Customer Reviews

Works as intended. Review by T. Vile

Price
Quality

I purchased this item through another retailer for less but have to say that it does work well. The documentation is horrid and could use some help but anyone with basic knowledge of networking and computers should be able to get this working within an hour. (Posted on 7/4/11)

Quit Your Whining Review by Geoffrey D. Johnson "Dave"

Price
Quality

If you want an item that networks itself, has excellent support, and works immediately by simply running a cd than you are going to spend several hundred dollars. This was about 100 bucks, it's waterproof, color, has night vision, and is wireless. I would like to see someone find a camera containing these features for a price that is even in the ballpark......that's what I thought. This device was very simple to set up and install. I used sensr.net as an ftp server which I would recommend to anyone that has never messed with configuring a ddns service for remote access as the site explains exactly how to configure this device to it .Here is the link. [...]
I use that site to monitor my camera remotely. Once this thing is up and running it works great. This is not HD and the night vision is not perfect but it definitely gets the job done for budget surveillance. I can't believe the number of whiners reviews for this product.....Want something simple with training wheels and someone to hold your hand during the installation? Go spend 500 bucks! Anyway, great product for the price (Posted on 7/4/11)

Excellent quality & value! Review by W. Hudson

Price
Quality

Yes, wireless setup will be difficult if you're not familiar with that sort of thing.

If you've ever gone into your router settings to set something up, you won't have any trouble.

The picture quality is great (both day & night)
Haven't had any problems out of it in the heavy winds and rain other than it moving a little bit in high winds.

I was concerned about buying the mjpeg instead of the H.264 which would be better, but considering the price and quality, I'm pleased with this one. (Posted on 7/4/11)

5 stars on everything but user friendliness Review by Eric Ripley

Price
Quality

First off. I purchased one of these cameras to make sure it meet my needs before getting another and then finally 4 more. I have a total of 6 cameras protecting my property and am using the blueiris software to record and manage the cameras. It is the best software but this review is not for the software ,which is excellent, but for the camera.

Camera construction:
Robust. Perfect for outdoors. In fact all my cameras are outdoors but under overhanging eves. The shell is waterproof and cord out of the camera is waterproof as well.

Wiring the cameras:
These are wireless cameras but i will inform you that you will have to run a wire of some sort as these cameras will need wired power. so i went ahead and wired the cameras via ethernet as well since i had to run power. one suggestion is you can use what i did and run cat6 for the ethernet and POWER. that is if you are technically inclined. I used 4 wires for the ethernet (orange, orange white, green, green white) and the blue and blue white for power and the brown and brown white for ground. I physically cut the power cord that comes with the cameras in half and soldered one end to the ethernet cable extra wires and the other end. the cameras are really low wattage so you can easily get away with this. I ran 40 feet of cable this way and the cameras work fine.

Software on the cameras:
If you get a real foscam then the software built in to the cameras is very good and will do everything you want to do except record video stream. The cameras will do time delay snapshots but for advanced features such as stream captures etc i recommend blue iris software. Make sure you get real foscams as there are unofficial clones with a different interface.

The camera picture quality:
Here is where the camera is both a blessing and a curse. Curse first. The cameras during the daytime show everything as washed out. Grass is white and not green. Trees are a purple hue. But you can see and makeout everything fine. At night everything is of course white as well but the camera has extremely good night vision. The infrared LEDS are so good that if you switch out lenses to a smaller focal you will get a "hot spot" or "ghost ring" of overbright led power. there is a solution for this, see the next section on lenses. Blessing, the camera does night vision perfect and daytime good. what other camera for 100$ has this cameras abilities and build quality? Can you get a better quality camera for daytime..YES. This washed out look is inherent to any IR cameras as the way the infrared filters work. So a camera that doesnt have night vision will look very good during the day but dont let that fool you that this is an inferior camera. Do robbers come during the day? Some do i guess.

Lenses:
The 12mm lense is unusable for me. the quality of the lense is excellent but 12mm shows you a 10 foot by 10 foot area 100 feet down the block. Not good for home surveillance. But good for a radio tower or traffic camera.
You can use CCTV lenses. they just unscrew. lenses are cheap on amazon or ebay. Figure out the focal length you need using online calculator. Im using 1 8mm lense 2 6mm lenses, and 3 2.8mm lenses.
To avoid the ghosting from the overbright LEDs when using smaller lenses....use wax paper. yes the stuff you cook with. cut a ring out that fits over the leds and cut the center section out for the lense and install behind the glass. this filters the infrared, or blurs it if you will, and produces a good night vision without the hotspot.

Networking setup:
The camera is a nightmare. im a IT guy and hate to admit i had a bit of trouble with it. I have it using wired ethernet with wireless as a backup. Im using gmx for my email setup as that provider works with the foscam software for email. I have my cameras accessible over the internet. i suggest you get one camera, dont mount it and configure it in front of your computer and test to make sure its working on your network before mounting it. once you figure out how to network one of the cameras the others are a simple cut and paste and change a few settings such as IP address if you use a static like i did.

Summary:
Almost all the cameras shortcomings can be overcome. the cost of the camera is exceptional for what you get. the networking setup is where most people fail the camera or give it low reviews. its not really the fact that the camera is the problem. there is just alot of configuring to do...email alerts, ftp, web access, wired dhcp static or dynamic, wireless setup and security...etc.
These cameras are alot of bang for the buck. Dont regret my purchases 1%. (Posted on 7/4/11)

Great product Review by schmendrick

Price
Quality

State of the art hardware as well as software.
Great pictures, long range with Auto-Infrared at night.

Although the English in the manual is not the best, you definitely will be able to set up the camera, IF YOU FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS STEP BY STEP.
Internet access gets more complicated for the average user, since one has to do "port-forwarding".
I recommend [...], click on your router and follow the steps. SHOULD be easy.

I also have the FI8918W Foscam FI8918W Wireless/Wired Pan & Tilt IP Camera with 8 Meter Night Vision and 3.6mm Lens (67° Viewing Angle) for indoors.

I installed IP Cam Viewer Lite ([...]) on my Sprint EVO 4G, easy setup; now I am able to monitor both cameras on my EVO.

In summary:
This camera as well as the FI8918W are highly recommended for the computer savvy. The average computer user should consider asking the neighbor's Computer Wiz Kid for help. (Posted on 7/4/11)

Need More Motion Detection Options Review by Juergen

Price
Quality

I have had experiences with other IP cameras, and am happy with the features and performance compared to the price. Unfortunately, the motion detection settings need some improving. In the current firmware version 11.25.2.30, there are no means to limit the field of view for the motion detection. I might be able to live with it if the camera wasn’t uploading five pictures every time motion was detected. So, I hope this issue can be resolved in a future firmware update. When I checked the foscam website, the latest firmware for this camera had a smaller version number than the one already installed (11.15.2.17). (Posted on 6/23/11)

Poor Outdoor Performance Review by L.Smith

Quality
Price

Colors are washed out ! I could maybe live with the washed out colors, but "white trees and grass" are unacceptable ! (Posted on 6/3/11)

Visual Home Security Review by Home Owner

Price
Quality

I was looking for a camera system that I could install myself and keep an eye on my home. I needed something that I could use my laptop, iPhone and iPad. These camera's do have there limitation but for the price you just can not beat them. They do have some brightness issue but there are some tricks to get past those problems. Check the forums. I have 9 cameras installed and will soon upgrade to the Blue Iris software in order to add more camera's. I do have a couple of the Foscam indoor camera's to keep an eye on my dogs. (Posted on 5/27/11)

BAD Review by ShaGGy

Price
Quality

It was very disappointing to me when I tried this cam. It has a lot of features but they didn't work well. Read the forum for all it's problems. (Posted on 5/5/11)