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Linksys WVC54G Wireless-G Internet Video Camera

Linksys WVC54G Wireless-G Internet Video Camera

List Price:
Your Price: $179.89
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: No stars really
Review: Camera cannot color balance, Linksys support blows, three hours on the phone with them they are clueless on how to really make the sololink DDNS srvice work, this item is a Bad choice for web cams, it also does not support regular codecs for usage on web cam fourms, systems etc.. its mainly point to point and only allows 4 users at a time to view.. I DO NOT RECOMEND THIS ITEM AND ITS BEING RETURNED TO AMAZON

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Learning Your Mother Falls - Priceless
Review: Everyday I check on mom to make sure she's ok. While on vacation in Australia, I tuned in at the very moment she fell off the couch in Chicago. Using Skype, I called the senior home to have someone help her get up. Although she could have slid over to the phone and called for assistance, the important thing is that I learned she falls and can't get up by herself, and she hasn't been telling us. The WVC54G works well for this application. I can even see which DVD she's watching. I had to open port 1024 to get it working so it's not plug and play. Once running, it has never gone down, very important. My only complaint is that the auto white balance isn't true. Colors and lighting are somewhat off.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Qucik and easy.
Review: From the time I got my camera home and out of the box till I had it up and running was about an hour. This included the SoloLink DDNS service that came with the camera. The image is better than I expected for a wireless camera and the range is also far better than I had thought it would be.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Couldn't connect to the camera from outside my local network
Review: I already have the previous version of this camera (model WVC11B) up and running on my network and like it a great deal. This model refused to allow me to connect unless I was on my network. From outside using my WAN address and port assigned to the camera the camera rejected the connection. I know I had everything set up correctly because I was replacing the WVC11B and knew what I was doing. I contacted LinkSys and they told me to return the unit. I have read that this issue has happened to others so I suspect there is a bug in the Firmware. There is a new firmware version available now (version 2.07) however LinkSys Support can't tell me what issues were resolved with this version and the release notes are too low level to be able to tell if my problem was resolved. Since I already returned the device I couldn't just install the new firmware and find out.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great and simple
Review: I have found this camera to be easy to use, setup, etc. The quality of the picture is not superb, but it is an internet cam-- you can only expect so much. Works extremely well for security purposes.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: now it always works
Review: I left my baby at home with nanny. Amount thousands $ we spent on electronics, nothing worth more than this web cam, simply because it let me see my child while I am working. I wanted something that i don't need to turn on my PC all the time. The wireless feature and microphone is definitely a must. I am happy with the video image quality eventhough it's not impressive at all. All I need is knowing what's happening around my baby. Although the problem I have is some time I can connect to this camera at work, some time I simply can't. I say I usally get 10% of success rate. It's truely frastrating when I need to connect but can't. I guess it might have something to do with firewall of my company. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Called linksys help. They seams know nothing more than a regular customer does and they can't tell more than what menu says already.
Another problem is the microphone stops working after two weeks. I had to replace it with another unit with my own shipping expense. I just want to have this product working because I can't find another product had the same feature (wireless and microphone).

update:
After talking with linksys a few times, and asking technical advice from my friend. The problems I had might been two: I use a router to get access to DSL. This router was set up a while ago, and apparently it'll only stay idle for 30minutes. So I need to set it to be "always active". 2nd issue might been this cam needs to use channel 1024. After these two things were done, I can connect to the web cam without any more failures. Hope this help in case you had the similar issue I had.


Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not Impressed with the new version.
Review: I've had the older version (11B) for over a year and have never had a problem. I bought the new one (54G) a month ago and have been unable to connect via the Internet. I've emailed Linksys support multiple times and they don't even respond. And just this week the built in mic stopped working. All I hear is static. I love the linksys wireless products and have spent a lot of money with them. I can only hope this is just a fluke and that Linksys will pony up to not only replacing mine, but fixing this problem for everyone.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good, but not good enough for surveillance
Review: Let me begin by offering my overall experience with this camera. I had no difficulty at all setting it up for either wired or wireless operation. The included software worked flawlessly allowing me to record sessions.

For my purposes, my intention was to supplement a surveillance system I currently have in operation using two high resolution Toshiba network cameras. I was hoping to be able to get half-decent quality from a camera costing 1/3 of the cost of the Toshibas. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for.

In general 640x480 does not provide sufficient resolution for surveillance as you cannot make out features in any detail. For example, you may be able to see someone entering your home, but you'll never be able to identify that person, especially with this Linksys. Overall clarity was so poor that I still can't really determine whether or not this is a color camera (and if it's B&W, I guess that's why). Also, this camera is fairly useless in low light situations. For example, if you had only a single 40W lamp on in a room, this camera displays mostly noise (white static).

Finally, this camera is not supported by the surveillance software that I use. The camera does ship with software, however, for surveillance use I need the software to not simply fill up the harddrive, but to make room by deleting old files and continuing to record. The included software does not include any such functionality.

All in all, for the price, it does what it advertises. However, I've found no camera in this price range to be able to work as a true surveillance camera.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: All the wrong technology and bad networking
Review: This webcam ONLY works on PCs with IE. Remote viewers must download and install an active X plugin. When it emails you video, the format is .asf. Heard of that? It's so old school, you have to tell Windows Media Player that it knows how to play it. The quality of the emailed video is terrible. If you set it to record 5 seconds and you get about 1 second at 2 frames per second.

And then it gets bad. I gave the camera my networks SSID. Then I moved the camera to the back of the appartment and it jumped onto my neighboors network. That renders the camera completely useless.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Video Game in Town for your money!
Review: Unlike the other reviewers comments, I have a positive experience with this camera. Linksys did their homework on this one. The 54g is ahead of the pack with it's technology and the price is affordable. I have been able to compare the two leading suppliers and for sure Linksys takes the cake. With their SoloLink partnership, this is a turn key operation and makes it easy for the user to view anywhere without the security hastles that one may encounter behind a firewall. Other suppliers display the video via an Applet that is looking for a video port to transfer the video information and this may be a security issue with some administrators. With Linksys, you do not have to worry about that since SoloLink will display the video stream at their secure site. This camera was easy to set up, of course I have a Linksys router too, but it was not complicated at all when compared to the competition.


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