TRENDnet SecurView Wireless Day/Night Internet Surveillance Camera Server with 2-Way Audio TV-IP312W (Silver)
by TRENDnet
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List Price: Our Price: $130.55 You Save: $94.44 (42%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $99.99 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of TRENDnet SecurView Wireless Day/Night Internet Surveillance Camera Server with 2-Way Audio TV-IP312W (Silver)
Customer Review: Great on Windows, Ok on Mac; difficult to setup
Summary: 4 Stars
It takes a little time to set it up if you want to use it as a camera to stream video over the internet. (look below for detailed instructions).
The video is great. The nightvision is great. The audio is great.
ON A MAC, However, you can't setup motion sensor, you cant activate audio (neither in, nor out) because you need Internet Explorer's Active X that is not available on Firefox or Safari. The software SecurView also does not work on a Mac.
DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR AFTER YOUR PURCHASE
Objective - set it up to access it from any computer away from home.
What I have at home: a router (with a firewall) and a cable internet connection.
If the firmware of your camera is 1.0.0.0 version 30+, the camera's IP is fixed 192.168.10.30. Thus to talk to the camera you will need to change the IP of your computer on the TCP/IP of the internet connection that it's being used, to a fixed IP starting in 192.168.10.xx (in the xx use any number you want).
If the firmware of your camera is newer, it comes with a DHCP (it will take a router assigned ip - thus you don't need to change the IP of your computer.
After finding out what is the ip of your camera, you have to access it to set it up, via your browser, just type in the ip of the camera and it will show up a setting up screen. Here is very straight forward:
-> go to the ip setup and put the same domain of your router (i.e. 192.168.2.***). You can use a fixed IP or DHCP.
Note, if you had to change your computer's ip to talk to the camera, after setting it up, you will have to change your computer back, to talk to the camera in the new domain.
From within your router, all you need to do now is to type your camera's IP in the browser in order to access it.
From outside (through the internet), you still need a bit more setting up to do:
In the camera, change the access port from 80 to 81 (port 80 is blocked by many ISPs).
Now, go to the set up in your router and you have to open the port 81 for outside traffic. Just grant access (inbound port 81, put the IP of your camera, outbound port 81).
Now you have to know what is your external IP (the one provided to you by your ISP). You can use [...] (note that some ISPs change your IP regularly), so you allways need an updated ip address.
In order to have that done automatically, sign up to a free account at [...]. Then go to your router and in the DDNS section of the setup, put in your dyndns sign in and password. The router will keep updating the dyndns with your external IP, so that everytime you go into your created dyndns address, it will forward you to the right external IP of your ISP/Router.
Now, to access your camera from outside, just type into any browser (IE works better), [...] ([...]), so that it will access the port that you have previously opened.
Well, that's it !!! Easy huh? ;-) It took me a long time to find out how to do it, but it works beautifully after this. The product is 5 stars, but the setting up is tough (but it couldn't be different, this is a sophisticated demand).
Have fun.
Customer Review: Great Night mode. Poor Day Mode. Not so hard to setup. Frustrating Limitations.
Summary: 4 Stars
You can't find a better device at this price point, but it does come with some annoyances and limitations.
Things I Like:
- Really great night mode via built-in infrared lights.
- Stable. No crashes or hiccups in the month I've had it.
- Solid construction. The camera and included mounting bracket are very sturdy.
- MPEG streaming video. Really nice quality, and a fraction of the bandwidth required by MJPEG standards, so there's less "internet lag."
- The ability to backup your settings is a nice touch, in case you have to reset the camera for any reason.
- Three year warranty.
- Support for sound. Built-in ability to listen (from IE, not from Firefox/Java) and the ablilty to connect speakers to "talk through" the camera.
This I Dislike:
- Camera gets "stuck" in night mode. Under normal indoor lights, the camera often continues to force itself into night mode, which results in strange washed-out colors. This is made more frustrating by software limitations that don't allow you to manually control which mode the camera operates in. Seems to work okay in fluorescent lights from office settings. Surely, this is all just a software glitch that will be fixed in an eventual software patch....I hope.
- Always requires a username and password to view the camera. So if you want to just setup a public camera, that's a frustrating limitation.
- Difficult to remove Trendnet's "branding" around their live video images - their logo, border, and other stuff. I think this can be done, but it's certainly going to require web developer skills and a bit of hacking to do it.
Other things you'll want to know:
- Focusing the camera is done via the focus ring on the front of the housing, not from within the software. So you have to be physically present at the camera to do it. That means you'll also need your laptop (or a friend on a phone) to know you're getting it right.
- TrendNet's site includes a "lobby cam" from their office, as well as a simulated user interface, and digital version of the manuals. That gives you a pretty good feel for what you're going to get with the camera.
- Viewing this camera from outside your home network is going to require some advanced skills in updating your router's settings. It's not especially hard, and there are instructions online to do it. But unless your router supports these settings and you're willing to tinker with them, many of the camera's features are going to be unavailable to you.
- The setup was not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, based on other reviews. The need to connect it via a network cable to do the initial setup is a little annoying, but understandable and not too difficult if you've read through the manual. The manual is actually pretty well-written - you can download it from the manufacturer's site to judge for yourself.
Customer Review: insecure camera; huge design oversights
Summary: 2 Stars
You'd think that a security camera would get Internet security right. This one doesn't even try.
The camera doesn't support SSL/TLS connections. This means that, every time you log in to the camera across the Internet, your password is going across in the clear, and anyone sufficiently interested can then use that password to log into your camera in your home and watch what you're doing or record their own copy. Furthermore, even without logging in, your communication with the camera is open for the world to see. This a huge oversight that has no excuse; it's like installing new locks in a house and leaving the key under the doormat.
If you try to set up email alerts to notify you of certain actions (e.g. motion detection), you'll find that the camera does not support secure SMTP servers. In other words, every time the camera sends email, it will be sending your email password in the clear, so that interested parties could later log into your email account and do whatever they want.
The product uses a proprietary Internet Explorer ActiveX control, which forces you to use IE instead of a more secure and standards-compliant browser like Firefox. But that's not bad enough. The ActiveX control apparently has no understanding and support of Vista NTFS permissions. This means that in Vista if you try to record to certain directories on the hard drive, it fails with a cryptic error message---even if the user has administrator rights. The only apparent way to get around this is to run Internet Explorer as Administrator (a special Vista super-user that has more rights than even a user with normal administrator rights), which is a bad idea in general and reflects the outdatedness of the implementation.
There is no way to tell the camera to start recording to the local hard drive when some action occurs. Sure, you can have the camera record to a "network hard drive", if you can figure out how to set one of those up. Or you can have the camera record to a USB drive hooked up to the camera, which someone can easily steal along with the camera. Or you can manually record to the local hard drive. But you can't simply leave your browser window open and have the camera only start recording to the local hard drive when there is some activity.
This would be a great little camera if someone with actual security experience had been in charge of its firmware. There is no excuse for these huge lapses in design, ruining what could easily have been a great product.
Customer Review: Multiple cameras do not work together!
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought 4 units of this camera and so far only 3 were delivered. I can tell you right now: if you are not an advanced user or you do not know one that can help you, forget it! You will not be able to configure this camera to work on your network. The instructions manual is a joke. There are much more instructions and hints on other comments here in Amazon than in the manual. But if you are a geek you will make one single camera work on your network.
The real problem begins when you try to have 2 or more cameras working at the same time!
Although the software that comes with the product can manage up to 16 simultaneous cameras, only one works at a time. I had tried everything and all types of configurations, DHCP, fixed IP, changing the security protocol of my router and on the cameras, etc, etc, etc. They simply do not work simultaneously. When I connect all three a very strange thing happens: each camera works for about 5-10 minutes, than it disconnects from the network and another one connects... and it stays for 5-10 minutes and then everything gets repeated.
I'm trying to get help from the TrendNet Support service, but they did not provided me any hint of what is going on, and I'm starting to believe they do not have a clue about the solution. You can also add to that situation the fact that they take several days to answer an email.
It has been a very frustrating experience, and I am starting to seriously regret my acquisition...
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[UPDATE April 06, 2008]: After sending an email for almost different dozen people at Trendnet they finally gave me attention and provided me with a new firmware build (38) that solved the issues I was facing. I can't set the cameras too away from my wireless router, so I can not use them where I would like to (and both my notebooks work fine at these spots), but in general the cameras are working The recording is not a good feature as the image is too jumpy. I'll probably have to invest on a wireless repeater and see if the video recordings get improved by having a stronger wireless signal near the cameras.
Customer Review: Absolutely Awesome!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This little thing has saved us many a sleepless night. My wife had purchased a small dedicated baby monitor for use in the nursery, and you could barely see anything with it. This thing provides a very sharp display.
I'd been shopping for one of these for some time. I finally decided on this model because for the most part, those who have any knowledge of computers thought it was great. Those that don't have a good understanding of computers and how to set up IP's and get into the routers should probably get a wired camera.
Pros: Low light works great. Daylight has some color issues, but I didn't get it to take 10mp pictures to develop. while the colors may not be great, the contrast and sharpness is definitely there. We haven't tried to use the speaker that hooks up to the camera, maybe when our little one is older and we move this by the front door! The provided software works as advertised, not great but not horrible. I've used it create audible alerts based on motion detection and I've recorded my child's movements throughout the night, saving to a NAS.
Cons: it wasn't cheaper. I would like it to have a larger range of focus. It has frozen up on me twice. The unit gets pretty warm. Sound tends to lag picture.
Thoughts: if you want a monitor that will give you a crisp view of what's going on with your kid, and you want to be able to record it and view it from any computer in the house, then this is for you!
Enjoy.