Customer Reviews

Toshiba Wireless Network Camera (IK-WB01A)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was looking for a wireless pan/tilt security type camera that includes low light (for seeing outside at night or wherever there can be little light) and thought I had found the perfect one for the right price so I got this one.

However, I was sort of misled on the motion detection option (which I also wanted). You need to wire up an external trigger (like closing a switch) which then in turn will allow the camera to record images and email you, etc, that movement was sensed. They call this alarm notification or something. This camera does not have `built-in' motion detection (unlike the higher end Toshiba model WB11A which does) or some others that do. Since the manual for the WB01A and WB11A are combined it's easy to be misled (the WB11A has configurable built-in motion detection that the manual shows you how to configure).

Other than that, the camera is pretty easy to configure, pan/tilt/zoom works good, and the picture looks pretty decent. Not sure of the wireless range since I did not put that to the test but it was easy to configure and get on the network. The auto low light worked pretty well for seeing things in a darker setting. I haven't used other web cameras besides this one but did see a review that mentioned the Panasonic BL-C30A was better but it is also more expensive than this one.

So if you are looking for a wireless pan/tilt/zoom camera that also can see well in low light conditions but does not have built-in motion detection, this camera is well worth a look for the price.

I have this and a DLink DCS-900W. Both can do 640x480 color, but the DLink costs about 60% as much. This camera is more than twice as good, as long as you don't need FTP.

The out-of-box experience is pretty bad. I've had two of these, and both were dead out of the box. Charging overnight fixes that, but it's a delay. And then they need firmware updates. But once that's done and the image settings changed, this has a beautiful picture and usable controls, plus decent sound.

Compared to the D-Link, this has excellent low-light capabilities, down to maybe below 1 Lux, though not near-dark. And the image is vibrant and in-focus.

The downsides include that the FTP upload crashes, the web interface requires Active-X and doesn't always load the first time, and really poor wireless coverage. I wound up running a CAT5 wire. (The DLink excels at this, which you'd expect since DLink is a networking company.) But most users won't care about FTP and only use Internet Explorer so Active-X isn't an issue. And if these are problems, Active WebCam works well with the camera.

Great camera for price. I bought the optional accessory kit model IK-WBACC1 so I could install the camera outdoors. I have the camera running on the 802.11b wireless network and was amazed at how easy it is to install. This is a great camera for home or business.

Love it. It works great and is easy to operate from your computer. You can log on to it from anywhere.

The camera's ability to "pan & tilt" and the 0.7 lux (low light) were my primary considerations for selecting this camera. It was between this IK-WB01 and the D-link DCS-950G. The D-link has better light gathering capability, but the coolness of pan and tilt won out! <Girls it's a guy thing...More features!>

I was very impressed when I opened the box. This camera is very sleek and compact. Toshiba packaged this camera very nicely and it appears to be very rugged. Actually, it looks like what a security camera should look like. The manual is fairly ease to follow, but who reads the manual? <Girls, another guy thing!>

So I downloaded the camera finder from the Toshiba's web site and hooked the camera to my network. The software found the camera and all went well with the configuration/ setup. I got it up and working over the Internet in about 15 minutes?

I played with the pan and tilt, scanning, presets, light gain settings, security, ftp file transmission, zoom and snapshot for 4 hours or more. The IK-WB01 camera is controlled exclusively from a browser using java. No software came with the camera; this is my first disappointment. Digging past the pan & tilt feature, you will learn that motion detection is done using an external contact. Presumably, a motion detector device. I have a few DCS-900w's (D-link) and they have motion detection that is done with software (called Ipview light). These cameras have been working flawlessly for months with the only interruptions in security from the power blips. If the power goes off completely, the cameras will come back; but power blips cause the cameras to hang <and my router, wap11's....>. Motion detection and monitor software is how I monitor activity outside my house. The IK-WB01's lack of this capability is a big negative for me.

During the 4 hours of experimentation, the camera was located within 10 feet of my security cam WAP. I have a dedicated WAP bridge connected to my router, this way the IP traffic to my security computer doesn't slow down the rest of my network...:) Well, after the pan and tilt feature got old, I decided to set this camera up next to one of my DCS-900w cameras to compare picture quality and speed. This was another disappointment. My DCS-900w updates much faster than the IK-WB01. The location I selected for this test was by my swimming pool. Both camera pointing across my pool, I had my wife walk across the deck one side to the other side. The DCS-900w captured the whole event and recorded it to the hard drive of my security computer. The IK-WB01 did not record anything, because I don't have a motion detector. But more disappointing than that was the fact that it looked like she just appeared at the other end of the pool deck out of now where. It skipped any details of her walking. Extremely choppy picture! I played with combinations of settings and even moved that camera to the other network just incase the D-link cameras were hogging bandwidth. Every combination yielded the same results, slow updates. Further research on the Internet will show you the same results. The IK-WB11 (next version up) fails to capture moving cars, they appear as ghost. (Google it, you can find un-password protected cameras out there.) One exception was when I stepped the resolution down to 320x200. Only then did it update as fast as the D-link. But how useful is that resolution? Is the camera slow or is the wireless 802.11b weak? It doesn't matter, my D-link camera was next to the Toshiba and it did not skip a beat. My security network has several repeaters in it, so signal strength should not be an issue.

Conclusion:
1)Pan and tilt is very cool.
2)Browser configuration and viewing makes it a truly world wide web camera.
3)Low light performance is good.
4)Usefulness for security purposes is poor. No motion detection or monitoring software. Choppy updates reveal little of the "how" in security investigations.

Bottom line - I would not recommend this camera for real security purposes.

I am extremely disappointed with this camera. The manual is written in very poor English which I had a hard time deciphering and it doesn't explain some basic operations. I cannot imagine how Toshiba managed to get the best geeks in Japan to develop this camera but they couldn't get a professional translator to write up a manual in English. I know that most of their customer's speak English, so this doesn't make any sense.

In addition, their website has several non-functional links. The links to download manuals, documentation or obtain support are all dead. The main page is http://www.toshiba.com/taisisd/netcam/support/support_index.htm but try clicking on the "customer support" links and you go nowhere.

Last but not least, this camera doesn't seem to be able to record any video unless you purchase additional software fro about $40. This is absurd, especially for an expensive $200 camera like this. The video recording software is called NWREC01 and I had to do some research just to find out that I needed this software in order to record.

All this reflects very poorly on Toshiba and I will try to avoid all Toshiba products from now on.