Foscam FI8918W wireless IP camera review
I am looking for a video camera as baby monitor for a while. Currently all the baby video cameras in the market are too expensive, over $200 - $300, even that the features are quite limited. So I start looking for the replacement: the IP camera, and finally in Amazon I found FOSCAM FI8918W, it has almost all the features I need: pan/tilt remote control, wireless-IP, info-red, built-in micro phone and speaker. The most feature attract me is the wireless-IP, you can watch your camera anywhere over the internet through your browser or iPhone!
Yesterday I finally got my Foscam wireless IP camera from amazon.ca. I can't wait to unpack it start setting up. I just followed the manual step by step, it did not take me any longer to watch the video over the IE browser; but the hard part is making it work from the internet:
- At first I choose UPnP, but it did not work, this took me a while;
- Then I choose forward port as the manual suggested, configure the camera address and port number in my router, tried several times, finally get it working;
- Last I went to dyndns.org to create an free domain, then configure the parameters in the camera. finally I got it working.
There is another issue: as the manual mentioned, the camera only support IE to get the audio working, but there is no audio on my windows 7, after I followed this article, finally I got it working. Since the camera relies on ActiveX to make audio working, so currently audio does not support on other browsers: Firefox, Chrome, Safari.
Overall the camera does exactly what it mentioned. I like this camera:
Pros:
- info-red feature is awesome, I can see the picture clearly at night when I turned on the info-red;
- remote control is very handy, you can control the camera in 8 direction via browser or iPhone application.
- I just found the motion detection feature, when it detects the motion, the computer will beep and automatically record the video.
Cons:
- No audio output on non IE browser or iPhone application, I heard it due to the video output is Microsoft ASF format.
- No Zoom support
- Only support Wireless b/g, not support wireless-N network
- Picture quality is OK, you can see the pause, quite similar to the web cam
Comparing its feature and the price $100 in amazon.ca, less than the half of the regular video monitor, I think it is a good choice for a baby monitor.
The iPhone application
I downloaded the foscam surveillance pro application in my iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, it costs me $5, the app is really good, except no audio output. And at first I found the left/right control is reversed, after searching the support forum, the solution is choose FI8918W-reversed, then every thing is perfect.
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