|
The photos we get via the motion-sensor triggers are clear, and I really appreciate the flexibility with the various trigger options. We bought this camera a year ago, and have gotten our money's worth out of it. All in all, I recommend this camera. We've moved it to different locations inside the house, to watch the bird feeders in the back yard, to check on the cats while on vacation, or as a security camera watching the front of the house and entryway. Setup and maintenance are MUCH easier than our previous network camera, which was a Linksys model. The only things I miss are the pan & tilt features of my D-Link camera (which died after 2 1/2 years). I will try to post an update in a year, to see if it's still working well at the 2-year point.
As so many reviews here say, this camera doesn't last very long. Mine died too, same symptoms. It's also not very good at low-light. I won't be buying another one.
They have all the charm you expect from a security cam video capture and little more, but that's all we needed for our application. Its low-light performance is pretty good and its a range of notification, image storage and image capture options make it very practical for our purposes. Overall we're happy with this camera and plan to acquire one more so we can easily check on our house when we're away at work or out on vacation.If you can run Ethernet to your camera location you might look at the wired version of this NetCam, the BL-C1A. Supporting WEP is better than nothing, but it is easily hacked.
After trying some of the cheaper consumer Wireless IP NetCams and been disappointed by them in various ways we decided to try the Panasonic BL-C20A. Our list of wants was pretty short: We wanted a cam that would email us when there was activity and store images that could be accessed online. The most difficult part of that process was running the 10' long adapter power cable through the ceiling to a spot in a closet where I could install the wall-wort power adapter. The camera canstore up to 255 images before it starts deleting older images to make room for new ones.
On the plus side, we get real-time notification whenever someone comes in our front door, but since each image is sent in a separate 7K email message a busy foyer can fill up our inbox pretty quickly. Rather than list the options, I'll just tell you how I set ours up.After establishing the camera's basic settings by hard-wiring it to our network for a short bit, I switched it over to wireless networking and installed it on the ceiling. Once installed there I found I could get great video of our front door and foyer. The next step was to set up the camera's "triggers." The BL-C20A can store five different trigger configurations that dictate how and when the camera captures images and what it does with them. My wife and I wanted to install a video camera of some sort to monitor the comings and goings at the front and back of the house.
My second setting sends 4 images taken at one second intervals to my wife and I by email when motion is detected. This has its positive and negative effects. The third trigger stores two 640x480 images each second motion is detected on my off-site FTP server.We plan to leave the first trigger on at all times. The second two triggers we'll turn on when we're away on vacation.The biggest downside of the BL-C20A is it supports WEP wireless security protocol but not the more secure WPA encryption that is the current industry standard. I set up three triggers. The BL-C20A looks like the answer we were looking for. (There are downloadable toolkits that can do it in minutes, so I set the cam up on a separate network that's isolated from our primary LAN).
Each trigger has an on/off setting (so you can easily activate and deactivate saved settings), a setting for what time of day and days of the week the trigger is active, an option that allows you to capture images at specific intervals or when there is motion in the frame, a set of options that dictates the number, size and frequency of images capture when motion is detected, what to do with the captured images, and an email notification option that lets you know when the camera has detected motion.Captured images can be stored on the camera's internal web server, emailed to a list of three recipients, or stored on an external FTP server. The first captures two 320x240 pixel images every second there is motion in the frame and stores them on the camera's web server. The frame captures aren't picture perfect. Not only is it about $90 cheaper, but since there is no wireless it'll help keep your LAN more secure.
Up until it stopped working, it was working perfectly. While it has taken others about a year before malfunctions begin, my camera seems to have gone kaput in only 5-6 months.
I consider myself well beyond the curve when it comes to computing and general tech savvy, yet set-up for this camera frustrated me to no end. I must admit that while I am very satisfied with this product now that it is working correctly, I had a hell of a time getting set-up.
My only technical gripes are that the unit does not support WPA2 network encryption (to my frustration I had to dumb our network down to WEP) and the sensitivity settings for the mo-cap component were difficult to tune to the appropriate levels.UPDATE (10/21/2009): Like others who have reviewed this camera, my BL-C20A suddenly stopped working. Adding to the horror that was setting this thing up was the poor English translation apparent in both the set-up CD and the online access component.
However if you're patient enough, you'll likely get this thing running and will be happy with the result. My camera was mounted to a doorway between my kitchen and dining room and has remained in the same spot since initial installation.
It's really too bad as I enjoyed this camera while it lasted.
I am very happy with this petcam. I am so happy to be able to check on my cat while on vacation, at work, etc. I did need help getting it all connected, but after that it works fine. If you're not really computer savvy I think you will need help. Picture is fine and I like how I can zoom in to see her closer. I recommend this to those people who, like me, are very protective of their pets.
|
