Top positive review
2 people found this helpful
Great Camera
By JoAnn M. on Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2014
I LOVE my DropCams. Amazon would only let me order 1 more after I had ordered 2 (3 total), so I had to have my husband order one more through his account to get our 4 DropCams. I had a very frustrating experience with Foscam and was ready to pay more for something that actually works for someone with no technical experience and is infinitely more secure (Foscam opens a hole in your WiFi network). If you are a techy, Foscam is definitely cheaper, but you constantly have to be updating the firmware for each camera and the connection seems really inconsistent. However, I will say that if you are only looking for a baby monitor or something that you will be in the home viewing the camera, then Foscam's plug and play models are cheaper and work really well and connect just by scanning a bar code (but I had major problems when trying to set them up for viewing away from home on a cell or internet browser away from home). $200 a camera seems really expensive, but by comparison to the competitors, they are super easy to connect (it really is connected and ready to go in just a minute or two), and you can view it from anywhere with no security concerns. There is a few second lag for audio, so a 2-way conversation is tricky, but it is great for a quick voice message to a child just getting home from school (you can see they made it home safely and give them a quick message to get snack and remember to lock the door behind them - and then actually see whether they do or not!). You can hear everything perfectly in the video. The only other issue is the cloud recording fee. There is no way to record your video locally, so if you really want recordings for free then you have to go with Foscam or another competitor. For me, $10 a month and $5 a month for each additional camera is a bargain compared to what Comcast and other homesecurity system charge for their monitoring fees, and then I can download clips of anything I want to keep. I am still on my trial membership and really wasn't planning on paying for any monthly service, but after having several incidences of the recordings being extremely helpful - you can just jump to anything you missed to see what happened - we will probably pay for the recording for one or two of the main cameras.
Top critical review
8 people found this helpful
Dropcam was amazing. Great features
By Jeff Worsham on Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2015
Dropcam was amazing. Great features, great video quality. But Dropcam was bought by Nest... Nest has permanently killed the Dropcam feature where it will automatically turn on and off the camera based on your cell phone's GPS coordinates. After talking to them, they said that since GPS locations are only 98% accurate, they decided to discontinue this feature. I followed up this response with "So instead of leaving it at 98% effective, you have made it 0% effective." They then tried to sell me a Nest Protect, which has a motion sensor and can be set to turn all their devices on and off. I asked why this was necessary since the Dropcam itself has a motion sensor... no answer given. I also asked why their system could not turn on and off based on my sell phone being on my Wi-Fi, like SmartThings and most all other home automation systems... no answer given. In the several weeks since Nest brought Dropcam, the settings have changed/reverted twice. The system reverted to not sending notifications, until I realize it is off and go flip it on again. AND now, even with the settings on, I get zero notifications, ever. They don't know why and can't help me. One of the things they suggested was setting up Activity Zones, but that has to be done through the website and... Their website does not work completely in Internet Explorer (IE) or Firefox and they have no intention of fixing it. They just say that I need to use Chrome. In IE, you can log in, but can't view your video feed and as such, can't set up Activity Zones. This inability is caused by Nest's need to run a specific version of Flash, with basically all security settings off, which I will not do. A normal workaround would be to add the Nest website to Trusted Sites, allowing just Nest to have almost no security settings, but the Nest website is not able to log in when they are listed as a Trusted Site. They have no idea why and are not looking into it. So then I flip over to Firefox. In Firefox, things work better. I can log in and see my video feed, but for some reason, and the same as in IE, I can't change my password. It lets you type it in, but you can't click Save. I have had a Nest thermostat for several years and it is ok, but not worth the money. That would be a different review though. Pertinent here is that Nest has never added any features and I have had multiple unresolved issues and rounds of failing support. As such, I do not anticipate that Nest will be fixing any of the issues they have in the future, especially since they have directly told me that everything I have listed here is not going to be looked into or resolved. Fortunately, I am in the timeframe where I can get them to refund my Dropcam, but I would strongly advise that nobody else buy this since it is basically no longer supported.
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