Cisco-Linksys WVC54GCA Webcam 640x480 802.11G Wireless Internet Home Monitoring Camera by CISCO SYSTEMS - ENTERPRISE
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Digital camera reviews of Cisco-Linksys WVC54GCA Webcam 640x480 802.11G Wireless Internet Home Monitoring Camera
Digital camera Review: All Smiles !!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I purchased my product I read what others had to say about their experience in their reviews and so it made me feel more at ease to make the online purchase. I am totally satisfied with no regrets :). Great price, great quality and the truth is if anyone has set up difficulties due to lack of technical knowledge, no problem the product manufacturer does honor their support warranty and set-up is only a friendly phone call away. Oh, and I even got her phone number.Digital camera Review: Amazing Value!
Summary: 5 Stars
The latest camera in the Linksys WVC54 series (GCA) is amazing in resolution and sets up fairly easily. The new software that comes with it allows viewing up to nine cameras simultaneously and it works with Vista, something the previous "quad" viewer couldn't do.
But the most impressive thing about the camera is the ability to see it from anywhere in the world, not only with the viewer on a computer, but also through cell phones, Windows Media Player, Real... AND the new iTouch device! The previous cameras in this line required Activ-X to be running, something Apple won't touch. But now with the WVC54GCA, you can view your security cameras while sitting at Panera having lunch... or anywhere there is a WiFi hot spot.
This camera does a true 640-480 picture up to 30fps, depending on bandwidth available.
Setup requires some experience with routers and you probably will need a port forwarding (DDNS) setup such as TZO.
I have four cameras with local IPs starting at 192.168.1.115. Going up sequentially from there (.116,.117,.118). I set these as static IPs in the router, a Linksys WRT160N V3.
Available ports on PCs can be 1024, 1044, 2869 and 5445.
Digital camera Review: An amazing little camera
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this camera. Setup was simple using the wizard on the CD-ROM that came with the camera. It only took about ten minutes to set the camera up, including configuring it to send a text message to my cell phone (and my wife's) when it detected motion.
The only part of the setup that some people might find tricky is remote monitoring. That's mainly a matter of configuring the camera's "DDNS" option. DDNS gives you a way of 'calling in' to your home network from a remote location. With a DDNS service, you get a web address and a login password that lets you log into your home network from anywhere on the Internet. Some DDNS services are free; others charge $25 or so per year.
The user manual doesn't give much of an explanation of DDNS services, so the best way to learn about them is to check out a couple. The Linksys cam defaults to the TZO service [..]; the top Google hit is [..], which offers a free service. Both sites do a pretty good job of explaining DDNS and walking you through the process of setting one up. Once you have done that, configuring the cam to use the DDNS is pretty straightforward.
I am very pleased with this camera. I am surprised it isn't taking over the retail security market. The included utility lets you monitor up to nine cameras at once, which would make it a very effective system for small retail businesses that suffer inventory shrinkage from the sales floor or the stock room. I suspect that a few out-of-work IT people will go into business selling security setups based on these cameras. They should do very well.
Digital camera Review: Average
Summary: 2 Stars
I've purchased a number of network cameras over the course of several years so I have some experience to pull from when judging the quality of netcams. The linksys netcams are cheap, thats why I buy them. However, as the adage says, "You get what you pay for." Linksys' first netcam, the WVC54GC just stunk. If you viewed the camera via the web for long periods it would lock up. If you tried to program the streaming object into your own web page, your browser would lock up. There is *NO* developement kit for how to utilize the camera aside from the web pages provided by the camera. Most of what I know about it came from other enthusiast hackers.
I purchased the WVC54GCA in the hopes it was much improved over the first camera. It was better, but only marginally. It has similar problems. The programming code inside of the camera absolutely stinks (Linksys, find a better programming team, or at least beta testers).
If you are looking for a cheap camera that doesn't have to be completely reliable or programatically flexible, this netcam will do. If you need something reliable or programmatically flexible with good documentation, buy an Axis Netcam (but it will cost more). Such is the price of good quality, something the Linksys netcam does not have.
Digital camera Review: Average soho cam
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought several cameras and found some minor issues, all the cams already have the latest firmware (version R024):
Strengths:
1) Very good video quality, I think this is because of the support of the MPEG4 codec
2) You can stream video video to popular media players like vlc, wmp, quicktime so you can avoid the webinterface or the included monitoring software, check: [...]
3) Wireless 802.11g sensitivity is good (but I couldnt find a way to disable wireless after you have specified a SSID)
Problems:
1) audio doesnt work at all: there are too many "clicks" so you cant really understand the conversations.
2) Bundled software for monitoring is limited on monitoring up to 9 cameras at a time (Not an issue), but I have experienced too many problems with this software because it crashes a lot.
I would give this product another star if only the included software was more reliable, but its a very good camera for soho environments.