Absolutely awesome item! I did research for well over two months for a home monitoring camera, and while there are a ton of options available, I decided to finally pick The Dropcam as my choice. I want to say this right now, if you end up wanting the Dropcam, and you don't mind spending an additional $50.00, get the Dropcam Pro as it's everything this Dropcam is but even better with sound, night vision, etc. I did not need the Pro version, but I did want to say that I thought about it, but am still glad I picked this one and saved the $50.00.
As countless others have said, the setup is incredibly easy with zero issues whatsoever. Plug it into your computer, do the setup, unplug it from your computer, and place it where you wish. The app on the iPhone (and I'm assuming Android devices) works even better than logging into their site on your regular computer. I've had no issues with viewing live footage or recorded footage from anywhere I have been.
I love how you can easily make clips from their site. I've only used it twice (cats are very strange when you are not home, I have discovered!), but it allows you to make great footage to view later or send to people.
I love the alert system. I have it setup to send push notifications to my phone when it detects something. I keep the camera off if I'm home, but every time I walk back in the door, my phone gets a push notification saying it detected movement, and I also get them when one of the two cats walks by. I feel completely valid in saying that if someone were to come in uninvited, it would send me a notification with no issues.
I do want to talk about the one knock most people give this, and it is absolutely valid to a point. If you want seven days saved of recorded video on their servers, it's $9.99 per month. It has NO local storage for footage. This, for some people, is huge, and I respect and understand that. If you require local storage or don't want to pay the $9.99 per month, then, yes, this camera may not be for you unless you only want live footage (which is free). I truly believe that if they even lowered it to $5.99 per month, it would draw in many more people. For me, though, the $9.99 is not an issue, and I enjoy having the seven days worth of footage. I hope, as you do with a seat belt, I never need it, but I like having it.
The camera design itself is far more sturdy than the pictures of it look. The camera is just the black 'puck' you see in the photos, and it comes out of the stand if you wish. The stand feels extremely sturdy and metal, and I have no issues with it moving around or sliding on the desk I have it on. If you want to mount it somewhere, you can do that, too.
The only real negatives that come to mind are, first, the speaker. It does work. You can turn it on and talk through your smart phone to the camera; however, as others have noted, it IS of, at best, average quality. You can hear people just fine both live and on recorded footage, but talking through it requires the person listening to be within a few feet of it to truly be able to understand what it is being said, at least in my experience. The only other 'negative' is the actual website itself. It looks great, is easy to use the minute you log in to it, but for some reason it randomly stops displaying video from the camera even though I am sitting right next to the camera on my computer. To get the footage to come back up, I have to return to their main page and go back to my profile and pull the camera up again. This is not constant, but it does happen somewhat on a regular basis. This issue does not at all crop up on the smart phone app. I've had zero issues with that.
I'm sure that I've missed some things, but I do highly recommend the Dropcam. It was worth the price, and, for me, the monthly payment is worth it. I do think they would actually end up making MORE money if they lowered the price of the monthly recording. Also, as I said at the top, if you are set on getting this camera and simply do not care about an additional fifty dollars, grab the Pro model as I've heard it's this camera but on steroids. For me, I didn't need it, but it would be worth checking out.
There is a newer model of this item:
4 stars and above
Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1
Videos
Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1
Related products with free delivery on eligible orders
Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1
Sponsored | Try Prime for unlimited fast, free shipping
![Overall, very happy [using on Mac OS 10.6.8 and Kindle Fire]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/common/transparent-pixel._V192234675_.gif){kind=tracking}
Overall, very happy [using on Mac OS 10.6.8 and Kindle Fire]
I've had my Dropcam for about 24 hours now and I really like it. I have it set up on my Kindle Fire (I've uploaded a picture) so that it's an always-on window into my front yard and front porch while I'm working in my basement study.The quality of the picture is not perfect but it is fine for my limited purposes (checking out the goings-on outside and being able to avoid people who come to the door with clipboards or religious pamphlets). The color is a bit washed out (more so on my Kindle Fire than on my computer), which also doesn't bother me but might bother some. I can't attest to the night vision quality because the glare of the lights against the window makes it hard to see much of anything. This of course wouldn't be the case if you had it pointed inside a room rather than outside through a window.I did have some trouble setting up the Dropcam. It couldn't find my wireless network. I was about to despair until I found instructions on Dropcam's Zendesk page (but not on their main site) suggesting that I go into my router's web page and change the settings from "channel 6" to "channel 11." (I have a Linksys WRT54G, by the way, and am on a Mac OS 10.6.8.) And that worked! Which was great, because I was so looking forward to getting my Dropcam. Had I not run into this issue--and my guess is that newer routers probably wouldn't--then set-up would have taken probably 60 seconds. The (potential) ease of set-up was extremely important to me because I don't understand routers very much so making any elaborate changes to their set-up frightens me. (This channel 11 switch I can deal with.)I don't intend to buy Dropcam's offsite recording because it's just too expensive for me to justify given my limited needs (see above). However, I really wish that they would offer a 24-hour plan (instead of their current 7-day and 30-day plans). That I would pay for, assuming it was reasonably priced (say, $20-$25 a year).I do have email alerts enabled, though I'm kind of confused about their regularity. (I've actually written to support about this). I'm receiving the alerts but they are intermittent. There are far more events that are captured than I receive notifications about. I suppose I don't really want to get email every single time a car drives by. On the other hand, if you don't receive alerts for every event, then how can you possibly know what events you've missed when away from the live view? I would certainly like to receive an alert every time someone comes to my door.**So that's my take so far. I'm really happy with the device and hope (1) to get this email alert thing figured out** and (2) for Dropcam to add a more affordable offsite recording option.**ADDED: Dropcam support informs me that email alerts are set to go out only once every half hour. This kind of defeats the purpose of having the alerts at all, unfortunately.-- Debra Hamel
Top reviews from other countries
Luiz
and I wasn't told that when I bought the now useless camera! Be aware
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 24, 2014
