For the money, this is a great little system. Easy, out of the box setup, nothing to it. Video was surprisingly good. I checked it out on two different TV's. One is an older 36" CRT Panasonic, the other a 32" LCD Sharp. No interference from the interior of the home was detected. (You know, it transmits through walls, ect..) Got this to keep an eye on the teenagers still living at home. Man, they are going to think I have a 6th sense! The audio works great too. Wish I would have bought a larger multi-camera system. In fact I am considering that now for other projects. For under $40 bucks, I don't think you can go wrong. Don't expect Hi Def, but it really is quite good. Mini Wireless Color Camera with Microphone
I picked this unit after much research, for a home-made robot (class project). Here's the scoop:
For the price, it's fantastic!
Performance: Our best results, with a fresh battery, camera unit transmitted ~200' of open parking lot AND ~75' of industrial building w/ lots of flouro/wifi etc. with minimal interference. However, signal strength fell off with batt pwr. Unfortunately, we used a variety of 9Vs at various stages of use or I'd have a lifespan for you. Best guesstimate is minimum 30 minutes full strength from fresh batt.
We also played around with it indoors, with the AC adapters on both units.
Either way, you'll occasionally have to tweak the RX tuner for best reception if the camera is mobile, or the environment changes (body blocking the antenna of the Tx etc.) See that little knob by the Rx unit's antenna? That's the tuning knob.
How does it work?
Camera unit powered by AC adapter, or 9V battery (short life as expected) sends audio & video to receiver unit.
Receiver unit->RCA cables->TV/VCR/whatever (I used an old portable TV/VCR combo from a junk sale). No "Wifi" here.
If this thing had night-vision AND digital tuning it'd have 6 out of 5 stars. Speaking of IR, this camera will detect IR like most digi-cameras. The only test I managed to do before it's demise* was to point a TV remote at it in a sealed darkroom, and it did register the IR LED.
*The TX unit was smoke-checked by an idiot miswiring an improvised AC adapter after we lost the first one, but I'm definitely getting another.
I bought this setup for birding. Installation was a breeze. One bit of confusion was the manual which stated the power adapters for the camera and transmitter should not be interchanged and could damage the equipment if hooked up wrong; however, the adapters were identical. I installed everything and had it working in less than 10 minutes. There is some interference as others have pointed out, i.e., occasional lines and jitters, but all in all a very good color picture for the price. I do not see a problem with low light conditions - I have a robin who built a nest under my deck, and was hoping to watch the babies hatch. Today they did within half an hour of my installation of the camera. The camera is tucked up underneath the joists and there is no direct sunlight, yet the picture is clear and bright. This may not hold true for dusk, but for use in normal daylight, I'd highly recommend this system if you're on a tight budget. I couldn't ask for more considering cost/performance ratio.
This little camera works great for keeping an eye on things. A word of advice, be sure to set the channel on the camera so as to not interfere with any wifi network you are running. The switches are on the camera. two tiny white switches on the side of the camera, then adjust the reciever to that channel with the adjustment knob on the top. Once that was don, all of my wireless stuff was happy and working well.
Image with the advertisement shows a 9 volt battery adapter which was NOT included with the item, so NOT wireless as the (included) AC power adapter must always be connected. The description does not mention it, but the included instructions say the camera is not for outdoor mounting (but they offer a version that can be mounted outdoors and will work in day-night conditions). CAUTION: Make sure the correct AC power adapters are used as they are DIFFERENT, one is 5 volt (for the camera) and the other 8 volt (for the receiver).
We got this rather than spend $140+ on a baby monitor for our child. We always swore we'd never get a video monitor as it seemed like an invasion of our child's privacy. However, she is now 2 years and 3 months and we are in the process of transitioning from a crib to a bed, and we have quickly learned that we need to see what she's doing during nap times. We thought we'd try this out. Granted, it only broadcasts to one TV, but we mostly sit downstairs and fold laundry while the kiddo sleeps, so we just set the TV up (Picture in Picture) in our living room.
Pros:
- We were impressed with the small size of the camera.
- Field of View - For the most part, it captures most of our child's room. We have vaulted ceilings and placed the camera at the highest place (14 ft). From here, we can point it down and capture most of the room (room measures 16 X 14). If we had shorter ceilings, we probably wouldn't get a good areal shot.
- It was easy to set up. We had to buy a RF modulator since our TV has already used up all of the RCA inputs in the back.
- The picture is mostly clear as is the audio. There are a few interference issues (see the Cons section). Our daughter's room is upstairs and the TV we attached the receiver to is directly downstairs. In all, I'd say there's about 30 ft from transmitter to receiver. It seems to do ok transmitting through the floor/ceiling. I didn't test it to see how far I could go before the picture got bad.
- Doesn't affect our home phone (5.4 GHz) nor our Wireless Internet (ATT Uverse - whatever band they use). Cell phones didn't bother it either - even in WiFi mode.
Cons:
- This device does not like our microwave. I'm unsure if they are on the same circuit, but when the microwave runs we get lots of interference. This is a minor inconvenience though since we don't usually run the microwave for more than a few minutes. We could probably try an AC interference adapter, but we don't want to spend the money on something that isn't that big of a deal for us.
- The camera only tilts up and down. The arm the camera sits on does allow you to twist the camera, but the picture twists with it. What this means is that you can easily tilt up and down, but you can't go left to right when you're trying to set it up. In order to get the camera to look slightly left, I had to twist the camera mount. This means our picture isn't exactly level, but again, it doesn't bother us too much.
- Battery life is pitiful. I decided to try a 9 volt to see how long it would last. It was a matter of hours before our picture started degrading. Once I attached the AC adapter the fuzziness went away and the picture got much better. Don't get this for it's battery operation option; be prepared to always use the AD adapter.
In all, I'd recommend this. At least try it before you spend $140 on video baby monitors. Worst case scenario you return it and are out only the shipping.'
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