Customer Reviews

PLANEX CS-W04G Wired/Wireless Network Camera

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

 

 

Length:: 1:42 Mins

Because of the little product details offered on this page, I was initially hesitant, but the low price of $52 for a wireless IP camera was too irresistable. I'm glad I purchased it. My review would be based on comparison with a few other brands of IP cams that I have used in the past few years.

1. Wireless - it is much stronger than all my other brands. It reaches my router which is about 60 ft at the other end of the house, and it has to go thru 6 walls. It provides wireless security WEP and WPA2. When replugged into the power outlet, give it about a minute, and it will automatically connect with the router.

2. It was a breeze to set this cam up by using the included CD, much easier than the Panasonic or Asante Voyager.

3. Very simple to set it to send you snapshots by email when triggered by motion.Also can send video clips triggered by motion by FTP to your website or by email, but I haven't tried configuring to send video as I don't need it. You can record videos at the console while watching live action at the cam.

4. Motion Sensor page - very simplistic compared with the more expensive brands that give two or three zones for you to set up different degree of sensitivity. This Planex cam provides only one zone, but this is sufficient for my need.

5. It allows you to set to "outdoor" mode, which avoids the wash-out look when facing a sunny street. Indoors at 60Hz or night at 50Hz which brightens up when using indoors. Pointing this cam outdoors at night will be just a black screen unless you have street lights, or headlights of vehicles rolling past your screen. This cam is good only for indoors with daylight or some dim light, but not for outside night view without street lighting. Perfect for a nanny cam. However, if you run more than one cam simultaneously, you will need to subscribe for a stronger broadband.

6. The cam gets warmer than my other brands, but the top and bottom have vents. The casing is slightly bigger than all my other brands.

7. My only complaint is that the stand should be a quarter inch higher as the power plugs into the slot under the cam, and the plug makes it hard for the cam to face horizontal, but if you tilt the cam slightly upwards, then the plug would not jut into the surface.

8. I have made a demo clip with this cam for this review, showing a park on a very windy sunny day. You will notice the dramatic change in brightness on the grass as the clouds move quickly. This video was made in "outdoor" mode.

Honestly, I was a bit nervous after I ordered this product. I never heard of Planex and of course it is not a familiar name with IT products. I considered cancelling my order but it was too late. The shipper would not allow it as they were processing the order. So I took the chance and thought at $51.99, I could return it or toss it and take a beating from my wife for wasting money.
When the product arrived, the first thing I noticed was the great packaging. Something you would expect from the bigger name companies. I thoroughly read the instructions and commenced installing/setup. Okay that was easy. It connected and worked immediately with my LAN. I then started to configure the wireless connection and that was pretty easy as well especially for a person that does not do this kind of stuff. I use my Network Camera for security purposes and to catch that dog and his owner that leaves surprises on my front lawn. It is setup capturing images from inside my front window. Image quality is very good during the daytime but a little grainy at night and that was expected. Setting up the recording schedule is very easy as well as playback. Installation, setup, and configuration was all easy to do. Quality is great. I rate this product an excellent value and at $51.99 + Free Shipping, I would defintely order more.

This is one of the cheapest WiFi cameras I've found. Once you get it setup it works pretty well. Getting it setup is the hard part. The setup software only works on Windows (and I'm a Mac user). I had to borrow a laptop to get the camera up and running on my network. Even after you set it up, you can't view the images with a Mac. You can configure the camera, just not view it.

I'm using the camera [...]. I set the camera to FTP images once an hour and when it detects motion. This gets around the Mac problem in that I view all the images on the [...] site instead of going directly to the camera.

I own two other brands of IP cameras, the Wansview NC541/W and Rosewill RXS-3211. The Rosewill is now discontinued but is near identical to the Planex CS-TX04F which is the wired version of this camera. All have strengths and weaknesses and depending on your application those variables could make or break your final opinion of the many sub $100 cameras on the market. If you do any in-depth research you'll find that most of these cameras share the same internal hardware, software and web interface but re-branding is the only difference. This includes more expensive name brand versions. The Planex CS-W04G is a clone of the EDIMAX IC-1510Wg...or vise-versa, firmware is interchangeable with both, I flashed my CS-W04G with the IC-1510Wg firmware to give it Firefox support.

First a comment about my overall rating of 3 stars. I deducted one due to the seller (Vocalsurf) who apparently sent me a returned or open box item. The box seal was broken, the CD sleeve was man-handled, no twist ties on the CAT5 cable, the power cord was wrapped around the adapter about 12 times and the camera wasn't in a protective sleeve. At $45 I wasn't going through the hassle of a return unless it was defective so the first thing I did was a factory reset, thankfully and so far it's working as expected.

The biggest advantage of the Planex W04G over the Rosewill RXS-3211 is obviously the wireless feature, and it works well. I've tested it about 40-50 feet away from my Linksys WRT54G router and still have 80% signal quality. Second is the manual focus ring, the Rosewill is fixed focus and could use some tweaking but there's no way to correct this. Both share the same 4.8mm / F1.8 lens so field of view is pretty limited unless you can mount it far from your subject. Variation in light is handled nearly identical with settings of dark, normal and bright on the Rosewill and 50Hz, 60Hz and outdoor for the Planex. Due to no IR illumination you're obviously not going to see anything in the dark, and dusk daylight or indoor artificial lighting produces off color, grainy images. You need bright or moderately bright lighting for these cameras. Both have the feature to disable the front LED lights but this is where the Planex fails. Once disabled it only turns off the WAN and WiFi LEDs yet leaves the brilliant blue power LED on. Kind of pointless if you ask me, the Rosewill disables all LEDs. Be sure to have a small piece of electrical tape handy to cover it unless you want to burn a hole in your retina or need to conceal the camera. The Rosewill has three zones of motion detection whereas the Planex has only one, adjustable sensitivity and seconds before next motion event are the same with email and FTP snapshots. Both have multiple user log-ins, DDNS and bare bones scheduling support. The Planex doesn't support SSL so snapshots to Gmail accounts won't work, this can be a deal breaker for some. The mount supplied for the Planex is about 1 inch too short for both ceiling or shelf applications, the antenna gets in the way of the ceiling or the power plug on the bottom making a slight upward tilt of the camera necessary.

So how does the Planex CS-W04G compare to the Wansview NC541/W or similar Foscam type IP cameras? I would say it depends on your situation, how much you want to spend and how you plan on using it. The Wansview has pan/tilt control, IR illumination, two way audio, a much wider angle lens, SSL support and daily/weekly scheduling of motion detection (but only one zone) and a better more versatile mount. The Wansview/Foscam model cameras have the same 640x480 resolution of the Planex but just slightly sharper image quality with up to 30fps MJPEG streams, email and FTP snapshots, DDNS support and multiple user accounts - yet the Wansview/Foscam cameras will set you back anywhere from $20 to $50 more then the Planex. Ideally I think the Planex would be best suited for a doorway, a pet or nanny cam, or a web cam facing out a window. It's not ideal for under lit rooms or areas that have dramatic changes in lighting.

I'd like to comment on the software that's supplied with ALL of these Chinese import IP cameras. Typically they're proprietary to the brand, bloated, work poorly, are a resource hog and give the impression to the end user that it's the only option to enhanced motion detection and video recording. Typically most everyone will be satisfied with the email and FTP snapshot feature and viewing the cam through a browser, but if you need versatility there are better and free choices. If you use Windows do a web search for MJPEG Surveillance. This software is free, very small, uses little RAM and system resources, supports nearly unlimited IP cameras and has a user configurable motion detection grid. To configure a connection to the Planex CS-W04G MJPEG stream with MJPEG Surveillance use the following example...([...]) Where "user" is use admin or any other user account you may have set on the camera. "Password" is obviously the password for that account. "192.168.1.1" is the IP address of the camera, hopefully you gave it a static address. "8080" is the web port, default is 80 but if you plan on accessing your camera outside of your home network you'll want to change it since most ISP's block port 80. My second choice for more advanced Windows users would be the excellent open source iSpy...again, search for it. iSpy has a plethora of advanced scheduling, recording and motion detection features, works with almost all IP cameras using similar configuration of the MJPEG stream above. It even has the ability to automagically upload surveillance footage to YouTube for archiving or remote viewing. Its' only drawback is the more cameras you add the more heavily it uses system resources. If you're a Linux user then I'm sure you're familiar with the superb, commercial grade Zoneminder software. If you don't like either of the free Windows software options I've read many positive reviews of the Blue Iris surveillance software. It's reported to be very user friendly, has excellent support but will set you back $30 for the LE version.

I purchased the PLANEX Wired/Wireless LAN-Compatible Network Camera CS-W04G not too long ago and it is a decent camera for the money. The wireless setup it has is fairly simple to sync and install. The software it has doesnt come with the "full" software it requires to completely run as advertised. First, you have to obtain and navigate through a decent amount of computer software in order to sync the wireless camera to your e-mail account. This is a fairly simple and understandable process; However, some settings would require a monthly fee from certain ISP.

After you setup the camera the quality is not as good as portrayed in the video. The footage quality is a good deal more grainy as well as the motion sensor settings need tweaking from the motion sensing setting in the program.

Overall this is a decent purchase for the price and would recomend it for pet watching or other misc purposes but not security (unreliable motion sensor + grainy footage = horribly detailed images at times).

I could live with the low maximum 640x480 resolution, I was fine with the manual focus, and the minimal security, but for only 2 days.

The camera stopped working properly after only 2 days, it would freeze and I'd have to press the reset before I could established a connection wirelessly. When connected to the camera the connection was intermittent before the connection and picture would freeze.

As for being "Designed in Japan" is meaningless if the product is poorly manufactured. It could be designed in Narnia for all I care.

I bought two, ones works fine, the other has connection problems over LAN port (Ethernet and/or WiFi)sometimes work sometimes not. The support is very poor, Planex could not send me a firmware for this camera, But surfing on Internet I founded a similar camera with its Firmware the EDIMAX IC1510. Planex recommended me not to install it, but they do not have a Firmware for thi's Product, That to me is amazing for a Tech companie. So they solution is that I should send them the camera again, but I do not live in USA and would come out much more expensive any shipment to USA and return me.

Great fit and finish for materials (included microfiber cloth). Relatively easy to setup and use. Relatively advanced and open network/communication capabilities. Extremely good price value. Average video quality to be expected at this price point. Highly recommended.

This camera work fine if your going to only use it indoors under normal lights. I have 6 of them, There is a setting like the other ip cams for 60hz 50hz and daylight. in the us you can leave it on 60hz indoors and it's works good.

Outside in daylight mode the picture is fine till it is night time. at night time when lights are on outside you can't see anything unless you switch the camera to 60hz. The auto iris doesn't work right on this camera. I have tried to get an answer on this from there tech support, but i only get pdf's from them talking about the daylight mode during the day and nothing about my problem of it not working at night without manually switching the camera. I have had these for about 4 weeks and the power supply has gone out on one of them and is being returned for a refund and i'll buy the trendnet camera's that do work right outside.

If you are planning to play with this product for fun - it's for you then.
It's not even remotely close for any serious business purpose.
Do not buy this IP camera for outdoor use. Video quality resolution max is 640x480 - it's not usable for 10+ feet capture.

FTP implementation is disappointing with pour security - no secure FTP protocol supported, which results in username and password transmitted in clear text which can be easily intercepted.
Management console access implemented with http protocol only - the same security issue as above for FTP protocol.

Digital zoom - better not to use it at all with 640x480 picture resolution.
They should not proudly advertise that this product was designed in Japan... in my opinion anyway.

It could be used for store security to capture close range motion with good lighting available, so it's not a total loss but still disappointing.