Foscam IP Camera –Wireless with Night Vision and 2 Way Audio in Black | Cam001
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A High Quality Camera with a Lot of Useful Features
Foscam have been building up a solid reputation for producing IP cameras that have been getting favorable reviews by users all over the world.
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Their products tend to be a lot cheaper than the competition and feature advanced technologies that rivals charge more than double for in some occasions. The black wireless IP model designed for indoor use is one of the best sellers in the Foscam range, but how does it compare with other IP cameras?
Solid and Well Built
Coming in at just slightly over 2 lbs in weight, the Cam001 has a very solid feel to it. There is an Ethernet port on it as well so you do not have to exclusively use it as a wireless device. The list of features that it supports is impressive. Night vision quality is very good indeed, and it is nice to have a pan and tilt feature in a camera at this price range. The camera also features a speaker on the front as well as a microphone, which records audio at a good level of clarity. The speaker is not quite as good, since the sound tends to crackle a lot. I’m not even sure if you would use this “feature” in any case to be honest, but it is nice to have.
Installation
This is the trickiest bit of getting the Foscam to work correctly. The device does support wireless encryption standards such as WEP and WPA, but it seems to have a bit of a problem with long WPA keys, so if you have a password on your router that is over 8 characters in length while using WPA the chances are that you will have to change the password to work. The instructions are not the best, and are clearly written in bad English, but the Foscam technical support are quite helpful. What you basically need to do is set up port forwarding on your router to map a port to the camera, typically to a high port number (and port 8080 on the outside). Once you manage to get a static IP address on the camera it works fine, but this does involve a lot of reboots of the camera. If you can set up a computer you should manage to get this working though, but just realize that set up is the hardest part of using this camera.
Great Remote Support Features
Once set up, the list of features in the Foscam really shines. The motion detector in the camera works well and the camera can be set up to upload an image to a remote FTP server and send an email when it detects motion. You can control the camera with the all the browsers including Safari, but be sure to update the firmware and the software to get the best out of it. Picture quality is very high, and it is easy to pick out details in the scene. The best thing about this camera is the mobile phone app that lets you see what is happening in your home very fast – the app is more useful than a web browser!
Overall
While the Foscam can be initially tricky to set up, once up and running it’s very useful. When you compare the price to a Panasonic wireless camera such as the BB-HCM317A it is incredible good value for what you get. If you have the patience to get past the set up stage and you are looking for a way to check up on your home easily when you are not in then give the Foscam your consideration.










