Third-Party software for IP Cameras

The IP Camera BSTI PT100V2W appears to be a clone of the Foscam FI8901W which, in turn, is the older brother of the FI8908W.

Therefore the IP Camera Super-Client found on BSTI web site does work with Foscam cameras. The interface is not the clearest and I had a few crashes with it, but it appears to be free (even if a registration is required after some time), so it's still good to take.

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More decent is H264WebCam also works with the Foscam FI8908W (selecting BSTI PT100V2W), excepted for the Pan & Tilt function. It exists in free, standard or pro version. It offers motion detection of pre-selected zones, FTP/email alert, recording, and some access control.

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WebcamXP gives good results. For the Pan & Tilt to work, the Camera brand selected shouldn't be BSTI, but either Shenzen, or Netwave. This software seems the most capable to me, although it can be slow at times. It's quite complete (webcast, access control, motion and audio detection, email and SMS alert, ... ).
They also provide DirectShow Filters that makes it possible to use the ip camera with Skype for instance. 
The 60 days trial version is limited to 1 channel.

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Blue Iris also works and includes a lot of features (PTZ, recording, alert to cell phone, IM or email, motion sensor, webcast supporting Windows media codec, ...). There is a 15 days limited demo mode.

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ZoneTrigger is now reported to work with Foscam cameras using the syntax: http://login:pwd@ipcam_url:port/snapshot.cgi 

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vitamin d is a really cool monitoring software featuring people and action rules. Foscam is not listed but can be used as "other" model by specifying http://ipcam_url:port/videostream.cgi as the camera url. The software does video recording on motion detection and distinguishes people from object and can obey to pre-defined rules, like "if object moves through the exit door, send an email alert and play a sound".
vitamin d is available for PC and Mac. The free starter edition allow 1 camera only. Their pricing options are: Basic edition for up to 2 cameras at 49$, and pro edition with unlimited cameras for...199$! Something in between would have been nice for people like myself having 3 cameras! (thanks to Jason for mentioning this application)

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Phones with J2ME support
The name Netwave appears in the camera data stream and the Chinese part of their website contains a nice utility: A j2me Camera viewer for mobile phone. It works fine on my SE G705. Keys 2,4,6,8 can be used to Pan & Tilt, 1,3,7,9 for vertical and horizontal "patrols". It now comes on a CD with most recent ip cameras from Foscam.

According to the accompanying note, it is possible to make it run on Windows Mobile through the Esmertec Jbed utility (also here).

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Android phones
"IP Cam Viewer" has support for Foscam FI8908W (with PTZ) and FI8904W. The lite version is already very complete. The pro version allows more cameras and is ads-free.

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For iPhone: IPVision Pro. Pan & Tilt is made possible by adding this custom plist. The model to select is Foscam/Generic PTZ and the option "continuous" under settings must be enabled (thanks to kevc for his contribution).













Touch Cams from Perreora .
Usage: http://ipcam/snapshot.cgi?user=name&pwd=password



Live Cams by  Barry Egerter

supporting Foscam since ver.3.04, including pan/tilt control since 3.10
(thanks  +ke luzes for your info on these two)














Foscam Viewer by Neebii
(thanks ruudje1977 for the info)

Dedicated to Foscam's and compatible clones.

Features:
- Camera reboot
- PTZ control as well as Horizontal Patrol
- Brightness and Contrast
- Arm/disarm motion detection + reboot
- Control up to 4 cameras

- Full screen mode.

- Memory for user selection on camera and full screen.

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Mozilla Firefox Browser extension:

IP Cam PTZ by DRZ400S

For more detail, see this review. 

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Linux - gmotionlive 1.0






Usage: gmotionlive http://user:pwd@camurl/videostream.cgi



Also reported to work with linux phones such as Nokia N900 (Thanks Kevin!)

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Smart Baby Monitor

Turn your IP Camera into a Baby Monitor !
















Highlights:
·       Specially developed for Baby Monitoring (Video + Audio)
·       Raises an alarm if an audio activity (crying) detected
·       Blanket-kicked-off detection
·       Alarm notification via mobile phone through Bluetooth and/or local PC audio 

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With most camera clients, it is possible to enter a generic cgi command line.
It would look like this for a Foscam camera:
http://ipcamurl/videostream.cgi[?user=&pwd=&resolution=]

(see the Foscam CGI Guide for detail).

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Foscam IP Camera (Part Two)

I have to add an update (already) on the FI8908W that I presented earlier, and this time, there's good news for Linux, Mac and Firefox users! (corresponding firmware for fi8909w-NA and fi8903/04w here)

Since people at Foscam already proved very responsive, I sent them another question about the chances to see some support for non-ActiveX browsers in a future firmware.

While I expected something like "sorry, this is not planned for this product", the actual answer was:
"Here is an updated firmware with server push mode (for Firefox, chrome an such) and also the method to directly intercept the video stream into VLC"...!!!


To the reply was attached a newer firmware 11.14.1.42 and Web UI 2.4.8.11 to replace the original 11.14.1.34 and Web UI 2.4.8.9

(superseded by fw 11.14.1.43, see here)

After that update, the login page presented an additional login section for the non-ActiveX browsers (Server Push Mode).


The control interface is similar to the operator interface of the ActiveX version presented earlier (no visitor section, so, no sound control and no multi-device support), but this time, it's platform independent!

I only started to play with the new interface today, but here are some possibilities already:

Loading the live view directly:
http://ipcam_url/live.htm

Taking a snapshot from the camera (convenient when accessing from a mobile phone):
http://ipcam_url/snapshot.cgi

















Loading the stream into a media player such as VLC:
http://ipcam_url/videostream.asf?user=username&pwd=password

Below is the updated verdict:

Pros:
+ Good set of features
+ Good image quality day and night
+ Responsive technical support
+ Platform Independent, Linux friendly, Apple friendly, Mobile Phone...
+ Video stream can be intercepted into VLC

Cons:
- UPnP still not usable
- Poor embedded speaker quality

A word of caution about non-Foscam clones and firmware update:
I became aware that some ip cameras exactly similar in look to the fi8908w are using a totally different firmware. Their fw cannot be flashed on Foscam and Foscam fw cannot be flashed on them. This would instantly turn your device into a paperweight.

With recent feedback, it appears that the cameras sold by DealExtreme are not specifically from Foscam. On eBay, it's also a mix and if you are lucky, the seller will show some screenshots of the interface on his page.

If the interface of your camera looks like any of these:

...chances are that you have a camera that is not compatible with Foscam firmware.

Pay also attention to the box appearance when showed by the seller (Foscam box look like this).

So beware, don't try to mix and match, it takes just 10 seconds to brick your toy forever!

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Foscam Wireless Pan & Tilt IP Camera

I've been searching for a wireless camera solution to second my troublesome and unreliable X10-based alarm system. This dial-up central is very sensible to interferences and so always called me following a false alarm. Having a way to confirm visually an intrusion would be a good thing for the day this alarm would really go off for a good reason.


I already tried a solution made of a RF-based DVR (the kind using an SD card to store the pictures taken) and some cheap cameras, but the picture quality was far too bad, partly due to the poor signal range. And if was ever to take evidences of an intrusion, I would have seen it days later, when back from holidays... what's the point then ?

In comparison, the IP camera should be able to alert me by email when the intrusion occurs, and give me the option to access it remotely to get further evidences, and call the police the same day.

I found what seems to be the cheapest Pan & Tilt IP camera with Wi-Fi capability on eBay (around 85€).

The device comes unbranded and contains no model reference, however, after some googling, it seems to match with the IP camera model FI8908W from Foscam.

The manual is correct but could be more complete. For instance, the led blinking rate meaning, which I figured out eventually:
Led blinking Slowly: the camera is searching for an access point.
Led blinking Fast: the camera is connected to a LAN by the Ethernet
Led blinking Faster: the camera connected to a wireless access point. This is only possible when the Ethernet cable is unplugged.
The blinking rate should change within the first minute after turning on the camera. If it keeps blinking slowly for longer, you know there is a problem.

The setup is fairly easy once you authorize IE to download unsigned ActiveX controls for your security zone, and also make sure that your anti-virus does not silently block the traffic, which was the case for me with Avast Antivirus. I had to set the camera address in the exception field of its network shield.

To my surprise, the technical support from Foscam replied quickly and was friendly and helpful.
The current firmware version (11.14.1.34) does not seem to implement the UPnP properly. When activated, it consistently returns "UPnP Failed: Errors in Chat with UPnP Device".
According to Foscam, it does not work well at the moment and would be looked after in a future firmware.

Beside that minor detail, the camera is easy to use with a decent user interface. I would however regret that the camera control is using ActiveX . So this product is primarily for M$-Windows users (Apparently there is a working software alternative for Linux called ZoneMinder but I didn't test it yet.) .
There is a misleading mention of Firefox support on the box, but it's done through an add-on called IE tab which basically loads a IE page in a Firefox tab...Mmm

The motion detection can be programmed for different times during the week and pictures can be sent automatically to an FTP server and/or and email address at a predefined interval. It is also possible to interface the camera with an external PIR sensor or alarm system through its RS485 connector.

This green connector on the camera has 4 pins (shortly described in page 19 of the manual).

- Pins 1 & 2 are for output: typically these would go to the wired inputs of an alarm central like the SC28 or SC9100. If the camera meets an alarm condition (movement) it would send the signal to the central like a DS10/18 (Door sensor) or MS10/18 (PIR) would. There's also a button on the Web UI that allows to activate pin1 manually.

- Pins 3 & 4 are for input:
You would use these to link wires from a Sensor (DS10/18 have connectors available for that) or any PIR, so if they detect a movement, the camera would, I guess, upload pictures, send an email (as set in camera's Alarm Service Settings) and output +5V on pin 1.


Dynamic DNS can be used for setting up a access from the Internet. It is then possible to log into the camera server and record a video if necessary.

Thanks to the IR leds surrounding the camera lense, the image quality at night is simply as good if not better than during the day.

There is a two-way audio monitoring support on this camera, which means that you can listen from it, and that part is okay, but you could also speak into your PC microphone and a speaker embedded in the camera will relay the sound. The very bad sound quality in this case will make that feature useless.

As a final word, this IP camera is a much better investment that the traditional RF-based cameras. The picture is of better quality despite the similar CMOS sensor and the added value to your home security system will quickly become obvious.

Pros:
+ Good set of features
+ Good image quality day and night
+ Responsive technical support

Cons:
- ActiveX control only (see the latest update about this)
- UPnP not properly implemented
- Poor embedded speaker quality

Update #1: I recently purchased a second camera and picked a white version. The brackets enclosing the camera tend to be loose. As a result the motor doesn't always have enough grip to move the camera vertically. I think it comes from the thin plastic casing which seems to be of a lower quality than the black version.









Update #2: After returning the defective white IP camera, I received another white one, obviously from a more recent batch, the plastic casing is less glossy and of comparable quality to the black model. There is also a small addition at the back of the camera: a mini jack connector for external audio. Since the embedded speaker is not great, you can now plug a better one in there.






Useful document: original IP camera manual (a bit outdated)
.

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