefer the Linksys which will email, ftp (or both) a 5 second video clip at a normal video frame rate.
I had no reason to examine the motion detect performance on the D-Link camera, but the motion detection on this Linksys camera works much better that on the prior similar models. With careful detection-area and sensitivity tuning, motion detection works great. Motion Detection responds to shadows which makes outdoor use tricky but manageable. Shadows on the ground caused by wind blowing the trees will trigger the camera so your detction areas need to be carefully targeted at areas of interest.
Setup / Wireless Compatibility
Working in a related tech business, I believe the negative reviews on either of these products regarding wireless compatibility or networking issues are the result of bad programming on the manufacturer's setup CD or the buyer's lack of network troubleshooting experience. If you have a friend who is very tech-savy to help you get past wireless and networking complications, either of these products will work reliably on virtually any wireless network. Sometimes the installation CD's will simplify networking issues and sometime they won't.
Reading the complaints on Amazon about the D-Link setup, I had the same problems but they were caused by poor programming on Setup CD; not the camera. If you get failure messages going through the Wizard on the CD, just use the web interface on the camera and save yourself a lot of grief. The web interface on the camera is excellent.
Another reason to skip the DLink CD . . . it forces you to to create a MyDlink account with DLink even though you may have no need for the service because you prefer to port-forward to this camera.
I returned this camera because it was a video quality downgrade from the Linksys cameras already in service.
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Bought my first Blu-Ray player and a new Yamaha receiver from Amazon to hook up to my big Mitsu DLP TV, and ordered a couple of this inexpensive cables with my order.
