Power Over Ethernet Outdoor IP Camera

I'm writing this review to correct misinformation in other reviews for this product, as well as to share my experiences. I am a satisfied owner of four of these cameras and am not affiliated with Foscam in any way. All four cameras are installed outdoors and have been working flawlessly for more than a month. This is a true Power over Ethernet camera. You connect it to an Ethernet cable which is plugged in to a standards-based PoE switch, it powers up just like it's supposed to. That way you don't have to run separate power out to each camera. This is the PoE switch I use with my cameras: TP-LINK TL-SF1008P 10/100Mbps 8-Port PoE Switch, 4 POE ports, IEEE 802.3af, 53W The lens is not wide-angle, but you can change the lens. In this manner you can get a wide-angle PoE-powered camera, if that's what you need. It would be better if Foscam made their full line PoE-capable, but that's their decision. The build quality is very good, and the device feels solid. The case is made from aluminium, not plastic. I haven't tried to hose it down, but I'm not concerned about the unit's ability to withstand rain. This review continues with my experience deploying this camera for home security. I concur with the consensus that the mount that comes with this camera is junk. This mount is essential for mounting the camera rigidly: Foscam Arm Mounting Bracket for Outdoor IP Cameras I see Foscam indicated in a response to another review that newer (after Nov 2013) cameras come with a stronger mounting bracket, so it may be that this issue is fixed. But the cameras I ordered in May still came with the old bracket. You can tell it's the bad bracket if it has a thumbscrew on it. If yours doesn't come with the bracket in the product I linked (compare against the pictures on the product page), get the better bracket. Or, just order the bracket now and return it if you don't need it. The unit breaks out a reset switch and a power connection next to the network cable jack. I didn't like the extra wires at first, but then I found them to be useful when troubleshooting, so I'm on board with them now. When I cleaned up the installation, I just wrapped them up with a cable tie and nailed them above the camera bracket so they are hidden away. Plug computing technology just got fast enough to manage multiple cameras, so you don't need to have a power-hungry, bulky full-fledged PC to handle surveillance anymore. This is the board I bought to monitor the feeds and email me alerts if stuff happens: Cubieboard3 allwinner A20 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 2G DDR 8G Flash open hardware Single-board Computer mini pc linux andriod with sata It's dual-core. (There's a quad-core model coming, too.) On this board I run Linux and Zoneminder, all free software. Zoneminder looks for motion in every single frame (if you tell it to), which is a compute-intensive task. It can only handle about three frames per second from each feed with four cameras connected, but that's good enough for me. There are very good configuration notes for using Zoneminder with this camera line; with those notes, I got the cameras working right off the bat. I think the picture quality of the Foscam 8905 is excellent, day or night. Daytime images are crisp and colorful. You can easily recognize people that pass through the frame. At night, the IR LED's put out a lot of infrared light and the result is plenty of detail even if it's pitch black. If you look directly at the camera at night when it's operating, you see a very dim red glow (in addition to the red LED indicator), but otherwise you won't notice anything. But it will be obvious to the bad guys that the camera is working, without making your house look like a prison. To sum it all up, this camera is an excellent, reasonably priced component for a great, reliable do-it-yourself home security system.