By Buck Dossey (Dallas, TX)
Admittedly, it took me a bit longer than I had hoped to get the wireless camera server working exactly the way I wanted it to. However, now that I have figured it out, it is absolutely MORE AMAZING than I had even hoped.
Installation was pretty easy, but what I didn't realize at first is that this camera doesn't need you to install software on a host computer on the network. It is completely independent from any host software, which makes it really, really cool. No bloatware here.
Just log into the camera's IP address (default user and pass is admin/admin), and start configuring. One of the great features of the camera is that it lets you draw red boxes on the viewing area to set as trigger areas for an event. If it detects motion, an event is triggered.
There are two types of events - FTP and email. That's right, this camera does off-premises data storage and communication, out of the box. I have a personal website hosted on Go-Daddy that I upload images from this security camera to, kind of as a historical record. It automatically categorizes the photos by date in a specified FTP directory \ date directory.
For the email event, it took me several hours to get it set up. If you're trying to set it up, save yourself some time and create a [...] email account - you'll need it. You need to know a little bit about outgoing SMTP servers, and if you've ever set up Outlook to connect to a personal domain's email, then you have enough of a skill set. One drawback is that it doesn't use SSL, so using Gmail or Yahoo! Mail's SMTP servers isn't in the question.
It took me a while, but check out [...] for an SMTP server that doesn't require SSL. This should be the answer you need to get emails sent to your personal email address.
All-in-all, this is a really, really powerful device. You don't need any other devices on your network other than your router/modem, which means that during power failures / resumes, the device will automatically boot back up and start working once it has power again (no babysitting a host PC). It's also really comfortable to know that anytime someone comes within the motion detection zone (configurable red boxes in the viewing area, mentioned above), I get a series of still photos within 15 seconds in my inbox, which my phone let's me know have just arrived. It's like paying someone to watch your home, that also emails you what they see when something changes. Really, really cool. Highly recommended.
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