Top positive review
3 people found this helpful
Foscam's are excellent network cameras and the new "HD/720P" models give really ...
By Louisa on Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2016
Foscam's are excellent network cameras and the new "HD/720P" models give really nice images. For the money there's nothing better, and there may be nothing better, period. For that reason, I rate as a "5". HOWEVER, the instructions are pathetic. If you know your way around internal/external IP addresses, then you can do it quickly. If not, here are a few pointers.1. You need to start with your Foscam hardwired to one of the LAN (not WAN) ports on your router with an ethernet cable. The router will assign it a "lease" for an internal IP address, probably something like: 192.168.0.nnn, depending on how your router is set up. The trick is to find this address so you can talk to the camera. Once you get that far the rest is pretty easy.2. Foscam provides software that is supposed to "find" your Foscam using diferent programs for either a PC or MAC. I couldn't get these programs to find my camera on either a MAC or a PC. To make matters worse, the MAC version is compressed in RAR (not ZIP) format, which MAC does not have internal software to decompress, so you have to find a decompression package and run it... only to find after that that the program won't even run on OS10, much less find the camera.3. Fear not, you don't need the software. Log into your router (usually 192.169.0.1, but not always check your router docs) and look for the active IP "leases" on your router. The Foscam may NOT be identified as a Foscam, mine weren't. Look at the hardware (MAC) address on the bottom of the Foscam and look for the IP address among your router's "leases" that matches your Foscam. Write that down, you're almost there.4. The other thing you need is the port number. This should be in your Foscam info somewhere. The default for my Foscam was port #88.5. In your web browser, enter the IP address of your Foscam that you found from your router, followed by ":" followed by port#. For example: 192:168.0.197:886. This should get you into the Foscam software and from there things get easier.7. If you did the above correcly you should have access to your Foscam and you can set it up as you wish. The software is excellent, once you find it! I prefer to give my Foscams a permanent assigned IP address in the reserved "200" range of addresses, rather than having it randomly assigned by the router. ...makes it so much easier to find it later, etc. I would also suggest changing the port number to something other than 88 (or other default value).8. If you want to access your Foscam from the outside world (of course you do!), then you need to go into your router software and have it assign the new port number to the specific static IP address you've given to your camera. Then, when you enter your external IP address from the outside world followed by (:port#), the router will direct you to the internal IP address for camera.9. If you don't have a static external IP address for your internet service then you'll need to use a dynamic DNS (DDNS) service to keep track of your changing external IP address.10. Once you have things set up for a wired internet connection, you'll need to set things up for wireless. The instructions/software are pretty good for this. It basically consists of having the Foscam look for WiFi systems, identify the one that is yours and supply the appropriate pass phrase. Instructions are also given for WPS synching with your router if you want to go that route.Hope this helps! These are great cameras. Too bad the instructions stink.If you're not comfortable accessing your router then you'll need instructions for that, or outside help.
Top critical review
9 people found this helpful
Bad camera, bad software, bad customer service
By C. J. Sellek on Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2015
[Edit: Since I posted this, Foscam commented in an attempt to show how much they care about their customers. They asked me to get in touch with them, which is funny because I totally mention in this very review that I already tried this and they shafted me. Wait...they wouldn't just be mass-commenting on every negative review to make it look like they actually care, could they? Gasp! Never! They also linked me to a page that supposedly would help me with my issue. A PAGE THAT WAS BROKEN. See the comments below for details and proof.]This product is easily one of the worst things I've ever spent money on. To make a long story short, it gave me problems straight out of the box (set up would not have been possible if I did not work in IT), half-worked for 4 months, and then gave out completely. It now only works if I reset the camera every few hours, which, besides being unnecessary, I can't do since I use it as a video monitor for my 7-month-old and I much prefer it when she's not screaming because daddy just woke her up so that he could keep his eye on her. Tried contacting their customer service to make use of the warranty they have with the product. Turns out they do not give out refunds for their poor-quality work, but they'd be more than happy to send me a replacement unit that will have the same issues (at least half the issue is with the really buggy software that you have to use with the camera that won't get fixed with a camera replacement).The long of it:Pulled it out of the box the day it showed up, glad that we'd be able to make sure our daughter wasn't going crazy at night whenever she started crying. Found a CD in there, along with some instructions on how to set your camera up "easily." They describe this camera as "Plug & Play". They *should* describe this camera as "Plug & Die Horrifically From The Stress Of Dealing With This Awful Camera". (Unless, of course, they have a very different definition of the word "Play" than I do. If that's the case, then I apologize.) The software that was supposed to automatically detect my camera didn't work, so I had no clue what the IP address for the camera was (which is step 1 in setting it up). Okay. That's annoying. Thankfully, I work in IT and I knew to pull up the DHCP server page on my router and just started plugging in the addresses that were actively in use until one worked. If this last sentence means nothing to you, good luck setting this thing up.After fighting through the incredibly poor UI in their setup software for an hour (an HOUR - I really do need to discuss the definition of "plug & play" with Foscam, apparently), I finally got it up and running. When I pulled it up to test it, the time on the screen was completely wrong. It wasn't a set amount of time off, either. Over the next several weeks, it turned out that it would just (seemingly) choose a random time to display and then do that. ("3:38 AM, I think", it would say to itself and then giggle as it displayed that time knowing full well that the sun was out.) I once looked at it and saw it displaying 12:10 AM as the time (again, wasn't even close; it was like 3:00 PM). When I looked again, it was saying it was 12:08 AM. Wut. I watched it for a bit as it counted up for a few minutes before hopping back to 12:08 AM and starting over. It apparently just gets stuck in a time loop now and again. Good luck using the "nifty" feature that allows you to tell your camera to start recording at a certain time. If it makes it to that time at all instead of just hopping back to 12:08 AM every few minutes, it'll most certainly be nowhere near the time you actually told it to start recording.At this point, I knew that I had made a terrible mistake. However, I had spent the money and so I sucked it up and decided I had to deal with it (also, I was out of forget-me-nows). Over the following 4 months, my wife and I put up with UIs that would frustrate Satan, a video feed that would randomly lock up without reason, and enough connection issues to make Time Warner Cable jealous (seriously, though, sometimes it just wouldn't connect and we'd be video-feed-less). Finally, last week, it died almost completely. I now have to reset the camera every single night by unplugging it and plugging it back in to get a connection to it at all. And the connection we finally do get dies during the night and leaves us looking at a frozen screen.I contacted Foscam today to get a refund on a clearly worthless product and they said I'd have to go through Amazon if I want a refund, which I'm pretty certain is not possible after 4 months of owning something [Edit: The return window ends within a month, something I'm sure Foscam is aware of.]. They would, however, be very happy to send me a replacement devil camera that will likely have all the same hardware issues and will definitely have all the same software issues, since you can't really replace software. I will never again purchase another Foscam product. I strongly urge you to not even buy this one. So, basically, what I'm saying is:Foscam. Not even once.
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