Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Does what it says August 16, 2008
It works. I am using it for a simple application, a kitty-cam, to watch the kittens while I am out of the room. I wish it had a wide-angle lens, but all in all, it does what I paid for it to do. I got it set up without help, but it had a few annoyances, so I used the tech-support chat and we straightened it out with very little fuss. You get your money's worth.
 Just sits on a shelf now August 15, 2008
The camera comes with two pieces of software; one to set it up and one to monitor the camera itself. Both of which are pieces of crap.
First, the software to set it up: My network has security (only WEP because of my Tivo adapter) with a custom hex key. Well the instructions say that you can enter your key when setting it up, but in reality it will only let you enter a pass phase that it then converts to a hex key. That's great if you have a Linksys router and used their pass phrase feature to set it up, but having a Belkin router that doesn't do anything for me. So I had to go online and figure out from someone else who made the horrible decision to purchase this thing, how to log in into the camera itself and change the settings. But I figured at least I only have to set it up once, as long as the software that I'm going to use on a weekly basis is good then I will be happy.
Well, the monitoring software is terrible. The motion detection has no sensitivity setting or mask (to ignore a tree that sways in the wind of something) so it basically records constantly if you point it outside. If you record over about 15 minutes, playback stops working. Then there are the freezes and crashes, not to mention the UI sucks. Just a big bag of disappointments. Really surprised coming out of a company like Linksys.
Even went so far as to buy other software, none of which supported this camera effectively. Now I've wasted money on the camera and additional software.
So this thing now sits on a shelf in my house unused (should have returned it but experimenting with different software took a little too long). I have since purchased a Q-See 4 channel dedicated DVR with network access. It's not the best build quality but it works about a million times better than the Linksys crap (which wouldn't take much).
Not bad on a Mac August 6, 2008
I got this camera this week, and so far, so good.
Installation using a Mac was a breeze. The key is not to use the installation CD from LinkSys, but to go straight to the web page. This is accomplished by first plugging the camera into a hard-wired ethernet port on a router, then finding out what IP address was given to the unit (most home users will be able to find this via their router's status web page or log file). Once you've got the IP address, plug that into your browser (I tried both Safari and Firefox, quite successfully, too) and go through the Setup page. After you've got it setup the way you want, power off, disconnect the ethernet, and power it back on to go into wireless mode. (NB: both interfaces, the ethernet port and the wifi port, use the same MAC address if you have MAC filtering enabled on your wireless access point.)
One point to note: I did try running the installation CD while running a VM (using Sun's VirtualBox and Windows XP) on my Mac, but due to the NAT'd address for the virtual machine (a class A 10.x.y.z address), my VM XP installation was not in the same subnet as the camera (a class C 192.168.1.x address), and the setup program could not find the camera. However, I was able to use the VM XP installation to load and run the ActiveX components for IE7 to view the MPEG4 ASX video stream as well as run the advanced Motion Detection ActiveX component for setting up "windows" that the camera detects activity within.
None of this is necessary for use with a Mac, however. The camera offers several ways of seeing its output that are compatible with Safari, QuickTime, or Firefox. For example, use http://my.camera/img/snapshot.cgi for stills, http://my.camera/img/video.mjpeg for motion JPEG video, or rtsp://my.camera/#### (where #### is your "Mobile Settings Access Code" from the Setup tab) for low data rate streaming video suitable for a PDA, cellphone, or Nokia Internet Tablet (I've an N800 that it works great with!) I was also able to get http://my.camera/img/video.asf to work in Safari with Flip4Mac installed, but performance was horrible, even on a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook.
As I mentioned before, the camera can be setup with motion detection. The key to getting it to work decently is to make sure that you've got a proper motion window setup for the camera to watch for motion. The camera won't be fooled by gradual lighting changes (like dawn or dusk), so if you set the window to a static background (e.g., a covered concrete walkway, vs. a tree blowing in the breeze and subject to shadows from clouds), motion detection works quite well. You can also set the camera to not send motion alerts between certain times (like when you're asleep!) Of course, this must be tempered with my note below about setting the time
Wifi range seems to be good -- I've gone over 30' and through 2 interior walls from my D-Link DIR-655 802.11n router without any performance dropouts or other problems.
Overall, the camera works as it's advertised. I like the extra mounting hole on the back of the camera, the long power cord, and the standard video and still image formats available. I also like that you can specify the still image output format via the URL (just tack on ?size=#&quality=# to the snapshot.cgi), but wish the same could be done with the video stream. The video quality's not great, a bit grainy in low-light and colors are slightly washed out, but what do you expect for $[...]? I'm also not convinced the NTP client works at all on this device, which makes power outages or moving the device problematic for keeping the time set on it. Manual time setting must be done against the browser client you are running to view the Setup page.
That said, it's a strong 4 out of 5 stars in my book. I just might be buying another one of these to dedicate to the back yard...
It is not as bad as they say, it is worse.... August 5, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have been in the computer business since 1980 and except for the infamous linksys wireless print server that just did not work, this is by far the worst product I have ever purchased. It kinda works, just enough to make you think it is usable, but after 24 hours with it I have decided to return it. The problem, It just quit working, going into some kind of continuous lockup in the camera. The resolution is bad, especially bad in darker scenes. I did not have the problem with triggering, since that was controllable with the detection windows. The biggest problem is that the software that comes with this thing is utterly brain dead, with a nearly useless user interface, and features that just dont work. The problems with this software are just too numerous to list out, but for example, if you select one option to review motion triggered events, the window starts up and becomes non-responsive to all but kill commands from task manager. (I am using vista by the way) I find it hard to believe that any company, (even linksys that has gone to pot since cisco bought them) would allow such a product to go on the market. There must be NO quality assurance department checking this stuff. Do yourself a favor and spend the bucks for something that works. Otherwise this is 100 bucks down the drain. The reason this thing doesnt come with instructions? Because it is apparent that nobody at linksys has even tried to use this thing, no less write instructions for it.
 Excellent Product - Great value July 29, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an excellent product, especially for the price.
Pros:
* Very inexpensive
* Has great audio pickup. You are able to hear a pin drop!
* Easy to setup (some experience with routers and port forwarding is recommended)
* Allows for E-Mail and FTP of video files captured after motion detection
* WiFi built in, all you need a WiFi network and a power outlet and its ready to go
* Small in size
Cons:
* The swivel base is adequate, however it seems a little flimsy. You have to tighten it down with a plastic ring that could break if you have a heavy hand
* Small bug with FTP transfer for motion capture video. The configuration settings do not allow any special characters in the FTP server name, username, or file path. So if you are going to ftp files you will need to configure it with plain usernames, and server names. I used the IP address of a local computer on the network and changed the username to NOT include an underscore.
Overall:
I would definitely recommend this product. I am planning to purchase two more of these now that I have my first one. I have spec'ed out a traditional security camera system, both IP and RF. With the cost of a DVR, cameras, cabling, etc you could be facing a $1500+ bill. However with a few of these, a WiFi network, and a PC to store the video, you can do almost as good for under $300 (assuming you already have a PC).
The setup I have is:
PC running Windows XP
-Filezilla FTP Server (make sure to open port 21 on your PC firewall)
Belkin Wireless G Router:
-You will need to setup port forwarding to be able to access the video from off of your network.
WVC54GCA
-Save yourself some time and trouble and assign it a static IP in your router. That way it wont be changing on you.
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