Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #98 in Camera & Photo
- Brand: Foscam
- Model: FI9821W
- Dimensions: 5.30" h x
7.10" w x
8.30" l,
.76 pounds
Features
- - 1.3 Megapixel, HD quality, 1280 x 720 Resolution
- - Features like Two-Way Audio and Multiple Camera Setup Are Now Accessible On Chrome, Firefox, and Safari
- - H.264 Video Compression & Free Manufacturer's DDNS Included
- - Completely Redesigned WebUI, Wider Viewing Angle of 70°!
- - Accessible With iPhone Apps like Live Cams Pro, and Android Apps such as TinyCam Monitor
Foscam FI9821W Indoor Pan/Tilt H.264 720p Wireless IP Camera, 1/5" Color CMOS Sensor, F: 3.6mm F:2.4 (IR Lens), IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wireless Connectivity, Black
Product Description
The Foscam Indoor Pan/Tilt H.264 720p Wireless IP Camera (Black) features high-quality video and audio, pan/tilt, remote Internet viewing, motion detection, night vision as well as a built in network video recording system. The FI9821W is quite similar to the FI8910W model, but features H.264 compression, local SD card recording and higher image resolution (720p/1280 x 720 pixels). This camera requires Windows and Internet Explorer (ActiveX plugin) to function correctly.The camera functions well as remote baby monitor or as part of a home or office security system with remote Internet monitoring ability. The camera supports FTP upload to your NAS device or any other local or remote FTP server and can also sends e-mails with still images when motion is detected. No computer is necessary in order for the camera to function.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
80 of 81 people found the following review helpful.
Foscam "HD" camera gets better with updates
By klas
UPDATED 3/23/20131. New update is available 1.1.1.11. According to instructions you'll need to reset the settings after the update and enter them again.2. RTSP stream is now fully functional3. I don't use that feature, but there are reports that it emails a day old motion detected pictures.4. There are some reports that the camera keeps loosing wireless connection, but it hasn't been the case for me. You can try setting static IP address if you are experiencing this issue.UPDATED 2/20/20131. New update released on 2/1 which addressed numerous bugs and issues that were mentioned here. See the list of fixes on their website.2. Image quality wasn't overlooked either. They tweaked some settings and increased maximum bitrate to 4MP. It still not quite HD quality that you might expect, but it's a nice improvement nevertheless.3. With new firmware you can set the camera not to reset to default position after restart.4. Added mjpeg stream via url, unfortunately it's limited to VGA@15 fps.5. There are still outstanding bugs with it and additional improvements will be coming in the future updates.6. I found out that you can upgrade lens on this camera. I purchased cheap ($2) F2.0 lens with >100 angle which I will be trying out on this camera and report my results.7. A week later after firmware update my camera became unresponsive. Powering on/off had no effect. I ended up resetting it to factory settings and configuring it again.8. Camera will not work in mobile browsers (iPad, iPhone, etc...) You can try Foscam App (not sure if it supports this camera yet) or any other IP camera app. I am successfully using it with IPCamViewer on Android that supports all camera functions9. There are a few reports that camera doesn't work outside the network. You have to forward 2 ports on your router if you want to see the camera outside your network. This is more advanced feature, but if you done this before it shouldn't be too complicated to get it to work.10. Feedback (static) noise reported by Foscam is a design flaw and will be fixed in the future units. Camera manufacturer posted DIY instructions how to fix this feedback (static) speaker noise on their website.**REVIEW**INTRO:I've been testing various "HD" (at least 1MP) IP cameras over the years from brands such as Axis, Trendnet, Edimax, Zavio, Dlink and Zyxel, but stayed away from Foscam mainly because it had low resolution sensor and awful looking web interface. Foscam changed this with the introduction of FI9821W. Overall this is an ok entry to "HD" PT camera for the price, but not everything is to my personal liking.THE GOOD:1. Video Performance is excellent due to using h264 compression. Even when on wireless and running at 720p @ 30fps I get much better motion then my mjpeg cameras.2. Web User Interface. Excellent! Very fast and easy to use and most importantly clean looking. Yes, you can toggle IR on/off. Love that you can set multiple foscam cameras in the web ui.3. Good colors4. Excellent coverage for built in IRs. Hopefully they won't dim after sometime, like this happened in my previous cameras.5. Wireless signal is excellent. I am about 20 feet away with several walls on the way from the router (Netgear R6300) and get strong signal.6. Built in speaker is a nice feature to have, but see cons7. Lens angle is ok at 70 degrees, I rarely us PT feature in cameras, so extra degrees always nice to have, but extra angle come with some distortion at the edges.8. Image masking is working well9. Works in IE/Chrome very well after downloading browser extension.10. Setup was straightforward11. Works well with IPCamViewer for Android. Most functions can be controlled via app.12. Email alerts with gmail account worked wellI CAN DEAL WITH IT:1. Most important thing on any camera is the image quality and I really had high hopes for this one. Prior to the firmware update (2/1/13) I was highly disappointed with the image quality but Foscam has listened to the feedback and addressed IQ in the firmware update. It's not a groundbreaking improvement but for the price of this camera I find it acceptable now.2. Expected from the specs, but lens is not bright enough (F2.4 aperture) for night time viewing through the window without IRs. My Zavio F3206 with F1.8 aperture can handle this much better. Obviously if you do turn IRs on the camera and try to see through the window you won't be able to see anything at all. The workaround for me was to buy external IRs (about ten bucks) and put them outside the window. (UPDATE: You can upgrade lens yourself)3. Limited video settings (can't do custom exposures) so not much image control other then color, brightness, sharpness.4. 2 LEDs in the back camera that you can't turn off. This could be potentially added with the firmware update or put a black tape over it.5. Manual focus ring a bit difficult to turn and because there is latency on the displayed image it will take a few tries to get the picture perfectly in focus6. Zoom up/down (should be called Zoom in/out) is a bit difficult to use. You have to right click on the image and then select zoom in/out and there is no control over how much you can zoom. So you have to click 52 times (yes I counted) if you want to zoom in all the way in and again 52 times to zoom all the way out. It should really be a slider on the left where all other image control settings.7. Can't seem to purge the log it creates which is in just couple of days already at 14 pages. Clear/Reset button would've helped.8. Video streaming is not supported to media players currently such as VLC or QuickTime (UPDATE: RTSP support coming later this year)9. Some bugs there and hereOH THE HORROR:1. Yes, bugs are expected at this early stage and there seems to be a lot of them still2. Tilt down doesn't go all the way. I don't know if this is a motor limitation or a bug, but you can tilt down camera further manually if you have to. Hopefully, this is just a bug that could be resolved3. Constant static/feedback noise from the built-in speaker. I am five feet away from it and it can get annoying. (hardware flaw, should be addressed with a newer units)4. Motion detection appears to be useless. I've tried it with IRs on (pitch black room) and low sensitivity and it was sending out constant alerts. (It should be addressed in the firmware update, but I haven't tested it yet)5. Can't control volume on speaker or microphone and there is an echo when you try to speak from web interface or android app. (this should be added with future firmware updates)6. Patrol mode, where the camera can pan or tilt automatically is a bit half baked. You can only do 4 points, either top most/bottom most and left most/right most. You can't really set specific A & B point that you want to patrol. Also there is no option to set a delay before moving to next point.7. Foscam app doesn't seem to support this camera yet and the app is kind of buggy anyway.To FOSCAM: Please check spelling for "Horizental" & "Keep Ration"SETUP: Setup itself is not much different then any other IP camera on the market. If you never done this before probably best to contact technical support to save you from frustration, but if you setup IP cameras in the past it should be no brainier. First connect the camera to the router using the Ethernet cable, insert the included CD in your PC and use the search tool to get the IP address and Port of the camera. Double clicked on the IP address found with the search tool which will open up a browser. You will need to install plugin/extension/activex control (depending on the browser) before you can see live image. Login with admin account. The rest of the settings needs to be customized to your preference and if you don't know what you are doing again I would suggest to get in touch with the technical support. At the very least you could go to wireless settings and connect to your wireless network.WHERE DO I USE THIS? I've tried this camera in various scenarios. At first I tried it as a baby cam, but I didn't like that built-in speaker made some static/feedback noise which could be annoying for a baby and it may have too much IR power for this purpose anyway. Initially I used for garage monitoring, but since the last firmware update I moved the camera to point out of the window. Improved image quality was enough to keep the camera there.CONCLUSION: I think this camera deserves a solid 4. For the price you can't find anything better at the moment that has all the features with extra resolution. Foscam has released firmware update that addressed some of the concerns, including image quality, so I have more confidence in recommending this camera now.Review based on firmware version 1.2.1.1, App firmware 1.1.1.10, Web Version 2.0.0.0Other cameras that I use:My current favorite camera is Zavio F3206. It has bright lens and full 1080p resolution, doesn't have IRs though or PT, but picture and bright wide angle lens make up for it. Also, I use Edimax 7110PTn & 3115n. First one is PT camera like this one, colors are not that great, but has been a solid camera for baby monitoring and cheap 3115 is actually pretty decent one too for day light indoor monitoring.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
A step backwards
By Joe H. Davis - Personal
This camera is about twice of the price of the F18 model cameras, I would not recommend this camera for the time being untill they fix a number of open issues.I have two of the F18 mpeg cameras and have been pleased with them. I wanted one that would have a better resolution so I bought a F19821 and it was a huge step backwards. I have been playing with the F19 for about a week now and it should of never been shipped in the state it is in.1) They changed the web interface, which in itself not bad, but took a while to figure out where certan settings were located. When reading the users manual, the description on some of the settings did not make sense.2)The thing was buggy, it would not email the alarm pics, not matter what I did. You could not view any of the videos it would save.3) If you use the builtin multicam and have any of the F18... cameras, they appear all washed out as if the brightness is incorrect. If you go to the F18 camera and decrease the brightness the video on the F18 will become to dark to see, but on the F19 the video will then look fine. If you share the video between the F18 cameras they look fine.I upgraded the camera with a new version of the firmware which fixed a number of the issues I was seeing. However the brightness problem with shared video has not been fixed and now the Wifi network which was working before does not work reliable. If I have it next to my router it will work, but once I take it to another part of the house, I can get partly connected to it, but it will never connect completely. I even placed it next to one of my existing F18 cameras and the performance of the F19 was terrible.Tech support comes from China, so don't always expect an answer that always makes sense.FYI: I had put one of the cameras in a window looking outside, video was usable and made me realize how dirty my windows were. However don't expect the IR to work when it gets dark as it just reflexes off the window and you can't see anything.
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Wish I could make it work
By John T
I think Foscam Ip cameras are amazing, but I've got to agree with the "not ready for market" comment regarding this model. I bought one of these to replace an F18910w. My idea was I would set up the new camera exactly like the old one. I thought transferring setting from the old into the new would be a breeze.No dice. The setup is not the same. Camera models that start with "F18" are significantly different from Cameras that start with "F19" even if they look the same.I've had trouble with getting this one to work right. First I had problems with port forwarding - pretty sure this was because there are two ports to forward instead of just one as in the previous model. Before you download the plugins you can login to the camera and change settings with just one port forwarded. But you can't view the video stream. After installing the plugin in my browser it wouldn't let me log in at all. I didn't have problems viewing videos or logging in on the local network.I'm still having trouble with email alerts and and FTP setup. It appears there is no setting at all for the FTP path. Under "Path setting" there are fields for the server and login info, but no path.(see update)Sure, there are things that I am likely doing wrong, but I am fairly tech savy and I have spent a lot of time on the web trying to iron out the problems. Reading about this model on the foscam forum was an eye opener. I'm sure there will be updates and everything will work right eventually, but at this point I wish I would have waited.For the moment this camera is of no use to me.1-15-2013 Finally got the media port to forward and the camera works from outside the network now. Still no clue on how to make the FTP work. Also,flipping and mirroring the output does not flip the panning controls so they are reversed when the camera is used on a ceiling mount. There are certainly annoyances, but I had to come back to this review, add a star and say that, for the price, this is an amazing piece of technology. I will wait a little while and add another one to our network of three cameras.1-16-2013 Figured out that "FTP Server" Field and "FTP Path" Field are combined now in to "FTP Server". Had tried this before but the server test was failing because of a final forward slash "/" in the path. There was no message giving any clue why it failed, but it works without the slash.The lens is wider angle than the old camera and seems to have less depth of field. Then again even the blurry part of the picture is sharper than the old lower resolution camera. There is a manual focus ring. Trust the online owners manual -32 gig SD card won't work. The file management on the SD card looks really good but I haven't tried it yet.Also if you are using FTP to save to a computer without some kind of file management, you could have 100,000 pictures in not too much time in a busy location. Disk capacity is one thing, but opening one directory with that many files is a frustration. Even with a newer server running ubuntu it takes a very long time and a lot of patience to delete them much less even take a look at any of them.
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