Ideal solution for remote security monitoring of home or officeIntroducing the D-Link SecuriCam Network™ DCS-900W, the latest addition to D-Link’s Internet Camera family of products. With its compact, all-in one design, the DCS-900W is a great remote monitoring solution for your home. The DCS-900W connects quickly and easily to your existing Fast Ethernet network or 802.11b wireless network and a setup wizard guides you through the set up process to get you up and running in a matter of minutes.
The DCS-900W features a built-in web server, which means that you do not need to have a computer to stream video images directly to the Internet. Video images captured by the DCS-900W can be viewed remotely by typing an IP address into a Web browser. With its easy-to-use Web-based interface, the DCS-900W can be managed and configured from anywhere in the world.
The included Windows-based IPView Lite software provides even more features, allowing you to archive streaming video straight to your hard drive, monitor up to 4 cameras on a single screen, rotate camera views, and update the firmware on your DCS-900W.
1 Nice Compact Camera with Wireless Capabilities
I enjoyed the ease of which this camera can be setup with. Basically I followed the setup guide and everything went smoothly. I also recommend the latest version of IPView from D-Link's website as it has good features.
The quality is fine for what I need it for, but don't take that as in the quality is bad, but do-able. I can see where this camera would be called mid quality since it doesn't have the *best* quality in picture, but it sure does beat most webcams.
2 Eventually became a usable platform
I had quite a lot of trouble with this camera at the beginning. The range of the camera seemed ridiculously limited and the camera seemed to fritz out on a regular basis for no apparent reason.
After downloading the firmware update for this camera and installing it, the flakiness disappeared, but the limited range remained a problem. Basically it could not be more than a couple of feet from the wireless access point and still work. After much frustration with this, I finally decided to CAREFULLY open up the camera to see if I could find anything that was obviously wrong with the electronics inside.
I'm glad that I did! I found that the wire from the antenna had become disconnected from the circuit board (or never was connected at the factory). The snap-on connector at the end of the antenna lead is extremely small and weak and the cable from the antenna is fairly rigid, so any amount of jarring of the camera could cause the connector to pop-off of the circuit board.
D-Link should have used something to tie-down the cable to the circuit board to prevent the connector from popping off.
Well, I carefully popped the snap-on connector for the antenna lead back on the circuit board and VERY carefully reassembled the camera.
Voila! The camera now has excellent WiFI range!
The IPView Lite software that comes with the camera and that you can get an upgrade for from the D-Link web site is not reliable on Windows 2000. It crashes all of the time. It seems to be more reliable on Windows XP. I suggested to the developers that they release the IPView Lite to Open Source so that people could work on it to improve its reliability. No response.
Now that I've worked out all of the glitches, I can recommend this camera. Be aware that some after purchase tweaking may be required.
3 What a great product (for the price)!
I didn't buy this camera at Amazon. I was a little leery of any sub-$300 wireless cam, so I scored it at a local retail outlet at a 20% premium.
It doesn't have much in the way of features (via web interface): snapshot, Java video Applet, and some ActiveX atrocity that I'm not willing to test.
This camera is fantastic! It's small, easy enough to set up, and performance is fine and dandy. (...)
4 Good for the Price
I'm setting up multiple WebCams for a Web site and like the idea of going wireless...no need to have long cables all over the place! This camera is relatively easy to set up and use and it works with the WebCam software I prefer. What's also nice is that although it doesn't come with Mac compatible software (and no Mac version of the software is available), I had very little trouble setting it up from my Mac. I'm pleased with the camera's image and think it's well worth the price.
5 Small Camera, Good Price but cannot be viewed from anywhere!
No complaints on the functionality; I was able to get it to work after several hours of fooling around. The instructions are not too clear when you have other name brand routers. The camera works great once it is set up properly. But, it cannot be view from anywhere, it has it's limitation. Because of the software design being used, the video stream is viewed via an applet that is started up from where-ever you are viewing. If the computer you are using is behind a firewall and because of security reasons most ports are closed except http 8080, you are out of luck. First of all, I doubt if the administrator of the firewall will open the port you need to see the video stream since that would open other security issues for the administrator. Second, since the video is seen via a local Java applet that is initialized and it begins to look for the open port, this is not a welcomed design in most organizations with firewall administration. They may think you are trying to hack their firewall from within. Anyhow, they should have used an http video stream protocol that can be viewed via a window media player or some other popular media player so that a specific video transfer port is not necessary. The only way around this issue is to have the video stream displayed via that same applet on your personal website that you may have secure access to. Then you can go to your website and view the video there from where-ever you are. Bummer!
6 best bang/buck=winner
for the price, this is a great tool. if u need night time viewing, add a motion detector.
i found a 4x4x6 waterproof plastic box at Home Depot, begged them for a 3x3 glass scrap, and mounted this outside w/motion detector light (see above). we'll see how it handles Florida sun next summer.
bingo! i now have 5 of these running very nicely.
please note that i use free linux software instead of PC monitoring app (IP-View) that comes with it, but friends seem to have good luck w/that app. the linux app ('motion') allows me to mix USB, video, and network cams in one survelliance app.
newest firmware for cam (2.28) hasn't crashed since i booted it over a week ago fyi.
7 Creashes every 48 hours
I bought 3 of these for my cafe and they seem to crash about once every 48 hours. I replaced one of them thinking that maybe I got 3 lemons, but it crashes too. Just a simple unplug and plug in again fixes the problem. I wish they'd come out with a better firmware that would reboot the cameras automatically. To be fair I have the webcams on my website that gets quite a few hits. So the cameras are streaming nearly all the time to 2-4 users. This is well within the capability of the camera, but they still crash for some reason. But they are ok for the price.
8 Buy a different camera!!
Setup is easy and the camera works well on the network. But the picture quality is very poor. The images are very grainy. I get a much sharper image from my logitech 4000 pro.
9 Wish I would have done more research
These cameras work great in well-lit conditions. However, these are worthless as "Securicams" as the package labels them, since they can't even see my front porch from my front window (3 feet away) with the porch light on at night. I bought two of these and I regret it. Look for at least one of them on eBay soon. Also, they don't support WPA.
10 An OK cam but only during the day
I wanted to use this cam for monitoring an office, house or the street, however was unable to use it at any of these locations, except during the day. This camera seems to require minimum 5-10 lux. For example in the evening, even on a well lit street it is already very difficult to distinguish the shape of my car less than 10 feet away. Also indoors there is a lot of noise under any amount of artificial light, unless you put your face in front of the camera or the area is lit by natural sun light. Basically after 5 PM the quality gets pretty bad and after 6 PM the cam becomes unusable.
It might be OK for video conferencing if you sit next to your computer with a lamp pointed at your face, however this doesn't require a wireless network camera since many USB models under $50 can perform better.
The camera frame rate on my wireless network is less than 5 fps, though not sure if this is a performance problem with my wireless router (Microsoft), so I am not putting the full blame on the camera.
Generally the concept of wireless network camera is great, but it would need to be coupled with a decent camera. As a standard Webcam this camera wouldn't be worth more than $20.
I've had to do some research to discover that CCD cameras are much better than CMOS, especially in low-light, so I will be looking specifically for those now, even if they are USB-only. Learned my lesson.
11 It's a good buy for the price.
I just bought this product and it's all what I expected. I just followed the quick installation guide, plugged in ethernet cable and the power, set the ip as recommended 192.168.0.20 on the camera and my wireless Netgear router and it works. I can view the camera immediately. But when I unplug the ethernet and into wireless mode, it didn't work. I ended up calling tech support and got a live support person in less than 5 minutes, he suggested I reboot(power down and up) my camera and router. The wireless mode now working.
I tried to set the camera up behind the router according to the instruction on the manual from the CD provided, it didn't work. After playing around for 3 hours, I finally figured out that the default port 80 and 8481 don't work, you have to open up the second port 81 and 8482. I IPView software provided in the CD does not have motion sensor, you can download the latest version of IPView with motion sensor for the DLINK website, and it works very well. It can detect a slightest movement.
PROS: price, good picture(can adjust brightness), motion sensor software(download latest IPView).
CONS: no audio, can not pan view(must manually pan camera), no email picture option.
