Samsung HD Plus 1080p Wi-Fi IP Camera

Re: Samsung SmartCam security camera. First off, let me say that this is a great product and I would buy it again. It is easy to set up, gives great results and gives me piece of mind when I am away from my home. All this for a very reasonable price point. Now for the details and some tips for better use.I opened the box to find easy to follow instructions for set up and downloaded the free application for my Android smart phone. One must have an active and reliable Wifi signal for this unit to work. I have an approximately 10mps DSL Wifi, which is more than sufficient for this cam. One must enter some information into the app to configure the cam such as SSID (your Wifi name), password, etc. You will also have to give your camera a simple password as well. All this took less than 5 min and I was up and running. I had a view of my living room and it alerted my phone when there was motion and/or sound in the room. It is easy to set the sensitivities in the app. The app also allows you to also forward alerts to another email account, and I chose my Gmail account. It was then that I noticed several minor problems, all ultimately solved. Here are the problems and my solutions …. - I could not help but notice that the view of my living room was slightly less sharp on the right side than on the left. I figured it might be a smudge on the lens, but no, that was not it. Being a wedding photographer, it did not take me long to realize that the lens was slightly out of focus. What to do?Tip# 1: Well, just pop off the cover from the front of the camera (there is even a pry slot a the 6 o'clock position) and Voila! Now all I had to do was twist the lens about 10 degrees while watching the view on my smart phone and the view became crystal sharp across the whole field. Anyone can do this folks. I figure that the focus setting must have been jostled during shipping. This particular cam was a refurb unit and just slightly out of spec. No big deal, it was an easy fix and I just popped the cover back on the cam. Done.- I noticed that when away from home my cam sent me an audio audio alert several times and there was no one home at the time. What was going on here? Robo calls on my home telephone that's what. The ringer on my home phone was triggering an audio alert every time they called. Don't you just hate these guys?Tip #2: Well, the present solution is to simply shut the ringers off, lower the answering machine volume, etc. while away. It works, although not an elegant solution. I am not going to turn the sensitivity down below ringer threshold because I want to be sure to hear broken glass or other break-in noises, so this is my fix for now. - I could not get my alerts forwarded to my Gmail address even though I carefully entered the address in the app. Tried everything. So, a call to Tech support was in order. I fully expected to be routed to Romania or Philippines like with Sprint and others (don't get me started on this) but No! My call was quickly answered by a real live Tech guy from the good ole U.S.A ! He first updated my software for me to the latest version (via my cam's Wifi connection) and then figured out that my Gmail account had to be changed to allow 3rd party access. The good news is that it now works great. God bless America! This was outstanding product support. The even better news is this:Tip #3: When forwarding an alert to Gmail, the alert will remain in your folder. This means that if your smartphone is not connected to data or Wifi, you will not lose the alert, it will be there when you are once again connected. Secondly, the email will tell you if the alert is an audio or motion alert and it will take a picture and save this with your message! Why is this important you say? Well, if Mr. burglar breaks in, finds your SmartCam and disables it, it's too late! It will have already sent his picture to your email account and there is nothing he can do to stop this. Cool huh?I have since downloaded the app to my Android tablet as well and the picture is beautiful. It's really nice to watch your home from far away and know that everything is safe. Go ahead and buy this SmartCam, you'll be happy. I am.