Panasonic BL-C210A Internet Security Camera Review

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(More customer reviews)Bought this camera through one of Amazon's Gold Box Deals for $130. For the price, it's a great camera. This is my second Panasonic network camera. A few years ago I bought their BL-C1A model Panasonic Network Camera and Pet Cam (BLC1A). The BL-C210A is a much nicer camera. The picture image is several times better, especially when motion is involved. You have the option of pan and tilt to look around. You can disable the indicator lights on the camera that lets you know the camera is on. You can also disable or override the privacy mode button on top of the camera. You can configure the camera to email you a picture when it detects motion in your house. Now how's that for peace of mind while you're away? And my favorite is that the camera is powered through the network cable which eliminates the need for a power outlet near the camera. The camera has a threaded mounting hole in the back that can be used to mount the camera to a standard tripod or an optional wall mount. The cube design is nice because it allows you to just set the camera on a shelf or table. The camera is light, so a tug on the network cable can bring it crashing down if it's not secured.
There are limitations with the camera. If you want to view an entire room, you'll need to mount the camera in a corner. It can only pan 41 degrees to the left or right, 10 degrees up and 32 degrees down. The camera is powered through the network cable, but it doesn't support the industry standard PoE. Luckily it comes with its own power injector. You'll need to purchase two network cables to use this camera. One cable connects the camera to the power injector and the other connects the power injector to your router/switch. The cable between the camera and power injector must be shorter than 98 feet. The box says you can only view still images from a cell phone. The website says you can't listen to audio with a cell phone. I haven't tried either. The software works pretty good, although I have found a few minor bugs in it. You have the option of viewing multiple cameras on one screen, but the max resolution for multiple cameras is only 320x240 and not the 640x480 max camera resolution. You don't need a computer onsite to use the camera, but you'll need one to do the initial setup.
Panasonic has nicer cameras than this model, but the prices also get outrageous. $185 (current Amazon price) is not bad for one camera. But after you buy one, you'll want more so you can monitor the rest of the house. That's when $185 per camera starts adding up. If the price drops again, I'll definitely buy another.
Note: The zoom function is not obvious. There are buttons on the screen to do everything but zoom. I discovered you can right-click on the top half of the video to zoom in and right-click on the lower half to zoom out. You can also use the wheel on your mouse to zoom in and out.
Update (March 9, 2010): I did a little research on the camera model (BL-C111A) that the BL-C210A replaced. This camera has a larger CMOS sensor but the same resolution. The old model can pan 50 degrees to the left or right while this model can only pan 41 degrees. The old model can tilt down 40 degrees while this model can only tilt down 32 degrees. The old model had a 10x digital zoom while this model only has a 3x digital zoom. The digital zoom is not very good. If you have a need to zoom in on objects, you'll want a camera with an optical zoom. Some new features added are SSL data encryption for secure viewing over the Internet, power through the network cable, H.264 video compression, and the ability to operate the camera with some models of Panasonic flat screen TV's.
I bought another camera from Amazon to monitor the back door and kitchen area. It comes with mounting holes on the back of the camera so you can slide it down on a couple of screw heads. It frustrates me that you can't mount it flat on a wall and pan 90 degrees to the left and right. I ended up purchasing mounting brackets VideoSecu Ceiling Mount Bracket for CCTV CCD Box Body Pro Camera 2-6 inch Adjustable MCB1w 1A2 so I can mount the cameras in a corner. Again, I really like the ability to power this camera through the network cable. I have the cameras and my network equipment all plugged into the same UPS. This way I can still monitor my house in the event of a power failure. If you're looking for a camera to monitor the baby's room, this is not it. You can't see much with only a night light on in the room. You're better off with a dedicated baby camera. We've had good luck with a baby camera made by Astak Astak 2.4 GHz Pan & Tilt Baby Camera with 2.5" LCD Color Handheld Monitor with Night Vision. It can pan and tilt to see the whole room, can see very well in the dark even with no lights on, and comes with a handheld color monitor. The monitor eats batteries so we just turn it on when we hear something or want to check up on the kids. It also comes with an AC adaptor for continuous monitoring. Another reason why a baby camera works better for monitoring babies than this camera is that you don't have to fire up your computer in the middle of the night to see if your child is awake. A word of warning, many baby camera's operate on the same frequencies as your wireless network. You might need to play around with the channels on both the baby camera and your wireless network until they don't interfere with each other.

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Panasonic BL-C210A Internet Security Camera

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TRENDnet SecurView Wireless Internet Surveillance Camera TV-IP110W (Silver) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this on a Gold Box deal and am very glad I did. First, the image quality is superb. TRENDnet supplies software to assist in setting up the camera but people with a bit of technical experience can go straight to the web interface and set things up there and there are some great features that allow you to set this camera up pretty much however you want.
All of the camera settings are configurable - brightness, contrast, saturation, frame rate, resolution, and even settings to synchronize with 50 or 60 Hz lighting or outdoors. It also supports WPA2 encryption and three levels of password-protected access. You can have it grab images based on movement (requires accessing the camera with Internet Explorer to configure that for some reason) or on a time schedule, and either have it e-mail the images or ftp them somewhere. And it supports dynamic domain name configuration so you can access the camera even if your IP address changes.
It also supports time and date stamping the images - pretty much a necessity - but it also supports accessing an NTP server to make sure the onboard clock is accurate.
And once you get the camera all set up the way you want it, you can save out the configuration file to make it a snap to reconfigure it in case you ever do a hard reset that restores all the defaults.
Not that it will matter to most, but this camera server is actually a full ARM-based computer running Linux. If you go to the TRENDnet website, besides getting the latest firmware, you can also get the source code for the camera OS for those that want to tinker.
The final issue is just the value. You are getting a video camera and a web-serving computer with both wired and wireless interfaces for this price. I'm glad I got mine and am using it to monitor my front porch for visitors and also as a way to monitor the weather at home. With multiple cameras, it's easy to monitor all sorts of things if someone wants to.

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The Wireless Internet Camera Server (TV-IP110W) transmits real-time high quality video over the Internet. View your camera from any Internet connection. Complimentary SecurView camera management software provides advanced monitoring of up to 16 cameras to protect what you value most. This stylish and compact Internet camera provides crystal clear MJPEG video streams. Mount the wireless camera on most surfaces with an included mounting kit. Intuitive software features motion detection recording, email alerts (Does not support SSL, 32-bit only, monitoring multiple cameras will require a high performance CPU and graphics card), and scheduled recordings. The camera\'s brilliant image quality, intuitive setup and complimentary software make it ideal for your home or office. SecurView cameras are not compatible with TRENDnet\'s IPView Pro camera application for ProView cameras.

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Cisco-Linksys Wireless-N Internet Home Monitoring Camera Review

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(More customer reviews)Here's the scoop: I was rather concerned about reading the wide range of ratings on this camera, seeing that there were some one star reviews coming in, so I was fully ready to return this puppy if it didn't live up to my pretty high standards.
That said, here is my experience:
I have a Linksys Dual Band Wireless N Router running in a single level ranch about 50 yards from some pretty serious power lines. On the network is a Power Mac connected via ethernet cable, and 3 laptops (a PC, an older Macbook, and a newer Macbook Pro) via wireless. Off topic, I'm not impressed with the range on the Linksys Router, but it provides some pretty quick bandwidth in the home with two networks to connect into, so I live with it.
I unboxed the WVC80N, which came with an ethernet cable, a CD, and some instructions/manual. I followed the instructions to the letter, which instructed me to put the CD into a computer first. I put it in the Power Mac. The CD worked fine and opened up a set-up guide. The set-up guide told me what to do... it detected the wireless devices on the network, then told me to plug the ethernet cable into the camera... I clicked 'next', then into the router... 'next', then plug the power in on the camera... 'next', and turn it on... 'next'... it detected the camera via the ethernet cable with no issues, and continued to lead me through the set-up... I had to create user name and password for the camera, etc., then something awesome happened. I used to be pretty technical, but now don't like to mess with having to figure out how to make something work... I just like it to work. So to my pleasant surprise, when I clicked 'next' this time, ALL THE ADVANCED SETTINGS that allow the camera to be seen via the internet (through secure login and password) were done AUTOMATICALLY for me while I watched. No port mapping. No WPA set-up. No hassles! Awesome!
Then it led me to the TZO set-up (free for 90 days) for the service to be able to look at the camera from anywhere on the Internet any time you want. To explain the technical side of this to non tech folks: If you have a normal DSL or cable internet service, you get what's called a "dynamic IP address" assigned to you from your cable company. This IP address is a number that allows other computers to be able to find your computer whenever you ask to see something (like pulling down video from [...] or getting search results from google - it's a "send the video to this address" kind of thing). But a dynamic IP address can change every time the power goes out or your modem reboots. The internet provider just gives you another one from the ones they have laying around. So where your IP address at your house might have been 123.456.789.123 yesterday, it could be 123.456.789.456 today. So when you are out on the Internet looking to view your camera, you need to know what your IP address is for your house at that particular time. Enter TZO. TZO is an IP mapping service that has your camera send out a message to them saying "here I am". Then TZO writes down that IP address (automatically) for that day and gives you an address at their site to log into ([...]), which then forwards you to your house and your camera. The service costs $25 a year, or discounted for multiple years. NOTE: You don't have to have this service if you have a static IP address or can figure out your dynamic IP address without this service.
So I set up a TZO domain (and will probably pay the $25, because we got it to show the family what's going on in the nursery for a new baby... and it's a simple web address for the grandparents can bookmark. FYI, the camera allows you to set-up user accounts and passwords for different users.), and here's where another magical thing happened. I clicked on "show video"... and it just worked. FROM THE INTERNET ADDRESS... IT JUST WORKED. Amazing. So now I started to play with and test to see what the limitations of this device are:
First, we had two family members log on simultaneously to see frame rate response. It worked at almost 30fps for three simultaneous users at maximum resolution of 640x480. Cool. So let's play with the settings:
The camera is a smart device, and if you've ever seen your Router's set-up menus after logging into your wireless router... there's the same type of interface here inside the camera. You can change basic settings like dynamic or specific IP address, tell it whether or not to turn the power LED on/off on the front of the camera, etc.... you can change image settings, to large, med, or small resolution, set frame rate, etc... you can add or delete login accounts and passwords (add: grandma password: grandchild for grandma to use when she clicks on your camera's web address), and you can change the settings for automatic motion detection, automatic timed recording, etc. The camera will send you an email with still images or short 5 second video clips every time it detects a change in the camera's environment (if you want it to - fully customizable), and it works well if you set the outgoing SMTP server (google this).
My experience with network response in the home with the camera on:
I've seen the complaints about the camera interfering with throughput to other computers in the house, bogging down the network, etc. I tested this camera two ways: 1) I put everything on one side of the dual band router (simulating what it would be like for a normal wireless router), then 2) I put the camera on one side of the router, and everything else on the other. FYI, we cancelled cable/satellite as soon as Hulu started putting the good stuff online, and use that and podcasts as our sources of entertainment. As that [...] can be a bandwidth hog (streaming hi-res digital video usually is), I fired up hulu, set the camera to it's maximum resolution and frame rates, and did some tests.
First, if no one is looking at the camera, or it's not sending you an email telling you about motion, it doesn't affect bandwidth at all.
When looking at the camera feed, the camera's operation with nothing else going on within the network is great. 640x480 comes through mostly 30 fps at about 1/2 second lag or less. When you fire up hulu while the camera is running (on the same channel) is when you can start to see a difference. Both the camera and hulu suffered a bit. Where I usually don't have to wait for hulu to buffer, it stopped to buffer once while the camera was on the same side of the router, but mostly... it was still fine. The camera was running at about 10fps, and I was watching a hulu show. I was impressed. WARNING: When I turned on motion detection and walked into the room so I could force the camera to fire off a "motion detected" email... both hulu and the camera ground to a halt. I assume this is because the camera was creating media attachments and sending them off via email.
So then I put the camera on the other side of the router's dual band capability, giving it some bandwidth privacy. The camera worked great. Hulu worked great. I could even watch then simultaneously in two different windows. When hulu was showing a video, the frame rate on the camera drops a little (20fps?), and lag time increases to a second or so. But when you're not streaming digital video from the Internet or downloading some torrent, it's a top notch camera that works great. I would highly recommend the dual band router however if you want to have fewer bandwidth issues.
Image quality:
It's not HD, but it's not bad either. Digital artifacts are non-existent in proper lighting, and if any light is existent in the room at all (a night light), the low level light operation is exceptional. The camera WILL go dark if there is no light present. It is NOT an infrared camera, does not have IR lights, and did not pick up anything when I turned some IR lights on in the room. But crack the door with the hallway light on, and you can see. If you want to have the capability to check in on the cats during the day, or have the grandparents watch while you feed/change/play with the baby, this will be a great camera for that. Color is good. Clarity is good. I can even watch it on my iPhone. Having see what the rest of the market has to offer, and with as hit or miss as Linksys has become now-a-days, I gotta give this camera 4.5 stars.

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Send live audio and video to a smartphone or web browser anywhere in the world! The Cisco-Linksys wireless-N internet home monitoring camera connects to your network wirelessly, and delivers a live audio/video stream to a smartphone or browser anywhere.Also captures video streams and sends email alerts with video clips upon motion detection.

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