Customer Reviews

Axis 207MW Network Camera Network Camera- Wireless Megapixel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Was looking for a camera to monitor my puppy at home, while I was at work. I was looking for a wireless network camera, so that I can use the camera for other reasons if needed around the house. I was told that the wireless versions were a bit more expensive, and with network cameras quality improves with higher priced cameras. After looking around, I initially tried the Panasonic BCL30 for about 3 weeks. I was initially impressed, but never got that crystal clear quality. I could see my puppy, and what she was doing, but it was never clear. Therefore I decided to return it and try the Axis brand. After all they have a reputation of being used in homes, stores, malls, hotels. But they also range from low end to very high end. The Axis 207MW is about $75 more than the panasonic, but the difference is breathtaking. The images are crisp, clear, and extremely detailed. Though it does not have the Pan/Scan feature of the panasonic, this camera was far an away better in terms of image quality. Setup was also easy. It does require a PC for initial setup. I have a Mac but was able to set it up using Parallels (mac users know this). I am planning to buy more of these cameras to set it around my house, for home security purposes. The quality is amazingly clear, and if someone does break in, then I will have a chance get a detailed shot of the intruder. The camera does have motion setup which can be setup to email snap shots of motion, or upload motion video to a server. The web interface is also a breeze. My family also watch my dog over the internet and also have made comments on how surprisingly clear the picture was. All in all, though a bit overpriced a great product, and I plan on buying a few more. To sum it up, the difference between this camera and the Panasonic BL C-30 is like AM Radio to CD.

The Axis 207MW is a very fine device: the optical quality is good, and the unusually high resolution gives a clear, broad field of view. The camera performs well in low light. It may have problems when the lighting contrast (exposure latitude) is too great; but I have encountered that only when trying to view outdoors scenes at certain times of day. This camera can be used through a window, but it is really meant for indoor use. The instructions say that direct sunlight will damage the sensor, so for outdoor scenes, one should arrange for a window with a north view.

The Axis cameras are the most suitable ones for Mac users. The 207 series is compatible with Bonjour, which means that the camera will instantly work on your LAN. Following directions, hook up with Cat5/6 cable, go to Safari, and open Bonjour. From there you can make all the necessary set-up adjustments, including for wireless local and Internet use. I have both my Axis 207AWs programmed to be accessible remotely over the Internet. That requires access to the router for port-forwarding, but the Axis side of the set-up is easy, the directions are good, and the tech support is excellent. Use is comfortable, and the set-up options very clear yet versatile, when compared with other cameras I have used.

I regard the Axis 207MW as a high quality product, outclassing its competition.

Initially, I loved this camera; however, after owning it a few weeks, I'm not as enthused.

Issues:
- Emailing motion detected videos doesn't support modern secure email servers like gmail.
- Wifi seems to only work for a few days at a time. I've had to plug into ethernet to keep it running long term.
- Fish eye effect is very pronounced. Yeah, you get a better field of view but even objects in middle are warped. Not unreasonable, but you should expect it.
- If you choose a higher image quality, you get really bad motion blurring... basically the still background looks great, but everything else sucks. Not a huge deal, but I read the raves about image quality so I purchased it... and quality is only great if you compromise other things.
- 1 out of 10 mpeg4 videos for motion detection just won't play because they are corrupt according to Quicktime.
- I tried HTTPS sending since secure gmail wasn't supported, but it didn't work because the device only support http 1.0. Most services require the HOST: field (not supported by http 1.0).

This webcam isn't bad, but it's in an odd market position. It's not exactly on the easy-to-use side, but if you want optimal control and video quality *at the same price as this device*, you should jet an Asus EEE box, slap a nice Logitech webcam on it and install motion detection software. EEE box only draws 17watts of power and can do things beside waiting for movement when you're on vacation.

So, I have been evaluating this camera for a week now and related Axis software. The only issue I have run into so far is this recovery problem over a wireless network. Unfortunately its a killer for the product. Rebooting my 2wire modem hangs the 207 camera, which requires a power cycle to recover. If you are planning to remotely manage these cameras, they must be reliable and never hang, no matter what! In my case, no one is at the property to cycle power on a hung camera... so monitoring is dead until the next visit to the property. This is unacceptable in my opinion. Its very unfortunate, since I like the Axis software and the camera quality. The support channel over the web at Axis is weak as well. You get one question answered per day, which would make a 20 minute telephone conversation 20 days long. I don't understand why you can't get phone support, it would be much much faster. In any case, I would not recommend buying this product if you are planning to run with a wireless 2wire modem. I am sending this and a 211w back to Axis.

I own two 207MW and have used them for about a year. Video image with HD like format is good. Some bowing near top/bottom of image due to wide angle lens, this does not bother me. WiFi connection was easy to setup. For video streaming it is imperative to have a strong signal for a reliable connection (signal strength meter built into firmware setup). Using WiFi, frame rate at Hi-Res is only 3-4 FPS. With Ethernet cable connection FPS jumps to 20-30 FPS. One of these cameras is mounted in a covered unheated porch in northern NY state overlooking a lake. The temperature has been as low as -25 F (-31 C) with consistent temps around 5 F (-15 C) with no ill effects on the camera (no frame drops or image/color corruption, WiFi works as well, focus maintained). I mention this because the lowest rated temp (data sheet) for the 207MW is only 41 F (5 C). This camera is the next step above the 640x480 standard image size. For all the features, image resolution choices, and WiFi capabilities bundled into a small package, it is a good buy.
Axis has an excellent camera demo page, go see the images for yourself:
Amazon does not allow links so go to the Axis home page and add /camerademo.

I purchased this camera with the intention of monitoring my house while away. Wireless was important since I did not wish to run extra cables to the location. While the camera did 'work', it was consistently for only a short period of time before it would consistently drop the connection with the router. Sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes a few hours. I am familar with routing, port numbers and such which by the way for a novice can be quite overwhelming. I also have a older wired ethernet Axis ip camera which throughout the years has worked flawlessly. But this one is a dud. Other reviews suggested that it does work when wired to the ethernet connection. But that of course defeats the extra spent for wireless capability.

This is a great product, but it can be difficult to get working unless you have an engineering or computer science degree. This is a product made by engineers for other engineers and IT pros. If you are experienced with computers, the web, networking, protocols, codecs, and IP addresses, then this is a fun product. The image quality is "good" - it's not HD quality video, but it's better than the average webcam.

Out of the box. Camera comes with power cable/adapter, extension cord, mounting bracket, and a plastic C-clamp for attaching to furniture. I was surprised that it did not come with an Ethernet cable. Given the price of this camera relative to my perceived value of cogs inside it, it seems like Axis is being a little cheap in not supplying the network cable, which is rather critical in getting it setup.

I started out by plugging both the camera and my Vista laptop into the hub in the back of my Linksys router. The instructions indicate that the first step was to use their software (or "arp -s" from the command line) to assign it an IP address. Neither the tools on the CD-ROM or arp could successfully discover the camera or assign it an IP address. After 30 minutes of fiddling around with all this and trying everything, I discovered that the camera was able to obtain a valid IP address via the router's DHCP service. I wouldn't have been able to discover this unless my router's web page config (Linksys box running Tomato firmware) showed the list of all nodes on the network.
Once I had the IP address, I was able to bring up the camera's webpage. It prompted me to install an ActiveX control so the video could be seen. This was also troublesome. The ActiveX control it installed (from the camera's web server) wouldn't work. Every refresh of the page resulted in me getting re-prompted to install the same ActiveX control. I went to Axis.com to download the latest version of this control. After I installed the newer version, all was well. I was able to see my camera's video stream on the web page!

It wasn't too long before I got the camera working over wifi, and configuring the port forwarding on my router so that it could be accessed over the internet. Not all the protocol/client configurations for the camera work reliably because of NAT traversal issues, but if you know what you are doing, you can make it work reliably for your needs.
I did a deep-dive of figuring out what else the camera can do. I'll spare the details, but it was all very geeky stuff including using Wireshark to assess the protocols used, analyzing the HTML source to understand how various video web controls worked, telneting to the camera to get a linux shell prompt, etc...

While I really enjoy this camera, I have only scratched the surface of how to make the most use of it. I recommend exploring all the camera settings in addition to all the available software from the Axis website.

This camera will work one day and then flake the next. The picture will skew in such a way that the image looks to be warped and then it will degrade to something akin to a green and yellow mess that just randomly changes shape. In short: useless.

I am running a basic configuration, no special tweaks. A complete reset of defaults/reboots, etc. will not return it to service. The web server is running fine, just the picture is bad. I am a software developer using this for product development and am disappointed for sure.

I will return this for RMA. I noticed something funky about the product on the AXIS website: all of their cameras have three year warranties except this one and two others: the 206 and M10xx series.

So in short, Axis will provide a three year warranty on every product but three. I would consider these three to be the bad products they expect to fail and therefore we should not buy. Warranty list here: www.axis.com/warranty/nwvideo.htm .

Axis has a great reputation in general but their actions here disappoint. I expect to get a bad unit from a good company now and then (stuff happens in transit) but to see them create a special (shorter) exemption to their warranty for this camera tells me they know it is bad and are selling it anyway. And for the record, I bought mine for [...] and see it over [...] today.

I have had this camera for more than a year and I would never recommend it to a person who has very little knowledge of a computer/network/internet structure. Axis' support is not consistent, it depends on who answers the phone: some people are very knowledgeable and really try to help you, while others either don't know all the features that well or just don't feel like dealing with a regular consumer. Axis is a big company, but it doesn't provide a great support for a home consumer who has a couple of cameras and no IT knowledge.

First of all, I didn't have any problems running it wirelessly (Motorola SBG900), but at the end I connected it to one of our CAT5 outlets, so I don't steal all internet bandwidth from my wireless network while running this camera on its highest resolution.

I had several problems with Axis 207MW starting from getting it online, (external access), and ending with non-working email notifications. Every time I addressed camera's manual or online FAQ section, I would realize that there was not enough information. Calling Axis support, waiting on hold, explaining every little thing, confirming your set up and trying to figure out why something doesn't work is a very tedious thing to do. Their email support was even less useful (at least in my case).

I spent hours trying to set up an email notification feature. I got conflicting messages from Axis support: some agents were stating that this camera should work with Yahoo and Hotmail SMTPs while other told me that it would not. I still don't know what the case is because I found out that my ISP blocks many ports, including port 25, so I couldn't send an outgoing email using Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail SMTP - I had to use Cox's email address for that purpose. (I also tried to change a default SMTP port to one, which is not blocked by my ISP, but I couldn't make it work with Axis anyway.) Well, at the end I get daily motion notifications on my yahoo account without any problems (sent from my Cox email), but I think I got a couple of gray hairs during this set-up process ))

The software provided with this camera is good, but you can use it for free only if you have 1 camera. If you have more than one camera, including any USB cameras you may have set up for monitoring, you will have to pay a lot of money for Axis' software. I found an easy solution: I bought Blue Iris software, which is very easy to use and allows you to run several cameras at the same time utilizing motion sensing capabilities. I evaluated many web monitoring programs before I ended up buying Blue Iris.

The picture quality is great, you won't find anything better in this price range with so many features supported, but if you're not willing to deal with all technical problems, which may arise if you try to make the most of Axis 207MW, do not buy it.

Good camera for the money. The wireless didn't work with my home N system (the access point was a Linksys WRT160N) but worked fine with the SonicWall TZ 190 it was actually meant to work with. The feature set is great. It will upload to FTP, email, HTTP, and has notification options for just signaling motion. Setup is either via the simple interface, which may still be a little complicated for neophytes, or the advanced which is what I expected from Axis.

The bad: Motion detection is easily set off by lighting changes or clouds going by. The low light performance in, unsurprisingly, poor. It has a habit of not uploading video sometimes (if it was too long or the audio failed to encode) and uploads what amounts to the error document from the failure. Finally, the frame rate in the mega pixel range is no where near what they claim. 1-2FPS is all you'll get in the uploaded file.

Once you get it setup, it's great. Getting it there might take a bit more that you expect. Axis should look into some sort negation of overall light changes so that you don't get video saved because of lights being dimmed.