Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1436 in Camera & Photo
- Brand: Foscam
- Model: FI8904W
Features
- Simple to setup, friendly GUI, remote viewing, record from anywhere anytime
- Waterproof for outdoor installation, Auto IR-LED illumination for night vision up to 20 meters
- Motion detection alert via email or upload image to FTP. Access management with password protection.
- Supports all standard browsers and can be viewed remotely using smartphone software (not included)
- Wi-Fi compliant with wireless standards IEEE 802.11b/g and supports both WEP & WPA WPA2 encryption
Foscam FI8904W Outdoor Wireless/Wired IP Camera with 15-20 Meter Night Vision and 3.6mm Lens- Silver
Product Description
The Foscam FI8904W is a wireless or wired IP camera solution for outdoor use. It combines a high quality digital video camera with network connectivity and a powerful web server to bring clear video to your desktop or smartphone from anywhere on your local network or over the Internet. The high quality video image is transmitted with 30fps speed on the LAN/WAN by using MJPEG hardware compression technology. The image resultion is 640 x 480 (300k Pixels). The Foscam FI8904W camera is based on the TCP/IP standard. The control, management and maintenance of the camera is done simply by using your browser to remotely configure and upgrade the firmware. The Foscam FI8904W IP camera can reach up to 20 meters of visibility in absolute darkness with 24 infrared LED's.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
By Robert Gash
I've been looking for affordable outdoor cameras to monitor our front porch and walkway areas when we are away from home. Most of the affordable multi-camera systems are simple DVR-like devices that require you to wire your cameras directly to the DVR unit take on the onerous task of reviewing recorded footage for actual movement. To make matters worse, they still need extra hardware/software to view remotely. Network cameras do exist, but most manufacturers (Axis, etc) build and price them for commercial users, making them too expensive for a simple home monitoring solution. Even offerings from consumer companies (Logitech, etc) are often $200-500 for an outdoor rated unit.Initially, I was tentative about buying a Foscam - often low-rate products like this have very poor build quality, inadequate software, or other serious limitations. I bought one camera first and installed it outside. I was so impressed after it's week-long trial run, I immediately ordered several more.The camera itself is well built and feels solid. It is powered via a permanently sealed cord that terminates in an RJ45 socket with two pigtails for the DC power adapter and a reset button. Included is an adjustable sun shade and waterproof outdoor antenna. Connecting it to my network was as easy as plugging it in to my router, then logging in to its IP address (it defaults to DHCP). Enter your wireless parameters, and you're off to the races (you can then safely unplug the LAN). The firmware comes with lots of options: WEP/WPA/WPA2 support for wireless, internal motion detection, FTP uploads, Email alerts, and even MSN connectivity (which I don't really understand).You can use either the webcam's built-in webserver to view the image, or connect it to a variety of third party security software. The main advantage of using software is that you can parse out only events with significant motion, making reviewing a day's worth of footage a 10 minute chore. (I use a Linux package called Motion for this, but numerous options exist for Windows/Mac)There are only two major limitations to the units: first, the cord and power brick need to be secured and out of the elements. If you're mounting in a semi-exposed area, this means extra waterproof boxes from Home Depot, etc. Secondly, the auto-brightness isn't perfect: at dawn/dusk and when you have mixed sun/shade, it often blows the image out. Overall it's a fine tradeoff for paying a fraction of the price of the alternatives.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
By o-namae desu
As of 6/2012, many of the bad things you read about this camera here are true: Mine disconnects and reconnects to the wireless LAN at random. Finally the disconnection is bad(?)/long(?)/permanent(?) enough that the camera controller software cannot reconnect.Also, as other reviewers have pointed out: Yes, the articulation points on the supplied mounting bracket are flimsy and it just flops; Yes, the backside holes aren't weatherproof on the outside so antenna connector and power cable entry may need to be silicone-caulked; Yes the Ethernet/power/reset dongle end is open to the weather and needs its own weatherproof box; Yes, the antenna in order to itself be weatherproof (aside from the connector which isn't) doesn't articulate and the shield blocks it, so it can *only* be attached pointing down. (In other words, the right-angle section of the antenna isn't long enough for it to stick up, the way it's shown in the product photo. Note that this is *not* the cause of the WLAN disconnects in my tests, but pointing it down and half-shielding it with the metal casing can't be a good thing for long-distance connection.) I would gladly work around all these other issues to get an inexpensive outdoor camera, but because it disconnects wireless randomly, it's useless.Finally, as other reviewers have alleged but got obfuscated here, I measured and can confirm that the 3.6mm (wide angle) lens has a 42 degree angle of view, when mounted to this camera, not the 67 degrees advertised here and by the manufacturer. (The 6mm lens is even narrower, about 30 degrees.) Yes, if you mount the 3.6mm lens on *other* Foscam cameras you'll get 67 degrees, but not this one.Lest anybody think a firmware update will fix the disconnect problems, let me warn you: The manufacturer's update process is horrific. Instead of simply posting their updates, they insist on mailing you the link, so they demand your e-mail address. Then, instead of mailing you the link, they mail you another link that coerces you into accepting their e-mail spamming, so that they will mail you *yet another* link that actually points to the firmware. And *that* link is a dead link! (You get a Microsoft IIS "404 Not Found" page, except of course it's in Chinese!) Fortunately, you can tell by the name of the link that it's the very same firmware that shipped with the camera (11.25.2.38, as of 6/2012). So nothing lost, but a waste of time, and no hope of improvement!I also have the Foscam FI8910W, which has none of these problems. Perhaps I'll put it under a large glass bell and use that outside instead!(Very specific hint: For those of you running Synology's Surveillance Station on their NAS's (e.g. Synology DiskStation 1-Bay DS111) (DSM ver 3.2), the symptom you'll see is lots of very short .AVI files, instead of the single 30-minute files you typically get. Once it stops completely, sometimes you can Disable/Enable (NOT just Refresh) and get the connection back for a few more minutes, but sometimes the *only* way to get it to reconnect is to power cycle the camera *and* reboot the Synology NAS. This indicates a certain inflexibility in the Synology software, but the camera "started the problem." My WLAN happens to be WPA2, and I didn't test totally open or WEP like some reviewers did, because I can't afford that security hole. Somehow the fact that you can directly access the camera's web-server interface directly doesn't mean the Synology can sync up again. Worse, it seems that actually doing so, to see some live video, can *cause* another disconnect with the Synology software? Note that none of these things are issues with the FI8910W, which works perfectly both with Surveillance Station and standalone.)
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
By PCGuy
I think these cheap IP Cameras get a bad rap. I bought one last week and from the time I opened the box, to the time I had it configured on my wireless network and aiming it to capture my front porch from my iPhone was about 20min. Honestly, daytime picture quality is actually better than I expected and night vision is about the same as most camcorder night modes. I don't think people are realistic as to what they are going to see using IR Illumination.I see many of the negative reviews are due to network configuration issues. Totally not the camera's fault that users cannot configure their routers and firewalls to port forward or NAT to the camera. Full disclosure, I'm a System and Network Administrator so the configuration was pretty simple for me.To really get the most functionality out of the camera along with recording, better motion detection and alerting, I would checkout some of the third party camera software out there.I am going to add a few more cameras but next time around I will be purchasing POE wired cameras to eliminate the need for an electrical outlet.All in all, for a wireless outdoor IP camera for $100 or less, I am extremely pleased with my purchase.Now to just catch the person who refuses to clean up after their dog!! I'm watching you!
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