Dropcam HD Internet Wi-Fi Video Monitoring Cameras help you watch what you love from anywhere. In less than a minute, you’ll have it setup and securely streaming video to you over your home Wi-Fi. Use it to watch your home, your baby, the dog, and your small business. Every camera comes with Night vision, 720p HD video, two-way audio, and Digital Pan and Zoom. Paired with secure online DVR recording, you can watch live and recorded video from anywhere on any device. Dropcam HD makes monitoring what you love and finding peace of mind easier than ever. Watch from any device such as your Apple Mac, Windows PC, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or Android. All you need is a Wi-Fi network paired with the free and easy-to-use Dropcam App. Watch what you love while away with Dropcam HD.
Product Features
- Peace of Mind for your home and your baby with mobile alerts, night vision, two-way audio, and offsite DVR.
- Fast and easy setup – online and securely streaming 720p HD video in 60 seconds.
- Talk back and Zoom in on what you see on camera with two-way audio and digital pan and zoom.
- Dropcam DVR – Secure offsite recording. Motion detection. Mobile alerts. Video clips. Peace of mind.
- Your video is protected using 2048-bit RSA encryption, the same technology as top online banks.
Uses ~60GB of Bandwidth Each Month My review is focus on one aspect so as not to be too long, but still useful. **Please note the updates at the end**The Dropcam is a very good, very easy to use device. Many of the top rated reviews here do an excellent job of listing the pros and cons. Also, the firmware has been updated since many of the negative reviews were posted, so there have been subtle improvements (not enough) with motion detection, and also the iOS and Android apps are now easy and great.The best use case of this camera, by far, is indoor remote surveillance of a kids room, a family room, or a workplace.Here’s the real, overpowering negative about the device for me: it uses about 60GB of upload data capacity each month. The camera transmits its HD video feed to the DropCam cloud servers ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. The cloud service is what makes the user experience so easy, and what allows you to view your camera from multiple places, phones, tablets, all with just a userID and password. It’s good in that you don’t have to learn about firewalls, IP port forwarding and such just to make it work. But, that also means that it sends enormous amounts of video of a room with nothing at all happening in it. If your ISP has a quota or a limit to how much you can send per month, this camera WILL DEFINITELY USE A LARGE PORTION. In Canada and with some US ISPs, the limit is 50GB…i.e. less than this camera sends!- Lots of ISPs offer a quota of 250GB, so this camera won’t put most US customers over their limit. Just know that this will soak up a good portion of your allotment.- Each additional camera will add to the bandwidth you use.- Consider that you are also downloading the video feed from your ISP, so if you are in the same place as the camera viewing it, it doubles the bandwidth used. Yep, that’s right, your video goes up to the cloud server, then back down to you.- FYI, the upload rate is about 400-600 Kbps- The camera does use excellent compression, so the HD video is as compact as it can be in 2012.- If you have anything less than awesome Internet service, the camera will slow down your uploads of other stuff, like photos, attachments, etc. Upload speed is always much slower than download on consumer Internet service, and that’s what this camera uses.So, take this important point into consideration. It may still be a great product for you, but you need to know the costs. For me, I planned on using this at a lake house with slow Internet, so it doesn’t work for me. I’ll have to find another use for it.****Update, September 2012The camera has just received a software update that lets you switch between SD mode and HD mode. All DropCams that are turned on and connected to the Internet will get the update automatically. The standard definition mode uses half the bandwidth of the HD mode. Overall, there is a big improvement regarding the problem I cited in my original review. The update has other benefits in motion detection, etc.As for me, the 30GB a month is still too much, so I will continue to use the available software switch to turn the camera on and off, and only enable it when I want to watch.
Pleased with my choice after researching (Easy to setup. Works as advertised.) I spent some time researching the different options (Logitech, foscam, dropcam, adt, x10, cisco, …) in this product category. I decided to try out a DropCam HD. So far (3 days of use), I’m delighted. The product does everything it promises.It took me about 5-10 minutes to complete the full setup process (open the box to getting video streams online). In fact, it took me longer to figure out where I was going to put it.Other solutions require special software to be installed and/or a PC/Mac system to be running to capture the video. I don’t want to keep a computer on while I am away on travel + have to maintain/update the software. The DropCam HD solution removes all this extra effort/time/pain.pros==== – easy to setup (5 minutes of work) – can view online or via android/iphone – can share your camera with friends securely – motion tags allow you to jump to interesting sections – no need for special software or a PC running to capture all the data – surprised by 2way audio feature. Fun to use while you are away.cons==== – monthly dvr pricing for saved streams (free if you just want live views)still testing============= – low light/night video capture
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