Customer Reviews: Read 66 more reviews...
  Camera good software not November 27, 2008 Got the camera to work by going to its address but the software can not find the camera which makes it useless. went to linksys web site which was not any help, do not have a week right now to see about getting the software to work right now. I will keep the camera but will not buy linksys again.
  Ok for the money spent but not for much else November 27, 2008 We have had good luck with Linksys products for the most part so when we were looking to add two cameras to the workplace there was no question that we would go with the Linksys Wireless G Internet cameras.
If only we could have done it over again..
The camera first of all is a lot bigger than you may realize. And to most this won't matter as you don't care if its noticed or not, just that it works wirelessly and does its job. But even setting it up is a process. You have to go through a long winded program that comes with it and hope that it can find your router and then you have to enter in your information for the WEP and security and sometimes it took and sometimes it didn't. It just became more work then we had hoped in just setting it up. But once you get through all of that and you get that solid blue light then its all smooth sailing from there right?
Well not quite. First you have to set it up on the wall and have it plugged in at all times to an outlet and then once you have that going you have to hope its not too far away from your router or forget about getting a clear and constant signal from it.
And the biggest problem with this camera is the software. Its just awful. Sometimes it detects the cameras we have set up, other times it doesn't and you have to push reload again in the program to view the images in the hopes that it finds it. Sometimes the images are laggy and behind. Sometimes the sound is picked up from it, other times it isn't.
After investing so much time and effort into the cameras and setting them up its not worth all the time it would take to go through the process again with new cameras but boy if we can do it again, we would have picked something else and even a bit more money if need be.
Linksys is usually pretty good with wireless products, but I think they really dropped the ball on this one. Something that should be more user friendly and easy to use, is cumbersome and annoying to use. And that really isn't a help to us when we just wanted to put a wireless camera in the front hallway of our business to see who comes in and out and another outside at our back gate for the same reason.
Maybe others will get luckier with them then we have been but we have to give a huge thumbs down to this product. I wouldn't mind any of the other problems if the program to view the camera at least worked well. Maybe one day they will get the program and cameras perfected but it sure isn't now.
Very disappointing to say the least. If you want my advice, look elsewhere. There has to be better wireless cameras then this one.
  Web Cam November 25, 2008 This Web Cam does not have any low light quality at all, I have several cheaper webcams that have MUCH better low light quality. I would not suggest anyone buying this cam for settings where lighting is not Extremely bright.
  Worth the Money...Not Expensive August 20, 2008 The reason I purchased this webcam was to set it up on my new baby's crib so the folks back in Dallas could tune in to see him whenever they wanted. For all intensive purposes, it has served its purpose. I did go with the option to purchase the Linksys service that allows anyone (only if you provide them with the URL) to go to a specific website and view the live stream. This is an optional service that Linksys is more than happy to sell you for $24.99 per year. However, this is not necessarily needed (so I later discovered) for anyone in the world to be able to log in and view the stream. In order to share the images on the web, all you need to know is the WAN IP address that your ISP is giving you. This will change periodically if you don't have a static IP address. However, I have been lucky. Mine has been the same for over 6 months now. If they do change it on you, all you have to do is log into your router and find out what the new IP address is (very very easy to do). To be able to share the stream via your IP address, you do need to know a little bit about routers and port forwarding. It can become a little too "techy" if you don't have a little knowledge on the subject. I will not be renewing another year subscription for the paid web service. I will continue using the IP address method. It is virtually impossible for any unauthorized person(s) to view the video or change the camera settings. They will first have to know the WAN IP address and port that you're using (this is next to impossible unless you tell them what it is). Secondly, they would have to know your username and password to your camera in order to get in and change the camera settings.
Having said all this, I would recommend this for small projects that don't require a crystal-clear resolution. Remember, there is not any audio, just video.
  Decent Wireless Setup, WORTHLESS Software June 22, 2008 Compared to just about every other Linksys product I've ever purchased, getting this thing to play nice with my 802.11n network was a breeze. I simply plugged it directly into my Mac Airport Extreme router with the supplied Cat5 Ethernet cable and ran the install from a networked PC running Windows XP. After about two minutes of basic configuration following the clear instructions onscreen, the camera was online and streaming nice, crisp, 640 x 480 video into my LAN.
Would that the supplied software behaved as intuitively.
Where to begin? First off, the claims of this device being viewable ONLY via Active-X capable browsers appears to be resolved, because I was able to view the video feed in Firefox, Safari, and IE. There *ARE* a few minor features that require Active-X (like digital zoom), but they were hardly value adds anyway and won't be missed if all you want is a simple, remote monitoring device with an uncomplicated web interface. The included monitoring software, on the other hand, is where the wheels pretty much fall off completely.
You're supposed to be able to monitor up to nine cameras from one PC (the box claims you'll need at least a dual-core 3GHz CPU for this), and set each up with motion detection recording. Great concept. I'm sure it must've looked good on paper to the Linksys execs who decided not to offer any such functionality for OS X or Linux users. The interface was buggy and full of anomalous glitches (all the buttons look ghosted out, even when fully functional, and there is very little by way of user feedback to let you know anything is happening when you click on something), and the preferences dialogue frequently crashed the entire application when I tried to apply changes to the camera configuration. I managed to get motion detection to work, but even with over 60GB of free hard drive space, and ample bandwidth, 9 out of 10 tests failed to record anything at all. When I did manage to get it recording, the onboard microphone feed was abysmally low -no pickup to speak of. The "export to AVI" feature (again, accessible only via the crashy Windows-exclusive monitoring app) failed to export any of the clips I captured. That pretty much renders anything you capture with this camera useless as evidence in a court proceeding, unless you plan to haul your whole monitoring platform in should the need arise. Remote recording is pointless if the files are proprietary and non-portable.
Finally, the lens angle is far too narrow for a security camera. I quickly learned that it would take TWO cameras just to cover my modest-sized apartment living room.
Linksys is going to need to try a little harder with the software development before I make this mistake again.
|