Network Cameras

I've been playing around with network cameras lately. I've tried a few and figured I blog about my view of these cameras.

Linksys has two cameras that look very similar but are in fact very different. The Linksys WVC54GCA is ok. It supports a snapshot mode and motion JPEG streaming.

The Linksys WVC54GC is really bad. It only supports ASF streaming and doesn't have a snapshot mode. The resolution is just horrible. The only good thing I can say about this camera is that it supports WEP.

I have two D-Link cameras, the DCS-910 and the DCS-G900 that are pretty good and seem to be stable. The DCS-910 is not wireless though.

I have an Airlink AIC250W. It does the night vision thing, which is kind of cool. You can't turn it off though, which is a pain. The AIC250W also seems to be less stable. I find it drops off my network pretty often.

Recently I spoke to a guy who was installing a webcam at the local yogurt shop. He recommended the Axis M1001W. He showed me the image and it was very good.

All of these cameras come with horrible PC software for configuring and using them. Fortunately, it's possible to simply connect to the cameras with a browser and configure them directly. I wouldn't recommend installing the crummy software that accompanies them. If I get motivated, perhaps I'll post an entry on how to configure each of these cameras without the software.