Digital Cameras Mall

With the ecomony in the crapper and people getting desperate with jobless benefits being exhausted, it is no wonder crime as a hole is increasing at an alarming rate (no pun intended) regardless of where you live. In the last year after living in the suburbs for most of my life, I've purchased a house alarm, a garage alarm, motion detection on all outdoor lighting, beware of dog signs, locks on all the gates, along with dead bolts on my front & rear doors and now finally a security camera system. My garage had one break-in ($1,000+ stolen) and a 2nd attempted break-in two weeks later by the same idiot who is still at large. I knew this by the type of tools (flathead srewdriver) he used because the marks where they tried to open the service door locks were exactly the same on the deadbolt. Anyway,after making yet another police report, I was advised by the police to get a security camera. Most I checked into that were under $200 were crap. It seemed I'd have to spent big money to get anything decent.

Until I saw this Uniden at the local Sam's Club. It was wireless, claimed to have a good range ( up to 500' and even through a couple walls) and it was under $200.
I figured why not, I'll return it if it's a piece of junk.

Man was I surprised. I just set it up and does it work great. The picture on the portable receiver was pretty decent. There is also a zoom feature for pan and tilt. It's AC or battery powered (up to 8hrs per charge, so you take it to a neighbors house for coffee and still see what's happening at home if needed. The camera was placed inside my garage (comes with a decent mount), so even if the power goes out, it can still operate up to 4 hours on a single charge. It also has audio detection which is adjustable. This system comes initially with only one camera (indoor) and that has night vision. You can add up to a total of four. Uniden also sells an outdoor wireless camera for this system.

It came with software and a usb cable to hook up to your PC (I use a laptop) which allows you to record right to your hard drive or you can connect to your TV (AV cable included)and record with any usable recording device (VCR,TiVo) It can also take still photos in case you need to print a picture for the police (the picture print of my wife posing as a crook was decent enough). You can schedule recordings incrementally, save them to file and/or burn to a disk if that's needed. There is also a motion sensor built into the camera, so you don't need to waste alot of time viewing video unless you want to. You can adjust the motion detector's sensitivity. It also triggers a silent alarm back to the receiver/PC, so you can call the police and not play the hero in case it does go off.

I am a tech gadget geek, but this would be easy for just about anyone to use. It's very inexpensive, very easy to operate and does what it claims. The manuals are understandable and written for most. I know now that I feel better protected in trying to save my items that should remain mine.

I was looking for a video monitoring system for use as a baby monitor. I tried a few devices like the Summer Infant Day and Night analog Video monitor. These were terrible...constant static, poor picture, and not secure at all. Your neighbors can eaves drop on your signal.

This Uniden was quite nice: Very clear Digital picture, secure with its digital frequency hopping and very easy to set up...you basically plug it in and turn it on.

PROS:
* Actually can continuously monitor your child constantly and not limited to the sound trigger only mode that most other baby monitors have. This sound trigger only mode only sends video and audio to the receiver when there is a sound picked up by the camera. While other digital monitoring systems offers only this mode, the Uniden does not offer it at all, which is kind of a negative.

* great picture on the receiver...good color pic during the day and excellent night vision black and white pic.Absolutely NO static or interference.

* Both the camera and the receiver has rechargeable LiON batteries that runs 4 to 5 hours!! great for moving around from room to room...very convenient without having to drag an AC plug everywhere. \

* Comes with good wall mount bracket which allows you to also use it as a desktop stand for the camera in case you dont want to screw it to a ceiling or wall. You can adjust the angle with this bracket.




CONS:

* The volume on the receiver is set to max but is is soooo low. its ok at night when you are sleeping but you will not be able to hear if you have the TV cranked up.

* Interferes with my WiFi Router big time. When I have the camera and receiver on, my wireless download speed drops by 90%!!!! This is ok for now since I use this only at night when I'm not on my wireless network.


* It has a motion detector in the camera but can only be used with the lap top recording feature. it would be nice to have it so that it can trigger an alarm on the receiver or even turn the receiver video screen on only when motion is detected...but no such luck there.

* Does not have a feature like most baby monitors where the receiver is only activated when there is sound detected (I actually do not like this feature but good to have this option if needed). This unit only has a AUTO setting on the receiver which turns off the video after a timer. However the audio still continues which is good in baby monitoring cases.

* This is terrible. If you turn off the camera, the receiver only shows a display "no signal" on the screen...no audible alarm!! this is useless if you are sleeping and somehow you lose connection to your camera...you will never know unless you look at the screen. During this time...who knows what is going on with your baby!!

* Uniden tech support is terrible. When you call in, you are taken to a maze of options that do everything to keep you from a live person. I selected an option which was not even related to my product just to get a live person (after 3 attempts). Finally I got someone who was clueless of even the most basic product features. They did not even have an option for this product in the phone menus. I was told that a senior tech support rep would call back in 30 minutes...still no call back.

I actually bought this from another retailer (sorry Amazon, I love you!) and I'm VERY pleased with the performance of this camera. I actually have mounted mine outside the house using the (included) aluminum mounting bracket. Please note that this camera is NOT waterproof therefore I have it mounted under the eaves where it will not get wet. While not specifically marketed as an outdoor camera, I'm happy to report it working extremely well in that capacity. The operating temperature is rated only for 14 - 120 degrees so when the bitter winds of winter begin to blow I will have to take the camera down for a few months :-( As others have stated, the picture quality is PERFECT (all digital using Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum). The camera will automatically switch to a very powerful infrared illuminator at dusk and it lights up the whole entry way of my house (about a 30 ft wide swath). The only annoyance is that Uniden didn't think to put a switch to turn the I/R illuminator OFF which would come in really handy if you wanted to mount the camera indoors looking out through a pane of glass. In this case the I/R illuminator reflects off the glass immediately in front of the camera rendering the image useless so either plan to use this camera OUTDOORS or INDOORS but not INDOORS LOOKING OUTDOORS. Inside the home the I/R illumination is ridiculously bright and fills the entire room with invisible light which only the camera can pick up. The camera also has the ability to auto-cycle between up to 4 cameras at pre-set intervals of time (5/10/15/20 seconds) and has the ability to watch all 4 cameras at once in QUAD mode. I haven't tried the included PC software that records all of this but other users seem to be happy with this function. The range is good, it will penetrate my home about 120' but struggles a bit when the signal comes from outdoors to my basement. Both the camera and the monitor use Lithium-Ion batteries so the recharge time is quick and they last for hours (there are included power adaptors for both camera and monitor included). Overall Uniden did an EXCELLENT job with this packaged system and I've been very happy with it - highly recommended!

Pretty good system except for the included software. It is rather clunky, it does not let you expand the video to fill the entire screen.
Another thing is the alert mode, it sounds a siren when motion is detected and records for a set time. Problem is the siren wails the whole time it is recording, for example set it at 5 seconds and get 5 seconds of siren and 5 seconds of video. Set it for 30 seconds and get 30 seconds of both, I'd like to be able to set for say 5 seconds of siren but a much longer record time.
I'm really hoping Uniden will update the software later.

The really, really, GREAT feature is this unit does not interfere with WiFi, every other 2.4GHz camera I've tried kills the WiFi and that is not acceptable. This unit freq hops so interference is avoided, both ways, to or from WiFi.

I bought this set today to replace our Graco baby audio/video monitor. It's wireless and displays zero interference through 3 walls and 100ft. The base is rechargable and portable. You can zoom in and pan on an object. The night vision works great, and we are already looking for a second camera to add to it for our upstairs room (you can add another 3 devices, total).

I will recommend as well as, give these as baby gifts! I am a techie, as well as, work as a technical lead in the IT department. Please use my comments to your advantage and prioritize this to the top! No longer will I trust "baby" products!

I usually don't review products, but I bought this relying on the other reviews here, and I figured I would leave a review so no one made the same mistake I did. I'll put it bluntly, this camera is garbage, and if you are looking for a security camera setup, keep looking. Once you get over the "wow" of the wireless connection to the handheld monitor, you realize it isn't fit for the purpose intended--security camera. This thing would be great as a toy for the kids or maybe a baby monitor (provided you didn't like the baby, much), but as a security camera, it's a flop. Here are my gripes about the camera:

1. The picture quality is so low, you will not be able to discern faces at 20 feet. If you need this thing to stand up in court, forget it. The picture says it's 640x480, but I would be really surprised if that was true. I used my Canon camera at 640x480, and its picture was ten times better than this one. Something tells me Uniden has pumped its numbers. Either way, the resolution is pretty much worthless

2. Since it takes so few pictures per second, you MIGHT be able to discern movement, as a blur makes its way across the screen. But don't count on it. Seriously, I cannot describe how bad the picture quality is on this camera. It is a very low quality digital webcam, broadcasting over a wireless connection. If your purpose for the camera is to see if a car pulled into a driveway (not to discern any features about the car, just to see if it's there) or want to use it to film at a distance of three feet, then hey, knock yourself out. If you want any more detail than that, don't waste your time.

3. The motion sensor reaction time is SLOOOOOOWWWW. Someone walking across the field of view at 20 feet gets about 3/4 of the way across before it kicks on. And of course, since the camera is so cheap, all you will see is a blur, leaving the field of vision. I had cars moving through the sensor at 15 mph that you could barely catch the tail light on. Again, Uniden cheaped out and you get a toy, rather than a security camera.

4. It turns itself off. Yup, you would figure that the first prerequisite of a security system is being able to run through the entire night, while you sleep. For some reason, Uniden thought it would be a neat feature if the program just randomly shut itself off in the middle of the night, occasionally. No, it won't do it every time. Just enough to where you won't be able to trust it. You'll go to the computer in the morning, and find the Uniden program is off. No rhyme or reason to it.

5. That "focus" feature? It's just a digital focus with one step forward, which means it's not an actual focus, you're just giving up part of the picture and degrading the quality of what's left for the opportunity to zoom in on an area. Just like you can do afterwards, during playback, with any other camera. So, no, this camera does not have an actual zoom feature. Shame on Uniden for plugging it as such.

6. The "night vision" is unable to deal with other light sources. If there's a streetlight where you're filming, the camera will wash out, and you won't see anything. It can deal with day or night, but nothing in between. Maybe you can't blame a cheap camera for not being able to deal with shades of light, but without that ability, the camera is pretty worthless in real-world setting.

7. For that matter, this camera is also unable to deal with dawn, sunset, noon, and anytime where the light could possibly be overhead. For some reason, the camera gets crazy glare, right across the middle of the picture, if the light is at all other than perfect.

8. The software comes on a half-CD. Uniden couldn't spring to send you a full disc that would fit right in the player. The result for me was that the instant the disc was done installing, it went out of control in the player, jammed up, and destroyed itself and the player. Had to pry the player open to get it out. This is just an example of the corners Uniden cut on this product, which should give you an idea of the quality of the camera.

As you can tell, I'm still steamed about the extreme low quality of the camera. For this money, Uniden could have sent a real camera, capable of filling its intended role. But they didn't. And since the software disc self-destructed and the I scratched the camera up trying to install it, I'm now the proud owner of a kid's toy, and have to find a security system somewhere else. Don't be like me.

For months we struggled with 2 Babies-R-Us monitors in the $150 price range. We were constantly battling interference and long cords as we moved the 2 (for 2 babies) monitors from room to room.Then shopping at Sams club this week I saw the Uniden set and decided to give it change out of frustration with the other set. With the Uniden we only need a single monitor and 2 cameras. The monitor is rechargeable so it can go cordless during the day. Interference is a thing of the past now. The monitor lets you scan through up to 4 cameras at varying intervals or you can put all cameras on the screen at once. You can maully scan between cameras and even zoom in and stayed zoomed!

Since I bought 2 systems, I will buy some more cameras and use the second monitor for monitoring outdoors. The old baby monitor are going on Craigs List or Ebay as soon as I can get them packaged up.

It's so nice to have something work as expected right out of the package.

I bought this surveillance system with great skepticism because I have bought products in the past from various companies bragging about their wireless systems only to discover that they all did not deliver what I expected. However, this UNIDEN surveillance system worked great right out of the box. The range was very good. Both cameras are mounted outside our house under the patio roof and are approximately 50 feet from the receiver. Our house is made of stucco with chicken wire used to hold the stucco so that was a concern for wireless. But it worked great. So I recommend this product. In retrospect, I think I should have bought the larger model with the two outdoor cameras. But I am very pleased with this one. However, I would have rated it 5 stars except the software provided is just average but I don't use it anyway so it is not important to me.

I got his from Sam's Club $139.00 and i love it. I have all the way at the from entrance of my 3 family property, and I have the monitor in my unit on the 3rd floor and it works GREAT!!. I am looking forward to add more camaras.

This the best little wireless set up that I've seen. I got mine at Sam's for $139.00. Why it cost so much on Amazon is a good question. Works great with a DVR (Q-see). I tried some other wireless systems from Swann; there is no comparison.