Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is my first negative review of product that offers outstanding hardware. I bought this camera looking to expand upon the two rooms covered by my Foscam cameras. Overall I have been satisfied with my Foscam cameras, but was looking to expand beyond 720p resolution to 1080p offered by the Dropcam and have experienced some issues with the Foscam FW8921 model needing to frequently be restarted for the video feed to resume. The Dropcam Pro excelled in nearly every way over the Foscam with exception of one fatal flaw. PROs: *Fantastic aluminum build quality. Sleek and minimalistic design. *Setting port forwarding protocol through a router necessary to connect to the Foscam camera when away from home is a challenge. Setting up the Dropcam was a breeze, requiring only an IOS device and can be accomplished by anyone regardless of technological literacy. *Video quality both day and night are excellent. I was expecting the Dropcam Pro to provide a better picture offering more megapixels and full HD 1080p resolution in contrast to the 720p Foscam, but was still surprised at how much more clear the resolution appears. *Although the Dropcam does not feature pan and tilt, the wide field of view essentially eliminates the need of such feature. *There will be a video delay when viewing video broadcast from any Wi-Fi/IP camera. What is impressive about the Dropcam is it produces no longer delay than my Foscam cameras despite broadcasting in higher resolution and able to provide noticeable better frame rate at 1080p than the Foscam at 720p. CONs: *In order to capture a wide field of view the image does have a fisheye effect very similar to the video captured with action cameras. *Foscam and virtually all other IP cameras allow you to easily capture and record video or pictures either manually or setting up motion detection directly on your camera via an SD card, to your computer, or smartphone/tablet. The only way Dropcam allows videos to be stored is through their cloud based storage. You will receive a short free trial then you get to add another recurring bill to your phone, internet, cable...etc bills, necessary to use this camera for any more than live (delayed) viewing. Additionally, Dropcam has done a good job at preventing customers implementing workarounds from paying for their cloud storage. Overall: $200 is a reasonable price for the build, image and overall performance quality this camera offers. Unfortunately, Dropcams efforts to keep cashing in on the product after the initial purchase is a horrendous approach taking advantage of customers and the reason mine was returned. Dropcam should entice consumers to use their cloud based storage through features such as superior application and website playback design not mandate in order to provide continued use of a product you purchased unsubsidized. The company intentionally prevents any means to record video through any method besides their cloud storage. Without paying the recurring fees the camera becomes practically useless. The delay in video and audio when viewing "live" makes it a poor choice as a baby monitor and without paying for recording capability it offers no surveillance value. I would strongly recommend waiting for Samsung to release their Smartcam HD model expected in March for $179 which match the features and design of Dropcam while adding local onboard storage eliminating privacy concerns and extra fees beyond initial price with the possible exception of an SD card. Hope this review is helpful. I provided all the highlights of the this product rather than simply complaining about my reason for returning for others to make an informed decision before purchasing. I am sure some will not mind the required recurring fee, but I feel the majority would choose otherwise if aware other options exists without the continued extra fees. *UPDATE* I have had 2 days to play around with the Samsung Smartcam HD and can gladly say so far it lives up to expectations combining the best of Foscam features with the top notch hardware of the Dropcam. The build quality of the Dropcam reigns supreme, like comparing Samsung Galaxy to an iPhone, but everything else is on par if not better with the Smartcam. Setup is just as simple on the Smartcam HD while offering the advantage of having the ability to setup straight from your Android phone or tablet in addition to iOS device. Load time to pull up the image on both cameras website and applications are nearly the same. Both cameras occasionally fail when attempting to connect from the Android app requiring a 2nd attempt. There is no clear winner in image quality with both offering nearly the same wide field of view, but somehow the Smartcam does so without as much of a fisheye effect. The mic and speaker on the Samsung are notably better. The Smartcam HD utilizes your Gmail account to send event (motion detection) notifications immediately to your phone and Picasa for snapshots of events, whereas the Micro SD slot is used to store video recordings. So if your worried about an intruder simply stealing the camera and all your evidence, then you will be relieved to have access of the free cloud storage of that photo of them taking the camera. Sure your limited to 1GB of free space on Picasa, but that stores a whole lot of images which are easy to delete straight from the Smartcam App. Unless you really need to have constant video recording being done, the Samsung Smartcam HD is a much better value that only increases as time passes and no furture bills become due. I plan on putting up a full review of the Smartcam HD once I have more time testing it out.