Foscam FI8905W Outdoor Wireless Wired IP Network Camera Night Vision and 6mm Lens - Reviews & Price Comparison

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Foscam FI8905W Outdoor Wireless/Wired
IP/Network Camera with 30 Meter Night Vision
and 6mm Lens (22° Viewing Angle) - Reviews &
Price Comparison
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Average customer review:
(455 customer reviews)
Product Description
The Foscam FI8905 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 FI8905 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 FI8905W IP camera can reach up to 30
meters of visibility in absolute darkness with 60 infrared LED's.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #423 in Camera & Photo
Color: silver
Brand: Foscam
Model: FI8905W

Dimensions: 4.06" h x 3.86" w x 7.09" l, 2.10 pounds
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 30 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
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
182 of 186 people found the following review helpful.
5 stars on everything but user friendliness
By Eric Ripley
First off. I purchased one of these cameras to make sure it meet my needs
before getting another and then finally 4 more. I have a total of 6 cameras
protecting my property and am using the blueiris software to record and
manage the cameras. It is the best software but this review is not for the
software ,which is excellent, but for the camera.
Camera construction:
Robust. Perfect for outdoors. In fact all my cameras are outdoors but under
overhanging eves. The shell is waterproof and cord out of the camera is
waterproof as well.
Wiring the cameras:
These are wireless cameras but i will inform you that you will have to run a
wire of some sort as these cameras will need wired power. so i went ahead
and wired the cameras via ethernet as well since i had to run power. one
suggestion is you can use what i did and run cat6 for the ethernet and
POWER. that is if you are technically inclined. I used 4 wires for the
ethernet (orange, orange white, green, green white) and the blue and blue
white for power and the brown and brown white for ground. I physically cut
the power cord that comes with the cameras in half and soldered one end to

the ethernet cable extra wires and the other end. the cameras are really low
wattage so you can easily get away with this. I ran 40 feet of cable this way
and the cameras work fine.
Software on the cameras:
If you get a real foscam then the software built in to the cameras is very good
and will do everything you want to do except record video stream. The
cameras will do time delay snapshots but for advanced features such as
stream captures etc i recommend blue iris software. Make sure you get real
foscams as there are unofficial clones with a different interface.
The camera picture quality:
Here is where the camera is both a blessing and a curse. Curse first. The
cameras during the daytime show everything as washed out. Grass is white
and not green. Trees are a purple hue. But you can see and makeout
everything fine. At night everything is of course white as well but the camera
has extremely good night vision. The infrared LEDS are so good that if you
switch out lenses to a smaller focal you will get a "hot spot" or "ghost ring" of
overbright led power. there is a solution for this, see the next section on
lenses. Blessing, the camera does night vision perfect and daytime good.
what other camera for 100$ has this cameras abilities and build quality?
Can you get a better quality camera for daytime..YES. This washed out look
is inherent to any IR cameras as the way the infrared filters work. So a
camera that doesnt have night vision will look very good during the day but
dont let that fool you that this is an inferior camera. Do robbers come during
the day? Some do i guess.
Lenses:
The 12mm lense is unusable for me. the quality of the lense is excellent but
12mm shows you a 10 foot by 10 foot area 100 feet down the block. Not good
for home surveillance. But good for a radio tower or traffic camera.
You can use CCTV lenses. they just unscrew. lenses are cheap on amazon or
ebay. Figure out the focal length you need using online calculator. Im using 1
8mm lense 2 6mm lenses, and 3 2.8mm lenses.
To avoid the ghosting from the overbright LEDs when using smaller
lenses....use wax paper.yes the stuff you cook with. cut a ring out that fits
over the leds and cut the center section out for the lense and install behind
the glass. this filters the infrared, or blurs it if you will, and produces a good
night vision without the hotspot.
Networking setup:
The camera is a nightmare. im a IT guy and hate to admit i had a bit of

trouble with it. I have it using wired ethernet with wireless as a backup. Im
using gmx for my email setup as that provider works with the foscam
software for email. I have my cameras accessible over the internet. i suggest
you get one camera, dont mount it and configure it in front of your
computer and test to make sure its working on your network before
mounting it. once you figure out how to network one of the cameras the
others are a simple cut and paste and change a few settings such as IP
address if you use a static like i did.
Summary:
Almost all the cameras shortcomings can be overcome. the cost of the
camera is exceptional for what you get. the networking setup is where most
people fail the camera or give it low reviews. its not really the fact that the
camera is the problem. there is just alot of configuring to do...email alerts,
ftp, web access, wired dhcp static or dynamic, wireless setup and
security...etc.
These cameras are alot of bang for the buck. Dont regret my purchases 1%.
No auto gain or exposure
By Mokona
Watch Video Here:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RROY7BRNWC39A (for this video review,
the USB webcam is on the Left and the Foscam is on the right)
I have had this camera for a few months now, early on, I noticed that there
was no auto gain or exposure. (it somewhat has it but there is a but that
keeps it from working, (if you change the modes, eg from outdoor mode to
50Hz mode then back to auto mode, the auto gain kicks in for about 5
seconds then stops working)
I have contacted the company and they said they are working on a firmware
update to fix this issue. then upon checking on forums, users basically said
forget waiting on a firmware update as they have been saying that for over 3
years now and have never released an update for this issue.
For a rundown on the issues of this camera:
1, Lens is not IR corrected so you will get a black and white image outdoors
when ever sunlight is present. (color is fine indoors)
2, No autogain or exposure. This means when ever there is a slight change in

the light levels outside, your camera image will either become completely
white (overexposed) or black (underexposed), this means you have to
constantly monitor it and manually adjust the exposure by switching modes
(the software controls for brightness and contrast are post processing so
they do not work when the image is over or under exposed)
3, Email notifications use very old standards so most modern email services
will not support it. (I had to create an email at gmx.com in order to get email
notifications working)
4, While the camera is advertised as 15FPS, even in a bright day, I have
never gotten over 8FPS and at night, the framerate drops to 2-3 FPS (the
firmware does not allow for adjusting the sensor sensitivity so the way it
increases exposure is by lowering the shutter speed.
5, The bolt around the antenna jack was not tightened properly, most users
who reported failures, had them because water got into the bolt around the
antenna jack when the camera was place outdoors. To fix this, you need to
double check that all screws nuts and bolts are tight and if any are loose,
then tighten them.
6, While the camera advertises multiple users but it is software crippled to
make this an avoidable experience for users. It seems that the company has
plans or are already releasing a higher end line of camera that will have
more or less the same hardware, so these cameras are software crippled. By
this I mean, if more than 1 user connects to the camera, the framerate is
reduced by about 75% regardless of if that user is actually requesting data (if
you have any DOS tools that can create a pending connection then you
connect to the video stream with it but not actually use any bandwidth, the
famerate drops.
7, The camera uses a CMOS sensor instead of a CCD, this causes a video
problem known as rolling shutter. this means moving objects will appear
stretched or slanted as the image is updated by rows instead of all at once
like in a CCD
If you have a computer near where you want to monitor, I recommend
getting an old webcam and taping it to the window, you will get better
picture quality and a higher FPS since even the cheapest webcams have auto
gain and exposure which actually prioritize motion so the frame rate is not
reduced until max sensor sensitivity is reached.

8, The stock 12mm lens is crap, it is only useful for long range (well over 100
feet (beyond the range of the IR LED's, I had to get a 4mm lens for mine It
also did not have a IR cut filter as the ones with them cost 3 times as much,
and I only had $4 left in my paypal.
9, The camera has really bad dynamic range, meaning if you are monitoring
a location where there if anything that can be considered a shadow, it shows
up almost completely black, and if you aim the camera to the shadow then
do the mode switch trick to get it exposed, then the non shadow areas are
completely white. The camera lacks the ability to average the exposure to
handle both the shadow and highlight.
Pros:
1, The camera allows for you to connect it over WiFi or Ethernet, so it can be
mounted almost anywhere there's a power outlet near by.
2, It works great for bring mounted at a front door to monitor for package
deliveries (this has fixed the problem I had where amazon would use USPS
to deliver packages and USPS will just leave the package outside, and those
people who walk around sticking those ads on your door will help them self
to any packages laying by the door. (I lost a few books and electronics this
way)
Additional notes
Cameras with IR light will not work behind a window if you plan to use the
IR lights (the glass of the window will reflect the light back at the camera
and you will get a completely white image).
Great product - setup maybe not for the average computer
user
Byschmendrick
State of the art hardware as well as software.
Great pictures, long range with Auto-Infrared at night.
Although the English in the manual is not the best, you definitely will be
able to set up the camera, IF YOU FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS STEP BY
STEP.
Internet access gets more complicated for the average user, since one has to
do "port-forwarding".

I recommend [...], click on your router and follow the steps. SHOULD be
easy.
I also have the FI8918W Foscam FI8918W Wireless/Wired Pan & Tilt IP
Camera with 8 Meter Night Vision and 3.6mm Lens (67° Viewing Angle) for
indoors.
I installed IP Cam Viewer Lite ([...]) on my Sprint EVO 4G, easy setup; now I
am able to monitor both cameras on my EVO.
In summary:
This camera as well as the FI8918W are highly recommended for the
computer savvy. The average computer user should consider asking the
neighbor's Computer Wiz Kid for help.
See all 455 customer reviews...

Foscam FI8905W Outdoor Wireless Wired IP Network Camera Night Vision and 6mm Lens - Reviews & Price Comparison

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Foscam FI8905W Outdoor Wireless Wired IP Network Camera Night Vision and 6mm Lens - Reviews & Price Comparison