Panasonic BL-C131A Network Camera Wireless 802.11 by Panasonic
|
List Price: Our Price: $297.47 You Save: $1.53 (1%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $159.99 (click here) Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
Digital camera reviews of Panasonic BL-C131A Network Camera Wireless 802.11
Digital camera Review: Dead after 14 months
Summary: 1 Stars
At the beginning last year I had some router problems that made browsers behind the router to hung after a few minutes. Technical support was useless to detect this. Finally, after researching similar troubles with other brand cameras and streaming, I figurered out what happened and the camera has been working ok for just over a year. Well, worked ok from MS Internet Explorer (Firefox had trouble with audio). Blackberry doesn't work at all and Iphone worked with some obvius limitations.
UPDATE - Some people asked me how to solve the browser hanging problem with this camera. While this has been long time and I don't remember 100% the reasons, I think that the camera streaming created too big packages that many routers had problem dealing with. I know my router was set to 1200 bytes MTU size to fix the problem, but I don't remember if I did something else.
A couple days ago, all the suden I can not longer acces the camera via wi-fi, wired still works. The status diagnostics show a hardware error: 0000-0000-0000-0000-0000-0000-0002-0000-00 (front led blinking red)
This all points to the hardware for the Wi-Fi. Thinking that I am out of warranty for a couple months, and according to the web a wi-fi assembly pcb cost nearly the cost of the camera plus... then add labor, shipping, etc... Sadly, I am thinking this camera wi-fi days are over!
On top of this, the "smart" engineers (or perhaps marketing people) behind this design, made the front red LED blinking continusly on red while there is a hardware trouble, overiding other really practical funtionality as alerting you when somebody is connected. In other words, thanks to this flaw I can not longer know when sombody is connected, no question a mayor bummer! Also, when you want to leave the led off to avoid alarming your nanny that is being watch, is gone (the led is always blinking).
I tried cheat the camera (with some risk) using the firmare for the BL-C111 that don't have wi-fi, so I could recover my LED indicator functionality, but no luck, the firmare looks the same. The camera still comes up as a BL-C131. I would apreciate any help around this, so the LED stop blinking and lights back when somebody is connected. Send me a note to rickh AT [...].
I believe the faliure could be produced for over heating, but this is working in a living room that may reach 80/85 F when we are out, that I think a consumer application like this should handle. The camera gets really warm, what is not a big surprise If we think there is a whole computer with OS, camera video processing, and a web server, all in less than 10 cubic inches.
Digital camera Review: Decent camera, Still too MS centric
Summary: 3 Stars
The initial setup requires a PC, Panasonic's software that comes on the included CD and an Ethernet cable (not included) to connecting the camera to your network/PC. Panasonic's software and a PC are needed to set the camera's initial IP address. Once this is done, the rest of the setup can be done via a web browser. Wireless network setup was fairly standard and should be not be difficult for anyone who has configured wireless devices before.
The networking seems reliable, its been up for three days now without problems.
This camera is surveying my business parking lot. The daytime image is good. At night, one can see the shape of a person standing in the parking lot, but not fine details.
The camera can be viewed and controlled from Firefox but there is no audio or zoom capability. Instead of telling me this plainly in their documentation, their on screen messages tricked me into wasting time installing the Java Runtime Environment and searching for non-existent applets on their website.
In order to get audio, you need IE and their ActiveX control. Panasonic could have made this camera where setup could be done 100% by a web browser, just like a Linksys router. They could have made it so that all of the features work with other browsers besides IE. For this reason, I only give the camera a rating of 3. It may be better than anything else out there in this price range, but it is not as good as it could be.
Digital camera Review: Did everything I asked and was simple to set up.
Summary: 4 Stars
Great little camera! Took me all of 10 mins to get everything working as I wanted on my internal LAN and only maybe 5-10 more to get it working externally (thanks to another reviewer here). Works great in IE with audio, but also works in Firefox (Mac and Windows) and Safari without audio. Works great on my iPhone too!
The firmware installed on the camera was actually *newer* than the version on the Panasonic US website, but older than the one on the Panasonic JP site. The link to the JP site is available through the web setup pages.
Digital camera Review: Doesn't work
Summary: 1 Stars
You shouldn't have to call tech support at all, in this day and age. Stuff should work as advertised automatically. So. After 2 hours on the phone with Panasonic tech support, the guy couldn't even make it work on my home network.
The Panasonic tech support website is beyond useless. The FAQ section is written in bloken Engrish and doesn't address the issue. I tried to download a troubleshooting guide and it said the document I requested is not available electronically. To purchase a copy, please call 1-800....
So despite all that, I finally got it working wirelessly inside my home LAN. Registered with viewnetcam.com and everything. And it worked great from my house. It even worked on my iPhone over wifi. But it didn't work at all from my dad's house, my father-in-law's house, my brother-in-law's work or Coffee Plantation wifi. So I waited a day and now it doesn't work from my house either. There's a massive lag between a command and the camera response that ranges from several seconds to several minutes.
Digital camera Review: Doesn't work if there is a firewall on the computer
Summary: 4 Stars
Overall, this camera is a good buy. We had tried a Linksys camera before and everything everyone says about Linksys is true. Bad idea. This panasonic camera was easy to set up, about 2 hours with a call to technical support. Techinical support is excellent by the way. The only downside to this camera is a little bit of false advertising: it says you can access it from anywhere in the world. There are many computers I have not been able to access it from due to some type of firewall. It seems like it only works on personal computers, not public computers like at the public library or at work.