Thursday, March 15, 2012

Compareand Foscam FI8918W Wireless IP Camera, White (2-Pack)

Foscam FI8918W Wireless IP Camera, White (2-Pack)

Foscam FI8918W Wireless IP Camera, White (2-Pack)

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Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #3445 in Camera & Photo
  • Brand: Foscam

Features

  • famous foscam camera





Foscam FI8918W Wireless IP Camera, White (2-Pack)









Product Description

With high quality





   



Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
5Best, cheapest, zero interference VIDEO BABY MONITOR on our phone!
By Dean!
We are first time parents and added a Summer Infant video baby monitor on our baby registry. We had to return it because of interference problems I detected with our wireless Internet. My wife and I work from home several days a week and unfortunately for me, the majority of my work calls are VOIP (voice over IP), which needs reliable Internet access and speeds.This Foscam 8918W IP-based wireless camera was the only video solution I could find that was zero-interference, but also happened to still be the cheapest!LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY:========================Every wireless video baby monitor I've researched runs at 2.4ghz. They may not put that in the description, but when I track down the manufacturer specs, it states 2.4ghz. Your wireless Internet/WIFI also transmit at 2.4ghz. Even the newest 802.11g and 802.11n transmit at 2.4ghz and 5.0ghz. My smartphone's WIFI as well as my wife's Netbook only works at 2.4ghz, not 5.0ghz. My Internet router also works at 2.4ghz and is not dual band.WHY IS THAT A PROBLEM?========================After the baby, when I returned to work, I noticed strange lockup issues on my phone and horrible call quality for VOIP. I thought the Internet seemed slower and pages would sometimes lockup. After a lot of searching, I stumbled upon someone mentioning interference from their baby monitor, ding, ding, ding! Sure enough, I unplugged the video baby monitor and ran an Internet speed test, and I was getting 95-100% of my throughput rate. I plugged in the video monitor and the throughput rate plunged to 10-40%! I unscrewed the antenna on the baby monitor and throughput improved to about 40-60%. I unplugged again, and wah-lah, back to 95-100% again! It was quite clear that the 2.4ghz that these video baby monitors transmit on, also affect other 2.4ghz devices, such as my wireless Internet.WELL, WHY ISN'T THE WIRELESS FOSCAM AN ISSUE??================================================If the majority of all wireless Internet devices like your phone, laptop, tablet, router transmit at 2.4ghz, why isn't the wireless FOSCAM an issue??Answer:---------The wireless FOSCAM *IS* an IP-based device that communicates through the IP standard to other wireless Internet devices like your phone, laptop, tablet and router. Basically, it plays well with alike 2.4ghz devices. The wireless video baby monitors that you buy at baby stores are standalone devices. They *transmit* over the 2.4ghz frequency any which way they can, they are not standards based on a common protocol, like IP is for Internet devices.OTHER RESEARCH FINDINGS:=========================We have a Philips Avent AUDIO-only monitor that runs on DECT wireless. DECT wireless transmits at 1.9ghz, which means there's zero interference with any 2.4ghz device. Repeating the same speed tests, there's no reduction in throughput with DECT.Unfortunately, in all of my research, I could not find a DECT *video* baby monitor, only audio.MY CHOICES:=============Option 1------------We could keep our 2.4ghz video baby monitor and switch all of our wireless devices to 5.0ghz. Well, that means I would have to buy a 5.0ghz router AND a 5.0ghz wireless network adapter for my wife's netbook and our phones could not use 5.0ghz WIFI in the house and we'd use our cellular data plans. In fact most of the consumer tablets and phones out there, likely do not use 5.0ghz wireless. That was definitely not an option.Option 2------------Use a USB web cam; this was not feasible, because to use a USB web cam you need a computer and the baby's room does not have a computer, nor do we have any spares laying around.Option 3------------Duhh, what about a wireless IP web cam?? Why didn't I think of that earlier? After a lot of research, I came upon the Foscam brand and while reviews were mixed, I filtered out the ones where technical-knowledge may have played a factor and decided to go with this. I'm a tech-geek and setting this up was not difficult. I did use uPnP for the first time on the Verizon FIOS router, after trying static port mapping and other methods to no avail. (You need this ONLY if you want to view your wireless IP web cam over the Internet, versus while you are only at home)USAGE AS A VIDEO BABY MONITOR================================Awesome, simply awesome. Once you have this properly setup (and the supplied instructions were actually pretty decent), you can log into any web browser, specify the IP address of your wireless FOSCAM and control the camera (pan, tilt) and set 10-preset views. Even better, if your smartphone (Android, iPhone, Windows Phone) makes use of your WIFI and has an IP-camera app (all of the mentioned have several), you can use your phone to monitor and control the camera. If you make use of uPnP and allow the FOSCAM port through your home router, then you can watch (and control) your FOSCAM from anywhere you have Internet access. Yes that's right, at work, at Starbucks, etc. You will set-up various login account types and passwords for access.For our baby's room, there's a preset view for the crib, the rocking chair, the changing table and the door to see if we closed it or not. I can press 1, 2, 3, 4, etc and switch views. Or I can manually move the camera to the right/left and up/down with my phone app or laptop's web browser. One time we weren't sure where we put the empty baby bottle and didn't want to disturb the baby. We used my phone to pan the camera and found where I had placed the baby bottle on the dresser! Sometimes if I am finishing up dinner and the wife has gone to soothe the baby, she can motion her arms for "more milk" without having to open the door to the bright open floor plan or yell anything to disturb a half-asleep baby.My only slight gripe is that the night-time infrared lights do not seem to have a dawn/dusk option, meaning they are always on. For the past 5 months or so, they have been on 24/7 and still seem to work great in complete darkness, it's almost eery. Even in the daytime, the camera is smart enough to show color when there is enough light and in completely darkness, the picture is greyscale, but still very useful.Some minor Caveats:=====================1. The infrared lights glow red in complete darkness, but are not obtrusive and do not wake up the baby. We have noticed her staring at them a couple of times, but it hasn't affected her going to sleep at the same time. When I go and stare at them, they are not bright at all.2. If you read the reviews, you can essentially dismiss using the audio portion of this camera. You may hear static on the audio if you do not move the antenna to touch the power cord - yea I know that sounds crazy. You can remove the antenna completely and the static noise will go away too and likely you can still view the webcam. Besides all of that, I didn't deduct any stars because none of our phone apps support the audio portion anyways, they only transmit (and control) video. So we haven't lost anything we couldn't use to begin with.... Using a laptop web browser like IE, yes, you can hear the audio, but we use our phones as a monitor 99% of the time.OVERALL:==========Best Price:-------------Go into any baby store and the wireless video baby monitors (with pan/tilt and nightvision, etc) are $180-$300!! The total price of this 2-pack is about $154 as of this writing. This means each camera is only $77 ! I bought 2 for other uses, but you could buy a single FOSCAM wireless camera for $80-$85 total.Convenience:-------------Any device that can get to the Internet (phones, spare phones even without sim cards, tablets, etc) can be used to view your FOSCAM wireless camera (with the right account and password). (External internet viewing can be blocked easily, so that you can securely view it only within your personal WIFI network at your house)Zero Interference:===================Becaused this is an IP-based wireless device, there is no interference with your Internet speeds that store-bought video baby monitors *will* affect.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
5Best for your money
By manny
Love this Kit works great with surveillance indoors and outdoors and i can see it all on my smartphone Love It

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
5Stop looking and buy these
By Gary J. Nix
These little cameras do everything you need and you will be amazed how well they work in total darkness. It comes with two sets of antennas but they didn't bother telling you why. I used the small ones and they work just fine.

See all 20 customer reviews...



Foscam FI8918W Wireless IP Camera, White (2-Pack). Reviewed by Eric G. Rating: 4.0

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