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LAN Camera Review
xulphlux writes "The guys over at Tom's Hardware have an excellent review of 4 LAN cameras. While not currently commonplace as of yet, they have good potential for relatively low cost security uses. Keep an eye on the kids outside, your sports car out front, or the good looking girl next door... A couple even have built in 802.11b so no need for wires."
lan cameras are ultra fun. you can use them for a variety of applications: security, relief of boredom. we've been using an AXIS 200+ (which unfortunately doesn't do video) to keep an eye on things. if you'd like to check it out it can be accessed here. if anyone knows of any hacks to let the cam do video or upgrade anything, it would be much appreciated.
If it is not clear enough, you should know that Axis supports the community and actually runs embedded Linux with features like NTP, FTP, SMTP and dial-up-when-triggered-by-external-switch and other nifty features.
Some of use use these nify things called batteries.
A lithium ion battery on one of those puppies and a transmitter make them cool.
But why lan at camera point, rather wireless transmit and ccd -> lan at a remote base. Would make more sense - a la x10 camera's.
Lawrence.
www.shanghaiguide.com
I bought 3 of these cameras about 18 months ago and ended up returning them. The image quality was very poor (grainy) unless you had ideal lighting and the maximum refresh rate of the camera was a pathetic 10 frames per second. If you just want to take 1 frame every 60 seconds and can live with images that need to be imported into photoshop and ran through a series of lighting adjustment filters before you can distinguish anything, then go for it.
In my opinion these types of cameras are the future... but currently they are little more than useless toys for people who have money to burn. If, like me, you have a real need for security monitoring, these cameras aren't the answer... yet. Hopefully in another 18 months the price will come down and the features and quality will go up. I'd like to see all of these cameras have LAN/WLAN & USB, Tilt/Pan/Zoom, and the big thing is decent image quality under low lighting. ViCAM has figured it out, so if "they" can't figure out how to get good image quality under poor lighting, then juse use ViCAM's chipset and optics. My $100 3Com webcam (which was manufacturered by those guys) is far better, quality wise, than those LAN cams I've tried.
So would have I...
But as it turns out, these things are a bargain.
A few months ago, I was in Akihabara and grabbed a Connectix QuickCam on impulse - I got the cheapest one, assuming that it was the most likely to have Linux drivers. After all, I had the original B&W Quickcam the week it was released years ago and it had Linux drivers after something like 25 minutes.
Guess what? The new QuickCam has the most Linux-Unfriendly thing you could imagine. It's Windows-only and the only way to upload pictures to an FTP site is to use some POS service that's free for the first 30 days and only works with some half-dead proprietary service.
All I wanted was to be able to take a picture from a command line and save it to a file - I'll take care of the rest.
So that was $70 wasted.
At my office we just got one of the ones that Tom's reviews that does Pan and Tilt (the Panasonic?) and the thing is GREAT. $400 or so and it comes with a web server (Nmap tells me it's Linux) and does everything that a Linux-friendly webcam connected to a normal web server would do, *if* I could find such a camera. Plus, the pan and tilt and refresh rate are excellent. Such a thing would have cost 4 times the price a year ago.
I've got enough computers running in my apartment that power consumption is a real consideration too - another real appeal of this thing.
I went to try to find one of these today at lunch (before reading the article,) but the store didn't have them yet, or I'd have one tonight.
I'd buy one just to not waste a weekend or two fscking around with unsupported hardware and drivers and he worry of facing a Windows box to the Internet.
I guess I'd say to you, Just wait a few months - this is the direction that this sort of equipment is going - embedded Linux and network transparency - plus,it will be half the price by February.
Cheers,
Jim
PS - I think any CCD camera has night vision capabilities if you crack it open and take out the filter - at least i heard that somewhere...
-- My Weblog.
The software/web servers included with these cameras are, by and large, useless for security purposes unless you plan on watching the video stream 24x7. I use motion, an incredibly simple but useful Linux motion detection program with my Axis 2100, and then periodically review the .mpeg files it generates. I don't know if any other net cameras are supported.
In three months, I have already used motion and my Axis 2100 to capture images of TWO people attempting to burgle my office during my business's regular operating hours. Although capturing images of these people is mostly useless (as the police don't really care), it has helped me to reevaluate the threat and change our security policies.