Customer Reviews

Panasonic Wireless Network Camera and Pet Cam (BL-C20A)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Compact, very easy to set up and the image is sharp and clear. Free DDNS service makes this the best buy. I have another camera, Linksys, and I had to pay for this service. I defitely will drop it when it comes up for renewal. No more Linksys camera for me!

After a few days of use..I still love it! I just found out that I can access the camera with my Mac via Firefox browser. This alone beats all other cameras in the market! Set up the motion detector to email pictures is a breeze. You can also set the camera to periodically send a picture, motion or not. The only thing that you could say it is less than the Linksys is it could not send a video. Linksys video only lasts 30 seconds anyway. Highly recommended.

8/21/08: I have 2 of these cameras and the first one (3 yrs old) just failed. It is just not powered up doesn't matter how many times I tried. I guess it is expected. It has been reliably in service for 3 yrs. I will buy it again, when Amazon has a good deal.

The camera's software works flawlessly in Mac OS. I regularly access my camera via Safari web browser. This alone beats most other camera out there. You can get to it from either Windows or Mac. I set it up to email the jpeg to my Blackberry and view the picture there. Could not figure out how to do this on an iPod though.

3/20/09: When the 2nd camera failed, I thought the power supply was the culprit. I bought a $15 power supply from W**T and guess what? It works again. So I now both of my cameras work again! If your camera failed, likely it is the power supply!

Also, I can access my cameras from my iPod touch (live) using the supplied Safari browser when I have a wifi connection. COOL!!

I have 3 of these cameras, bought over the last two years. I also have a similar Axis model. I use the BL-C20A's ftp-on-motion feature and access them from a Mac wirelessly. At first I thought the Axis was superior, as it has better image quality and MPEG support. But it fails intermittently (needs rebooting) and I've never gotten its motion-detect to work with the right sensitivity. So I settled on the Panasonic and got 3. Unfortunately after about a year, each camera has failed completely -- now all 3! They just die with a flickering orange light or no light at all. Hard reset does nothing. I'm sending them back for repair, but given that all of them died I'm not sure they're worth repairing. Still, I know of no better option, so the BL-C20A may still be the best option at this price level.

[SEE COMMENT THREAD FOR USEFUL INFO]

This is a great camera. At first i had problems connecting it wirelessly but after working with a tech support rep from Panasonic we figure out that it was my "shared" network setting instead of "open". After he told me to change this voila! i was able to setup my three BL-C20 cameras and they are great!

This is a good camera, with good resolution and options. It works really great... As long as it's wired. The wireless feature just didn't work for me, the image kept freezing and I had to reset the camera everytime. I have tried it with 2 different routers so I guess that's not the problem. Anyway if this was the wired version (as I'm using it right now) I probably would have given it 5 stars. I spent a lot more money to get a wireless camera that doesn't work as expected.

I read all the reviews before I purchased this, and decided to get it. I was impressed. I read in the reviews that it was hard to connect wirelessly. I did have a problem doing it myself but I called the customer serice number, 800-211-PANA, and the tech had me configured in less than 5 minutes. It works great, the picture is super clear and bright. I am VERY happy with it!! I deducted one start just for the lack of wireless instructions. They should be more clear.

I bought the web cam just to try it and see how it worked. It does more than I thought it would. I just wanted a way to keep an eye on my cabin while I'm not there. To look in and make sure everything is ok, etc. The camera works great, and the free web site I can go to to see the cam from anywhere is cool. I didn't realize it had several modes though, but along with live video, you can also set 4 different timers, to either take a still at pre-set times, or to use a motion detector. If you use the timer, and set it for like once a day, you can then go into buffered images and push the "play" button, and it's like time laspse photography, which is very cool. I bought this as a gift for my wife, and she truely loves it, which is a bonus in itself.

For surveillance you still want better resolution to identity a suspect.

Also minus a couple points since configuration software and viewer is windows Internet Explorer specific.

Doesn't support WPA encryption. Didn't want to run unsecured for obvious reasons. However, if I used WEP, the rest of the network would capped at 56Mbps and need to be reconfigured. Why should the rest of the network be slowed down because of a camera?

Just purchased this camera. Set up was fast and easy in both wired and wirless mode as long as you read the instructions verbatim. Picture was very good with some resolution lost while zoomed. Nice features like motion detection with e-mail alerts. Very nice web interface with free URL. One minus is it only supports WEP encription. Overall a very good buy. I plan on buying several more. 4 stars

We purchased this camera last week so we could watch our new infant puppy when we're not at home. The camera has been running for 3 days consistently and we are very happy with our purchase. However, we encountered a few troubles.

We are not IT people, but consider ourselves computer savvy. After realizing that the camera did not come with an ethernet cord, which is required for initial setup, we attempted to hardwire the camera to our desktop using the cable that was connecting our wireless router to the desktop. Then, we connected the desktop to the router wirelessly. This seemed great in concept, and it probably would have worked. Unfortunately, we were having a great deal of difficulty. So, we obtained additional cables and tried to set it up again the next day. Everything seemed functional, and then the next morning, everything quit. It seemed that after purchasing the camera and having to upgrade our wireless router firmware, and after the camera trying to access and change our DHCP settings, our wireless router finally died. It was four years old, which is apparently considered old.

So, we bought a new NetGear router. This time the install was seamless. Everything worked exactly as the install instruction said it would. We had one problem in that we couldn't access the camera from the internet. I called tech support and the problem was solved within 20 minutes. They were very helpful and knew exactly what to do. The software for NetGear autoconnects to the UPNP settings of the camera. When you set up port forwarding, the port is already in use. So, you have to turn off auto UPNP on the camera so that the router does not see it there. Then, the port is available for the incoming web traffic. Once we did this and changed the port number, everything worked flawlessly.

I recommend this camera to people who are computer savvy. You do not need to be an IT person to use this, but it definitely helps to know your way around your router settings. Overall, we are very pleased with our purchase and would buy another one.

Camera is excellent once you set it up wirelessly. I spent 1 hour with panasonic tech support(excellent by the way) trying to figure out why my router would not allow me to view camera online. We finally figured it out. Those guys at panasonic know their stuff. They have been up an running now for 1 month no hick ups. I view from my iphone, my families computers etc. No probs. Only negatives are: there is no sound and night cam is not very good (only 4 lux). Would highly recommend!