Foscam FI9828P

The camera itself offers value for money. The picture is good, the performance of the camera is also good. In the end, the camera also works as it should and is stable therein. However, there are a few drawbacks that I think could be improved.

• The WiFi antenna is rigid and static. The antenna is not rotatable or flexible/flexible in design. If you want to place the camera under a roof, for example, you must take into account that the camera must be placed lower than if the antenna is on the side or bottom. By the way, I solved this by drilling a new hole in the metal of the camera base and mounting the Wi-Fi antenna on the side myself. This in itself is easy to do.
• The wiring harness has a number of thick connectors, eg for the LAN connection. This presents a problem if you want to run the cable (for the current/voltage) through a wall as quickly as possible. It is difficult to drill a hole in the wall of 3cm2. The only solution is therefore to mount a (waterproof) cable box on the wall, in which the cable harness is concealed. This then brings with it a 2nd problem; the junction box must be large enough and a standard (Attema) junction box at the hardware store is much too small, so you must purchase an industrial junction box that is larger and suitable for outdoor use. The camera's AC adapter is also quite large, compared to other universal 12v/2000mA adapters. A good cable box is available for about 16,- at an electrical specialist store/web shop.
• Software installation is also a point; the supplied software contains a search IP tool to find the camera, but that does not work for me, it does not find the camera. I downloaded another (free) IP search tool from the internet that searches for devices and it worked for me. Getting everything up and running via WiFi takes an hour in itself (so apart from the hardware installation) and then I'm still quite adept at it myself, I can well imagine that this is far from plug & play for computer laymen. and experiencing many problems with it.
• To insert an SD card, the camera must be disassembled. The SD card slot is located on the printed circuit board of the camera. In itself not difficult to do, but clumsy and cumbersome and, again, for laymen, perhaps frightening to do.
• with night vision the red lights are to see the camera in the dark, I don't know if this is also the case with other brands of cameras, but I would prefer to observe unobtrusively with the camera, but with the red night light leds you can see this in the dark yes.

Apart from these negatives, which actually point more to a product design that was not quite well thought out, I have to say that the camera works well and properly in the end. It also works continuously stable, no failure or anything like that. The material the camera is made of is also sufficiently robust, no plastic or anything like that. In summary, I think it's an ideal and good camera for this price range with a few drawbacks, for which there are solutions.

Unfortunately, the camera lens has given up to 25 days, the day mode color is pink instead of normal colors (see image), Cool blue does not want to have it replaced by a new one, but only offer it for repair!! less and too bad for Cool blue!! A minus, I think other services are perfect!

Nice camera that does its job well, even at night. Although you do have to play with the settings to tune it all. Large visual and IR range, PT speeds adjustable, zooming is a bit slow. Has audio and alarm trigger functions, which unfortunately I haven't been able to test yet. The first copy always had a good & fast connection to the WiFi, but I couldn't get it open to put in an SD card. Continuous recording to the NAS should work, but I haven't been able to realize that because it could "only go to a directory on the local PC". Improvement point Inserting an SD card went well with the replacement copy, although the insertion point was difficult: behind the camera, which has to be completely removed from the housing. The lock function of the holder does not work optimally, so I had to secure the card with a small piece of tape. Improvement point WiFi connection of copy 2 is not particularly stable, it could be my WiFi so I'm going to try to install a fixed cable to it. Is also safer.

The software is clear and works almost perfectly well. Some help texts on the various menus and an intermediate step that asks for confirmation before exiting an item without saving the changes would be useful.

Foscam's support is rather reserved. Foscam.com and Shenzeng (the manufacturer) don't put much effort into it. Foscam.NL wants to, but is clearly underhuman. More users could post their experiences and knowledge on the forum. Everyone benefits from that.

Nothing but praise for Coolblue. Respond promptly and empathize with the problem. Don't worry about swapping either.

In short, I will gain a lot of user experience. For now I am satisfied.