WVC54GCA WiFi camera

This Linksys security camera covers the basics at a budget price - and it does the job surprisingly well.

Price: £60
Sensor: CMOS
Lens: fixed focus
Microphone: yes
Resolution: 320x240 30fps, 640x480 MJPEG
Network: 10/100bps WiFi 802 b/g
Power Zoom: No
Power Focus: No
Pan/Tilt: No
Power: Adaptor
Consumption: 3W
Size: 90x120x37 mm 
Weight: 0.13Kg

This Linksys camera is also marketed as the Wireless-G Internet Home Monitoring Camera, but you shouldn't be put off by the 'home' in that name - this particular camera can be used for a range of serious tasks.

Its styling - all black and shaped like a flat disk - is perhaps aimed to get it public attention but it can be wall mounted or just stood on a surface. The aerial is internal so there are no bits sticking out to orient or risk breaking off.

Installation is easy and the setup takes you through setting up the wired and wireless network. However, to get things working you first have to connect the camera via a cable to the wired network and for any help with the WiFi setup the camera has to be in the area covered by the WiFi network you plan to use. It doesn’t support any automatic WiFi setup options such as WPF. It does support all of the standard security modes but not WPA enterprise mode, i.e. using RADIUS authentication.

The lens is fixed focus so there is no adjustment to make - just point the camera. The image quality isn't brilliant but well up to most surveillance tasks. Once basic installation is complete there is a utility that will find and report the details of any camera connected to the network. You can then use a browser to connect to the camera's user interface or you can work directly with the supplied monitoring software.

As the web interface uses an ActiveX control, and therefore only works with Internet Explorer, you may well have to use the monitoring program. This can connect to cameras on the local intranet, WiFi and Internet and can handle up to nine cameras.

No matter what interface you use setting up the camera is fairly simple. You can set three motion detection areas and trigger a snapshot or a video recording to be emailed or FTP-ed. Not having any local storage, if you want to save recordings you need to use the monitor program which will save to local disk or network shares.

Recordings can be scheduled and you can set disk quotas and many other parameters. The camera does support Dynamic DNS but only one provider, TZO, is supported which isn't a free service. It also doesn't support direct connection to a router - you have to set port forwarding if you want to access the camera from the Internet. It also supports RTSP streaming so you should be able to access it using a 3G phone.

The camera has a microphone so you can listen but there is no option to add a loudspeaker so you can't talk back. Similarly it has no digital I/O control ports so you can't add a PIR or a siren or any custom hardware.

This is a basic security camera at a budget price - and it does the job surprisingly well.

Linksys

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