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Linksys WVC11B Wireless-B Video Camera

Linksys WVC11B Wireless-B Video Camera

List Price: $129.99
Your Price: $103.89
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very good Product for the Money
Review: I did not have any problems setting up this camera, nor have I had any problems with it since I got it a few weeks back.

The picture is not the best, but it is as decent as any inexpensive web camera you would buy for use with MSN messenger.

The motion detector works as expected. My wife and I like to keep an eye on our dog when we are away from the house, and this little appliance lets us view live video from wherever we are, or get an email snippet of a video (5 secs max) if the camera is set up to do so.

The complaints about only working with IE, well, I don't have a problem with that. I am not suprised that Linksys chose to market this product to a browser that is on 90% of the machines in the world. Second, I can only expect that people setting this up don't have a feel for what needs to happen in the setup process and the correct way to get it to talk to your wireless, or wired network.

This is a great little toy for the money. Hopefully, better picture and sound will accompany the next version.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Skip this product, complex with no support worth discussing
Review: I have to assume from other reviews that if everything goes well you can get the camera to work. But if you have problems it is ridiculous.

The software installation told me in a popup that it could not find a camera while the screen underneath told me it found one. The popup recommendation to read the manual requires you to restart the setup program all over again as it exits when you try to back up to get to the manual. Very thoughtful.

But it doesn't make much difference as when you get to the documentation it is all but useless if you're having problems.

So you try the LinkSys site and find it as barren as the manual and as helpful as the installation software. It is stunning in it's absence of any meaningful depth for understanding and troubleshooting the wireless network connections.

Some product manager made a decision to send this to market without even minimal proper support. I hope he/she will also be held accountable for all the ill will this is bringing towards LinkSys.

Not at all reccommended unless you feel really, really lucky. Save your money for towards better from a company that cares.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not Worth the Money
Review: I purchased this camera to monitor my house while at work. It has a built in motion detector, but does not detect motion very well. I have the sensitivity set to "high". Unless it is extreme motion very close to the camera, it will not detect. Cannot make out images in low light conditions. Ok, for letting the grandparents see the grandchildren online, but not for security.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: IE Only
Review: Linux user? Mac user? Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, Firefox user? Go away. Linksys does not want you. This unit is advertised as an 'Internet Video Camera'. It should be called a Microsoft Video Camera. You can only view the streaming video in Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser (it uses an OCX plugin). No other browser will work. If you use windows and one of the many other newer, more up to date and still actively developed web browsers, the only way you can view the video from the camera is to install the Linksys viewer/recorder software on the PC. Pretty much defeats the purpose of being able to view the video from any computer on the Internet at any time (like say from work or an Internet Cafe or even a friends house.)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sololink is not the only dynamic dns service available
Review: everyone should try dyndns for free dynamic dns service

https://www.dyndns.org/

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fun and useful
Review: Read the instructions and you will be very happy!

You will not have the problems related by other reviewers as long as you follow the step by step instructions. The entire process took about 15 minutes and is well worth it.

It works fine as long as there is adequate lighting. Great way to keep track of your pet at home while at work!

Do not get it for using outdoors. The package states that this is only for indoor use.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not Happy
Review: Not happy at all with this product, I expected more from CISCO. It is not possible to use this camera for outside viewing unless it is in low light conditions. The motion detection is very unreliable, works maybe 50% of the time. The camera runs extremely warm (no ventilation) and needs bounced often. It is on its way back to Amazon soon. This camera is not ready for the market, I rate it a do not buy!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I'm keeping mine!
Review: When this camera first came active on the Internet, we were happier than Howard Dean after the Iowa caucus..."FIRST, we're going to watch the pets! Then the driveway! Call the relatives! YeeeaaAAHHHHHHH!

I am sorry to hear the other reviewers were not impressed. Perhaps the expectations were too high, but where else can you buy a wireless web camera with a built-in web server under $200?

We have had it up and running for two weeks without a glitch. The picture is fine, in fact, my cousin is still on dial-up and it is the best picture she has ever seen. You have to set the picture quality to "very high". With good light conditions the picture quality is excellent, almost video camera quality.

We are definitely buying another camera and recommend this highly

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Ok, when it works
Review: The most expensive mistake I've made in a while, and I've come here for the express purpose of trashing it.

My WVC11B appears to lock up daily. The lights stop flashing (stay steady) and you can't connect to it. The only solution is to unplug and replug the power supply. Besides being extremely annoying this invalidates the whole concept of the product. (In my opinion of course, not Linksys apparently.)

Unfortunately for me and other victims the company has not yet bothered putting up a support page for this device. In fact it's not even listed in the support section's list of devices and a search for "camera" yields no results. Through the product description you can find the link to downloadable firmware (in tiny print in the top right). When I go there I see the firmware hasn't changed since 2 months before Christmas when I got it. Oh well.

When it does work it provides acceptable results but nothing extraordinary. The camera is about "X-10 camera" quality (nothing to brag about). I'm also dissappointed with the "very fast" streaming mode, as it doesn't seem to be much faster than "fast" or any of the slower modes. The two above qualities conspire to make it very difficult to focus, which I had to do since it came out of the box terribly adjusted.

To its credit it is well built. Which will just make the act of destroying it that much more rewarding.

Since it's sort of a unique product at this time it's hard to give it a qualitative rating. So I give it a 1, since it only seems to be function about 1 hour after every reset.

I'm terribly disappointed in this new Linksys/Cisco alliance if this is any indication of things to come.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Camera Not Ready for Prime Time
Review: This product shows a lot of promise. But right now it is only for people who really like experimenting and have the time to spend holding for customer service (somewhere in China). After working fine for a day, I entered my SoloLink address (for which I paid $19.95 for 15 months) and no connection could be made. The purpose for buying SoloLink service is to have SoloLink identify the current IP address. But the IP address SoloLink is finding today is always constant. Therefore, no link. No remote viewing of the streaming video.

If you have ZoneAlarm, you will have to turn it off when you enter "View Video". Otherwise you get "Server Not Found". After you get the remote viewer operating, you can turn Zone Alarm back on.

In order to set up the camera initially, you have to hardwire the camera and your computer and your router. The instructions don't explicitly tell you this. A wireless set-up won't work. Although after you set it up, you can go wireless.

Even though my camera cannot be viewed over the Internet at this time (I hope this is temporary.), the camera dutifully sends me emails with camera image shots when movement is detected.

The camera overexposes daytime outdoor scenes. I solved this problem by placing a sunglass lens over the camera's lens. However, as the sun sets, you can't see anything because of the sunglass lens. But, this is no loss since the camera without the sunglass lens produces almost no images at night unlike many digital cameras which work great in low-light settings.

Linksys customer service agents say that XPs come with the net viewing software (netcamplayer.ocx), but my Dell desktop did not. I had to transfer the file from my laptop to my desktop.

I do not recommend the purchase of this camera if you are looking for something that works out of the box. Wait until the camera is upgraded by Linksys-Cisco. I own stock in Cisco, but am worried about the future of the company given that they put this product in the marketplace when it was not ready.


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