X10 Community Forum

📝Reviews => X10 Hardware => Camera Reviews => Topic started by: adamjl on December 01, 2011, 11:23:25 AM

Title: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: adamjl on December 01, 2011, 11:23:25 AM
Just got my Airsight, and Im in love.

Price $ 99
Where : X10's site

Pros
- Amazing night vision indoors (havent tried outdoors)
- Pan Tilt
- Wired or Wireless (Open / WEP / WPA 1+2 (AES and TKIP)
- Two Way Audio
- Alarm and motion Detection Functions
- Internal relays for alarm input AND output
- Email on alarm
- Multiple camera interface
- Easy configurations

Cons (trivial or not)
- No zoom
- Seems like a narrow field of view, probably better for longer distances, would like to zoom out
---Might be able to adjust as I have read
- Two way audio only available in IE as far as I see so far.
- Pan and tilt from web interface seems slow - maybe ajustable
- Pan and tilt a pain from some mobile devices
- No HTTPS secure connection
NEW:
-No POE
-IR LEDs red glow easily visible at night


Bottom line, this thing seems great and once I play with it some more I might pick up several more.
Here is a picture but its not very good representation, the camera is just sitting on a table about 5 feet from the cat, its light through the windows upstairs and dark downstairs. I'll post some better pictures later.
http://myfiero.com/uploads/28700_.jpg

What the heck, I might regret this but here have some fun! If you cant get in later its because I've shut it down, dont need interwebz people watching me lol. If you see the cats, feel free to taunt them. Yes the audio does work, here she is mad at me for waking her lol
http://myfiero.com/uploads/28701_.jpg
and this would be an extreme closeup of a cats face
http://myfiero.com/thumb/thumb_28702_.jpg

If you get lost, goto posistion 1. This is "Operator" level so you can use the cam but not change settings. If you try the settings it will prompt for credentials, just click cancel to see the options in there. This probably isnt hardened but  there isnt much for anyone to get into on my network so I'll put it out there for you guys to play with.
http://107.8.18.230:8080
User : x10
Pass : x10cam!!



Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: adamjl on December 01, 2011, 11:26:00 AM
And before you ask, no you cant have access to my X10 interface to turn the lights up! Not going there!

Also try turning down the resolution, seems to improve P&T not sure of the bottleneck there, might be my ISP up speed or the wireless.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: JMac on December 01, 2011, 05:01:39 PM
Nice of you to put this up for everyone to see.......thanks.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: Tuicemen on December 01, 2011, 06:52:37 PM
Nice of you to put this up for everyone to see.......thanks.
I Agree!
A plus 1 from me!
very cool!
 >!
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: adamjl on December 01, 2011, 06:55:41 PM
Nice of you guys to entertain the cats!

It should be pitch black in there now except when the fireplace cycles on, that's the night vision I was talking about. Amazing
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: trol1374 on December 02, 2011, 03:07:30 AM
Adam,

    Were you able to use the viewer software on the disk?   I can't seem to log into it (client software).  I get into the cam via the browser just fine.
    I to have the cam and enjoy it for the price.  Worked better then I thought it would.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: adamjl on December 02, 2011, 07:13:00 AM
I didnt know there was software on the disk, didnt really look.

I moved the camera outside last night, the IR still works but people bleed to be all white. Interesting is that it picks up the green in the grass across the street that is completely invisible. My flood lights dont really improve the image much over just the IR, which is that it still remains rather sub par. We'll see how it looks in the daylight.

Added a Con, the IR leds, I noticed a faint red glow indoors in the light, but in the dark now that I look at it, they are easily visible from a distance with the naked eye. Like 50, probably 100 feet. It does however look incredibly creepy, a floating, red glowing eye following you, so that might not be a bad thing there, but Im questoining if I want to walk around my house with cameras inside and look up to see a red ring stareing at me in the middle of the night.

Havent gotten the alarm function to work yet either.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: adamjl on December 02, 2011, 07:26:53 AM
Also, the resolution control is very handy, allowing you to remotely adjust the resolution you recieve, so you can pan in a low resoltion for smooth images, then increase the resolution for a clearer picture.

There is also a system log so you can see the source IP of anyone who logged into your camera, which is nice, see 3 of you guys last night :)

I may have the pan speed turned up a little high, its adjustable and at 3 under max right now.

The field of view is still just a hair narrow, but might be helpful for clarity (license plates), we'll have to see. I would say its more zoomed for an outdoor enviroment but seems to look better and is built for indoor. Its under an awning now, but its 30-40 degrees out, though seems to be working fine.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: dsm382 on December 02, 2011, 11:08:38 AM
just noticed this cam, sounds good, trying to find if it is suitable for outdoor?
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: sazzam on December 02, 2011, 11:36:19 AM
Adamji,

The quality is amazing. I was able to see the feed on my iPhone. I am wondering why it is not showing a smooth live feed while in PTZ.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: adamjl on December 02, 2011, 11:46:34 AM
Best I can tell its not smooth just because of bandwidth, its great if you reduce the resolution. I havent had enough time to play with it on the LAN to see if its my internet upload or the camera. Its wireless right now with a pretty good distance.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: JMac on December 02, 2011, 01:05:00 PM
I can tell you that even at speed 10 (this is the slowest speed) it's a bit jerky.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: Don N on December 03, 2011, 12:37:48 PM
I've got mine working really well with the IP camera connected to my wireless router.  But when I disconnect the router I'm not able to connect to the camera wirelessly.  Can someone give me a clear tutorial on setting up the camera and router?  I must be missing some basic concept here or I overlooked some thing.  I had followed steps 1-4 in the Quick Guide.  Thanks.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: hjr007 on December 05, 2011, 09:15:54 PM
ron,

Did u put in a static ip.  If so then did u did u use to use the camera
did u use active x, server push (firefox,google) or vlc mode.  I had to use the firefox as that is my browser. 

worked like a charm.

Now to set it up outside.  Anyone know how these units will adapt to wet weather (rain/snow).

Not too sure how I can get it to work froma hotel room...  Anyone tired it from someplace other than home..

Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: adamjl on December 06, 2011, 02:20:17 PM
Ive been horribly sick, so I havent been online much.

The speed and smoothness is great on the LAN, even with 4 windows open, which I think is the max the camera will do. So the jumpyness is either my ISP uplink or the cell downspeed.

Recording looks AMAZING even in pitch black. Im really thinking the images look a lot better indoors than outside though. I still havent checked to see if it can read a license plate, which is one of my main objectives, no point in capturing all kinds of faces if you have no names to start with. However I think this will be very neat for watching for deliveries and checking if someone is here and the like regardless.

As far as wireless, keep in mind the IP address will change when you go on the wireless network, probably one above the IP you get when wired, but use the camera detection tool. You need to make sure you configure your wireless network right though, the camera shows you a much more techy version than windows, allowing you to select WEP, WPA or WPA2. If you dont know, you'll have to check windows on a computer you have connected or check the router itself, you also need to know the excryption, AES or TKIP, which you will also have to get or guess at.

The email on alarm looks great, easy to setup with gmail, however make sure you click "submit" before you hit the test button every time, the english on this product leaves a little to be desired and its easy to misunderstand some of the instructions.

The record on alarm works okay as well, it misses about the first second or so of motion, but should be fine, and records in 1 minute increminets while (optionally) beeping on the computer. I havent confirmed if it will record one 5 minute file or 5 1 minute files if there is continuous motion.

The alarm input and outputs, while I havent tested them, look really neat, I cant even get my head around all the things I could do with it and my x10 setup.

Also, I havent confirmed if it will still email on alarm with the PC off, Im doubting it though.

The alarm settings Im having issues with, I cant get it to alarm for anything on level "5" moving it up towards 10 makes it alarm on every little thing, Im sure it just needs adjusted once installed in a permanent location.


You want to view the camera from a hotel room, or take it with you to the hotel? lol. Im assuming view your house from a hotel, which is easy, just set your wireless router to port forward to the camera. You will want to set a static IP on your camera, otherwise it would break anytime its dynamic address changed, then set a port on the camera other than 80, something higher, everything looks for 80 when scanning public networks for exploits. Anyway, on the camera set a static IP and port, then on the firewall under "port forwarding" or maybe "applications and games" or whatever your router calls it, just tell it to forward traffic to that port to the IP address of the camera on the same port.

I havent messed with the DDNS settings, not familiar with that, but it is configuration relevant to remote viewing, but im not sure if it would allow you to do it without the port forward.

Also, I have no idea the firmware on these cameras, but I doubt if its hardened, you might want to restrict access to the public facing port on your firewall, the potential exists for someone to exploit the camera and gain access to your home network, though its a longshot.

I put another camera on my xmas list  :)% Might still need a couple more. Definitely one outside and one inside.

Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: RJJN on December 11, 2011, 02:55:27 AM
Checked with support.  They do not recommend outdoor use.  Does not work with inclement weather (not waterproof) and has not been tested properly at various temperature ranges.  My guess, you will get fogging in higher temp + humidity as they are not the most expensive lenses and at lower than 0, may cause crystals inside and damage inner workings. 

I installed on IE and had absolutely no difficulty in using dynamic as opposed to static addressing.  Just make sure camera is up and running, picture is clear with Cat 5 cable attached and when ready, disconnect Cat 5.  Don't forget that its going to cycle and will take a minute before the IP reappears in the tool and the camera comes back online.

Has anybody figured out how or what app to use on an Android to connect to this thing and how to get to the camera remotely?  The instructions are absolutely useless here.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: pomonabill221 on December 15, 2011, 03:35:42 PM
You can get a genuine Foscam Fi8918 for alot less than the air(head)sight!
Has all the same features as the X10.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: jazroc on March 17, 2012, 11:52:41 PM
You can get a genuine Foscam Fi8918 for alot less than the air(head)sight!
Has all the same features as the X10.

Y'know... I don't have either cam yet, but I noticed that the Foscam doesn't come with a mount worth anything. Apparently, the Foscam, based on Amazon reviews, isn't really worth much... software is pretty bad and the mount is worthless. I guess you get what you pay for.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: pomonabill221 on March 18, 2012, 04:20:00 AM
I believe you are reading the reviews for the 8905.... THAT camera comes with a lousy mount, it can hardly hold the camera.
The 8918 comes with a mount that is pretty good.
Title: Re: AirSight Review - LOVE IT
Post by: Dave Rye on August 14, 2012, 07:33:57 PM
PoE injectors and splitters are now available on our site.
http://www.x10.com/promotions/poe_pass_single.html
There are two types depending on the DC plug/socket size: DC connector sizes (5.5 mm x 2.5 mm) is for the XX40A and (3.5 mm x 1.35 mm) is for the XX34A/XX41A, XX36A/XX42A, and XX39A.