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Security - Linksys Wireless N Internet Home Monitoring Camera
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List Price: $119.99
Our Price: Too low to display
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Linksys
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Electronics
Brand: Linksys
EAN: 0745883588428
Feature: Linksys, WVC80N, Wireless N Internet Home Monitoring Camera.
Is Memorabilia: 0
Label: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Model: WVC80N
Number Of Items: 603
Publisher: Linksys
Studio: Linksys
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Features
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Linksys, WVC80N, Wireless N Internet Home Monitoring Camera.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Wireless-N Internet Home Monitoring Camera is designed to send live video to your home computers or through the Internet to a web browser or smartphone anywhere in the world! This compact, self-contained unit lets you keep track of your home, your kids, and your workplace - whatever's important to you.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Product
Comment: I don't know what everyone is talking about here...all these problems and complaints. I just followed the instructions very carefully on the CD setup disk and I am very impressed. Take your time, READ the instructions, don't take shortcuts (like you know what you are doing) with the setup and this product works GREAT. As does my LinkSys modem, wireless router and now web cam. I like this company. Annual fee for the website needed to access the camera when away from home is now $19.99/year. What a pleasant surprise. Just set it all up with TZO when you install the camera. It's free for 90 days, and they'll send you an e-mail when the expiration date gets close. They don't even ask for a credit card on setup. A friend of mine with a MAC notebook was able to connect fine, but did not see the camera controls when connecting to the basic video web page. But he said the video quality and sign-on was great and easy!
Customer Rating:
Summary: great for monitoring vacation home
Comment: I have several of these installed and they work great to monitor a vacation home in the mountains.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Re: the lower ratings... I don't know what the problems were, but...
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent, especially for the price
Comment: I purchased two of these cameras a month ago. They work very well and have been reliable. The documentation is lacking, and some of he features are not intuitive, but once you figure out how to use the camera, it is easy to view remotely and locally. I especially like the motion detector option that sends me an email and text message when motion is detected. Great for home security!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Working Reliably
Comment: It took me about three days to get my five cameras that I have installed at my house all dialed in.
They are very reliable; the cameras work VERY well with my wireless router; the motion detection works very reliably ONCE you have set everything up correctly.
Please note -- I did NOT set these cameras up using the software. I programmed each by hooking them up on a computer that saw them at their default IP address of 192.168.1.115.
My network: C-cast cable modem, Router: Apple Airport Extreme, Cameras Connected Via: Wireless N
These cameras are set up default on the 192.168.1.xxx network at 115. If you are like me and use a different 192 network, you will need to bring up a machine on the 1.xxx network at your home to see and configure this camera.
Easy errors you can avoid when you setup these cameras:
- 1. You must click 'Apply' after EVERY modification you make in a tab. Some of the tabs, such as the Remote access user database allow you to add members, but until you click Apply, it is NOT saved on the camera.
- 2. When configuring your network access on each camera, I would strongly recommend that you use a static IP. You MUST include your gateway address and your DNS address (on a home local area network segment that should be your router address). Make sure you click Apply before going on to another tab.
- 3. If you are on C-cast and you want the motion detection feature to work to send you an email, remember to set your SMTP (email outbound) port to 587. Port 25 may work for about a day, but then C-cast will turn it off (web query , "C*mc*st Port 25" for more info on this).
- 4. Make certain that you click Apply after making each change on a tab.
You do not need to use or pay for TZO DNS. DynDNS works just fine for me (web query DynDNS for info). When configuring for remote access, make sure to follow these tips to avoid common errors:
- 1. Know AND understand how port forwarding on your router works.
- 2. Make certain the local IP Address and forwarded port for remote access is the same on both your Router and your IP camera. On my network my first camera is on port 1024, the second on 1025, and so on. Make sure you click 'Apply' every time you make a change to your camera's settings.
- 3. If you are using RTSP on your camera to view on a phone or software that supports RTSP, make certain the ports are open and correspond on your router and camera.
- 4. If you are using a lot of cameras at a location like I am, use meaningful names for your cameras and port forwarding schemes on your router.
With respect to the above tips, I found a lot of VERY useful information on this camera and how to set it up at: [...].
Test each camera that you add to the network.
- 1. Access the camera on your local network via your 192.168.x.x,
- 2. Access it the same and include your forwarded port in the web address; example 192.168.1.120:1024,
- 3. Access your camera outside your network using your DNS name, example: mywvc80n.homeip.net:1024 -- include your DNS name and the port in the address,
Doing this in sequence will aid you in isolating any errors that you may have made in configuring your camera, your home network, your router, and your DNS settings.
Lastly, if you are using G-mail to receive the motion detection message with attached video clips look in your Spam email box. Mark these messages as NOT SPAM. Five second video clips vary in size from about 500kb to 1Mb. Fortunately, if you use meaningful email subject lines in the camera configuration, G-mail will organize each camera's videos into single conversations rather than a storm of repititious email traffic.
My Apple Airport Extreme with these cameras have proven to be very reliable with zero down time in three days. I believe this camera would have much higher ratings if the users were more successful in avoiding mis-steps with this camera and their network configurations.
~Kemo
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