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"This thing is junk?" on
Pros: Low cost, color image, wireless.
Cons: Poor quality (first unit was DOA, second wouldn't connect using WEP), poor low light images, runs very hot
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"DO Not Buy these cameras, product and support a joke" on by 007hood
Pros: Price was but then here you got what you pay for
Cons: Camera overheats (this is something you are supposed to leave on for extended periods. I felt ripped off from D-link , support and their dis-continuation with no recourse and finally poor grainy picture. I will not buy anything from D-link again
Summary: Save your money, buy from Hawking as they are a much better service and product
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"Mediocre camera; software is even worse" on by biggianthead
Pros: cheap but you get less than you pay for
Cons: Monitor/control software incredibly bad
Summary: Camera is so so. Forget it working wirelessly unless maybe line of sight of the router/access point. Just because you can use a laptop via WiFi at your proposed location does NOT mean the camera will talk to the router there. Picture quality ok in bright light. For most likely applications the lens focal length is too long...they should have gone with a wider angle lens.
My biggest complaint is with the monitoring software which is 100% crap. I had it set up on one machine and it simply stopped working, not being able to record the .avi files to disk. I tried reloading the software, tried various settings, tried other drives, talked to d-link, all to no avail. Had to move the monitor operation to another machine. Will have to try a windows reload on the first machine. Makes no sense but I'm out of options. And btw, did the software warn there was a problem? Nope. Just saw it wasn't recording and if I experimented I could see a brief error flash down in the corner of the software. On a related matter if the software can no longer reach the cams (like the distant IP number has changed or teh connection is simply down) likewise there is no error message, no flashing of the menu bar, nothing. Only way you know is that you can't bring up the cam pictures when you try. Otherwise you have no way of knowing.
Now a new wrinkle, one that prompted me to bother to write here. I have 4 cams, 2 in use. I added another at the same distant location. Should have no effect on the existing 2, right, except of maybe reduced bandwidth across the internet, right? Well now out of the blue when one of the existing cams motion triggers it keeps recording until stopped manually or file size limit reached. I was already on pretty low sensitivity and will try even lower but this is another example of software that is simply crap.
This is my only experience with a d-link product. I can't see that I would trust them with anything else and I'm going to have to give serious thought to finding some quality cameras as these are crap. No need to spring for wireless next time as I had to run ethernet for the supposedly "wireless" dlink cameras which didn't work wirelessly! -
"Would not buy again, works, but not reliable when Wireless" on by agidi
Pros: Cheap, easy setup
Cons: Unreliable, slow slow, hangs when wireless
Summary: To cheap to be good, poor support.
NOT reliable. It works when it wants, poor CPU speed, slow response, bad image quality. Its a toy. -
"It's a good network camera for the low price" on by networkcam
Pros: The setup is easy and you can access it remotely from any where on internet
Cons: You'll need to replace it's antenna if you want to use it as wireless camera with increased rang
Summary: I have purchased four DCS-900W cameras; they work great as long as they are connected thru Ethernet cable. Initially when I tried to use the cameras thru wireless connection, they worked fine as long as they were close to the router. But, I bought these cameras, one for inside the house and the other three for outside the house (100 to 300 feet away from the router). Since these cameras are not weather proof I had to purchase "Weather Resistant Housing Enclosure" for outside cameras to protect them from the weather. In order to make them work thru wireless connection, I had to replace all the antennas, including the one for my router. I replaced the linksys router antenna with 9dBi bi-directional antenna; I also replaced the three of the camera antennas with 6dBi bi-directional antenna and one with 9dBi directional antenna. After I changed all the antennas, for most part the cameras worked fine. I also set up dedicated computer to monitor and record the cameras using the IPView Lite software, which came with the cameras. The motion trigger recording does not work too great on all the cameras. The setup was very easy and I can access the cameras from any where on internet. I would say it was a very good choice for the price even though I had to change the antennas to make them work at farther distance. The picture looks good, provided that you have enough lighting. The video is poor under low light but that's expected-this is not an expensive network camera.
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