A new IP Camera

After reading quite a lot on the web to find a good IP camera that should be very well supported by my NAS (Synology), I want this one: a FOSCAM FI9826W White.

Foscam FI9826W
Foscam FI9826W

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It’s not yet officially supported by Synology and won’t be available on the EU market before 1st of November. But it will be supported for sure IMO, as most other Foscam IP Cam are. So, I will wait until it’s available to check that Synology does indeed support it. If they don’t, I will take my second or third choice as I expect their price to decrease.

I prefer the FI9826W than the very similar FI9831W because it has an optic zoom x 3. However, if FI9826W appears to not be supported by Synology, the FI9831W won’t be either IMO.

My second choice would a FI9821W (v2!). I did test the connection of my NAS with the demo cam available on the FOSCAM website. The connection works fine but after 2 seconds of playing, the video preview becomes blank. Foscam told me that it’s possibly because I am not connected as an administrator… No answer from Synology yet on that issue.

My third choice would be a FI8910W. This one is not HD but reported by many users as working very well with Synology. I prefer however the FI9821W as it has a much better Web Management interface.

FI8921W and FI8910W are similar from the design point of view:

Foscam FI8910w or FI8921w
Foscam FI8910w or FI8921w

Remarks:

  • All those camera have IR Cut which is highly improving the quality of the image 🙂
  • They all have a CMOS censor, which is not as good as a CCD sensor 🙁
  • FI8918W is not reported to be as good as the FI8910W, especially because of the lack of IR Cut (the image looks grey compare to FI8910W). So I won’t go for that one. However the FI8918W is confirmed to have settings to prevent the camera to go back to its “center” location after a power reset. Without such a feature, most IP cameras point at the ceiling after a reset. This must be checked regarding FI9821W and FI9826W 🙁
  • MJPEG is reported to be a preferable format as far as movement detection as to be made by the Synology. But H.264 (which is a compressed video format) is for sure preferred to reduce bandwidth with such HD camera. Mandatory to access the camera from a mobile device!
  • FI9826W has 2 streams, while FI9821W has 3 and FI8910W as only one. Each stream can be configured with a distinct format ! 🙂

I found the best prices on www.redcoon.nl,fr and de.

EDIT 16/11/2013 Et voilà: my wife offered two similar IP camera for “Saint-Nicolas” (we traditionally celebrate that Saint by offering gifts to the “kids” 🙂 It is still more popular than Santa Claus, here in Belgium).

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As the FI9826W is currently too expensive for my purpose, I bought two FI8910W.

  • Very easy to setup if you know that the passwords and the usernames may not be longer than 12 characters.
  • If you set an admin’s password longer than 12 characters, you have to reset the cam. Press with a round pin in the reset hole at the bottom of the cam for more than 15 sec.
  • I did immediately upgrade both the firmware and only next the Web UI while connected via RJ45 (Never do it via WiFi, and never the Web Ui first !!!). Worked like a charm.
  • One of the two cams was providing images with a really poor quality!!! But I simply had to turn the ring around the lens to adequately set the focus. The focus changes as one screws/unscrews the ring.
  • After a reboot, the cams are always pointing up at the ceiling. This can be disable via the “Device Management” page > PT Settings, “Disable preset” = checked, “Go to center on boot” = unchecked.
  • In that pane, I also set the “PT Speed” on 7 to get a more precise traveling.
  • When I enable the audio, the image is freezing in “Server Push mode” and the sound is delayed a lot . It’s ok in “ActiveX Mode”.
  • The sound is horribly crackling ?! The crackly seems to be due to interference between the device and the speaker. If I remove the WiFi antenna, the crackling is nearly gone. Moving the network cable or the power cable also impact the crackling ?!
  • There is no support to change the Fps in “Server Push mode”. It’s however available in “ActiveX Mode”
  • The colors of the image appeared a bit better on one camera than on the other one ?! The colors are improved when the IR-Cut filter is on and this filter does not seems to be enabled/disabled when clicking on the related button in the web UI.
  • IE 10 has been crashing several times when I was using the “ActiveX mode”, trying to change various settings. This instability is a common issue compared to the “Server Push mode”…

The cheapest licenses to add one camera into Synology Surveillance Station are sold by “IooMobile” on eBay. They sent me the license key immediately by email (on my explicit request) and I got the licence card a few weeks later (from Honk-Kong to Belgium).

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