could have been great
Written: Mar 16 '03 (Updated Mar 16 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: inexpensive, easy to hook up to the network, comes with mounting hardware
Cons: incompatible with most browsers
The Bottom Line: This could have been a great product, but it is made useless for most people by not being compatible with most browsers
|
|
|
| mmj2ca's Full Review: Veo Observer |
The hardware and setup on this camera are great: you just plug it in, it auto-configures, and it displays its IP address. The camera comes with flexible wall mounting hardware. And you get all for a killer price of around $200.
Unfortunately, the camera is essentially useless for many applications. While the camera is accessed from a browser, in order to view images from it, you must install an ActiveX component on the machine that you are trying to access the camera from. Why is that a problem? It means that you must be running InternetExplorer on Windows on a Pentium. So, you can't check your camera from a handheld, a Macintosh, or many public web terminals. But even if you are running Windows and using InternetExplorer, your security settings have to be set to allow installation of ActiveX components, and in many places they aren't. For example, chances are you can't check the camera from work or from an Internet cafe, even if you are using IE on Windows. Also, it seems likely that after one or two Windows releases, the ActiveX component will stop working even on your home PC.
This camera may still be useful in some specialty applications, but overall, you are better off getting a network camera that has a regular built-in web server and can be set up and used from any web browser. There are several choices around (D-Link, Panasonic, etc.). They aren't quite as cheap, but they'll probably have a much longer useful life and will be more versatile.
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
mmj2ca
|
|
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.