TRENDnet TV-IP312W Wireless Day/Night Internet Camera Server with 2-Way Audio - TV-IP312W
TRENDnet Wireless 2-Way Audio Day/Night Internet Camera Server

Admin interface isn't quite intuitive, doesn't have options that some other more popular brands do. It's a great price, but most features don't work that well. Even motion detection with built-in web interface doesn't work well.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I recently bought 2 of these cameras so that I could keep an eye on some contractors that were doing work in my yard. These are not manufactured by Trendnet, they are made in Taiwan and can be purchased under different vendor names like EncoreUSA and Zonet. I previously had an Encore camera but the Trendnets were in stock when I needed 2 more. Features worth mentioning: 1. Nightvision - works for about 10-12 feet 2. Motion capture - works great, has the ability to block out sections (like one place that I have a ceiling fan I can exclude from motion. You can specify a mail server and have the motion trigger alerts to your email or other device. 3. FTP and Samba - I have not tested these but it claims to be able to copy files up to a remote server via FTP, Samba/Windows networking. 4. 2 way audio - this absolutely rocks.. The audio is excellent provided you have a reasonable good internet connection. I have not tested hooking up a speaker to the 1/4 jack and talking to someone through the camera but its nice to have the option. 5. USB port - you can plug in a thumb drive and have video recorded to the the device. It can be set to overwrite oldest if you fill up the memory. Setup - I am a systems administrator so setup was not an issue. The software found the camera and I was able to use it with my secure Linksys router. Operation - Once I set it up the camera has worked good. There are a few key exceptions. If you put the camera right up to a window it will not be able to see out. The glass seems to white-out the picture. This is a key flaw if you intent to monitor your yard by placing the camera at the window. I have another camera on a porch that is not up against a window and that runs fine. The other reviewer is correct, you cannot disable night mode so in certain light levels it turns on and makes the picture green when it isn't necessary to have night mode on. The date and time stamp that you can optionally set over the video screen is in european mode using commas instead of slashes. My encore camera did not have this issue. Support - Ha, don't bother. Trend doesn't make the camera so their ability to help you with anything besides initial setup is zero. I emailed them about the date and they got back to me 2 days later and said "that's how it comes". Overall the camera does work fine. The picture and audio are very good if you know about the window issue. The software that comes with it is also pretty good and I can setup all 3 of my cameras to scan mode so they rotate the view on my computer. Or I can set up a window with all 3 visible in smaller windows. I would recommend this camera knowing the issues, but I would try to fine an Encore USA camera of this type first if you can find one. Model number on that is ENVCWI-G2.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I purchased this camera to monitor the activity of groundhogs and other co-residents who live under my house and feed on my vegetables and fruits. It is easy enough to set up when wired to a router, but it have not been able to get it to work wireless. I have setup many PCs and Macs to operate on wireless networks, but there is something unusual about this camera. The technical help people at Trendnet have not responded to my e-mail.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Love this camera! It's a great value. We're currently using it to monitor our daughter's crib. It's a lot of fun for me to login from work to peak at her. <br/><br/> I have had some issues. The biggest is that my first unit had a defective day/night sensor that resulted in very poor image quality since the IR mode was always active. My first response from support was that it's just the way the camera is. I asked for another opinion, who confirmed the issue. <br/><br/> The setup is a bit cumbersome, but not overly so. The manuals are better than other reviews implied -- you can get them online via the vendor's site to judge for yourself. Contrary to another review I read online, the camera does not loose it's settings after the power goes out. <br/><br/> Pros:<br/> - Great value. A comparable Axis camera would cost double.<br/> - Decent image quality -- better than most, but not quite as good as Axis.<br/> - Sturdy mounting bracket.<br/> - Nightvision works quite well.<br/> - Nice set of options -- albeit cumbersome to use.<br/> <br/><br/> Cons:<br/> - Mandatory authentication to view videos -- have to tell people to enter username and password.<br/> - Limited image adjustment capabilities.<br/> - Some features only available in IE/ActiveX, not in Firefox/Java.<br/> - Hard to access images without the vendor's ActiveX or Java viewers. And why can't I easily grab a single frame from the built-in webserver?!<br/> - Lackluster support team.<br/> - Setup requires networking knowledge.<br/> - Can't manually disable the IR/night mode.<br/> <br/><br/> There are also live cams available on the manufacturer's site, as well as a clickable sample of the camera's UI.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I bought this because my boyfriend thinks someone is breaking into our house during the day and we wanted to keep an eye out to see if he was just imagining it or not. This has come in much more handy than just that. We now use it for corrective training of our dogs while we are at work. If they are doing something wrong, I wired into the house surround sound and just tell them know remotely. I would recommend this to anyone. I can't wait to get more for a better view of the entire house.
 
Was this review helpful?    

The camera works fine when connected directly to a PC. I bought it to use the camera's advertised stand-alone email capability. After 5 hours including a bunch of Trendnet support time, I found out that the camera does not support "secure password authentication" required by many SMTP servers -- including mine. (There is no mention of this in their manual or datasheets.) So I cannot send email using my Qwest broadband connection -- the camera is worthless to me. Bottom line: if you have Qwest broadband, the camera can't send stand-alone emails.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Seems to work pretty much out of the box for your basic user, but I was actually trying to be a bit more technical, and it's falling down a bit there. Issues: 1) Network storage of triggered events does not seem to work. FTP and SMTP (email) work fine, but attaching to a CIFS/SAMBA server for storage doesn't work. No warnings or failures in log messages. E-mail sent to their support team....we'll see. 2) nmap reveals only HTTP and RTSP open on the camera. This is disappointing, as I was hoping to be able to grab an image at will via some method (SOAP, REST, FTP) from external code. Maybe there is a way via FTSP, but that's probably another library I would rather not learn and include. Need some more documentation. 3) No API documented for changing the camera settings. I would like to do this on my own (triggers, etc.), but if there is a way to do it (from Perl, C++, etc.), there is no documentation.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Electronics > Security > Indoor Security Cameras

Networking > IP Network Cameras