Solwise SEC-C1062

The SEC-C1062 works very adequately, offering images that are more than good enough to see what is going on inside or outside a secure area.

Solwise SEC-C1062 Network Camera
Price: £87
Sensor: CMOS
Lens: fixed focus 6.0mm
Microphone: no
Resolution: 320x240 25fps, 640x480 15fps using MJPEG
Network: 10/100bps
Power Zoom: No
Power Focus: No
Pan/Tilt: Yes
Power: Adaptor
Consumption: 6W
Size: 95mm diameter x150mm height
Weight: 0.45Kg

The SEC-C1062 Network Camera is a low cost dome-style security camera which includes remote pan and tilt. It connects via a trailing cable to your wired network and can be mounted on the ceiling or other suitable location. A WiFi version is also available for only slightly more money (approx £100).

Power is supplied by an adaptor and there is no facility for Power over IP. There is also a setting that allows the camera to work via an ADSL router or modem directly onto the Internet. For more complex configurations you can simply enable port forwarding and make use of its built-in Dynamic DNS. As long as your network has DCHP, an IP address will be allocated and you can discover the actual address and configure the camera using a very basic camera tool.

In most cases once you know the IP address it is much simpler to configure and use the camera with a browser - IE 6 and FireFox are supported but it seems to work with other browsers including Google Chrome. Under IE the camera interface uses an ActiveX control which seems to work under IE 7 and 8 as long as you set the security correctly to allow the control to download. Under FireFox and other non-ActiveX supporting browsers the camera works using a Javascript interface and push mode from the built-in web server.

Both methods of working with the camera offer the same range of facilities. You can log on initially with the user name admin and no password set. The documentation makes the point that setting a password is a serious matter as there is no way to reset the password without returning the camera to the manufacturer. However the manual also states that you can reset the camera, including the password, by shorting the Reset connector which is located on the network cable lead bundle.

Once connected the interface allows you to pan and tilt the camera under realtime control. You can't modify the rate of movement but it's fast enough not to be irritating and it is easy to position the view point. Notice that there is no facility to adjust the focus and no telephoto lens but this is very reasonable given the price of the device.

In practice the fixed focus is not a problem and you can view objects in reasonable quality at a range of distances. Although the documentation doesn't mention it, taking the outer cover off and manually focusing the lens produces a much improved result. You can position the camera to point between the vertical and the horizontal and over a full 360 degrees horizontally, meaning you should be able to pan and tilt to view almost anything of interest. A mirror and reverse option allows the camera to be mounted in a variety of orientations. An auto pan in the horizontal direction can be selected to give you a constant scan of the area.

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Read more about tilt and pan IP cameras in labs