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[Bill H]

Have been using 5 wireless cameras in various areas of my home with fairly good pictures for years. Just bought 4 more (2 B/W, 1 Color, 1 Wide-eye) and all seem to have the same problem: They can't tolerate light. Light the scene (overhead lights, etc.) and the pix rolls, tears, and whites out. Tried putting an old and new camera side by side: old camera worked fine, new camera whited out when lights were turned on. (I checked to be sure only 1 camera is on at a time.) Hard to beleive the AGC circuits are bad on all 4. Any ideas?

[Bill H]

Thanks for the quick reply, but the house and unit codes, receivers, etc. all work properly with the current cameras. All I'm doing is substituting a new camera for an old one (using all the same codes, RF settings, etc.).

[hawk1]

sorry about the delete, i was going to rewrite my post but you were posting at the same time i guess. also you might want to post this in a more specific group, like wireless camera or wired  camera.  every group has its experts.

[hawk1]

i'm pretty  new to this too, although i've been tinkering with x10 for years. did you unplug the old camera from the wall socket and try.  it sounds like to me you still have some kind of interference going on. i know you probably did already, but you might want to check the switch on the camera itself and make sure it's not like halfway in between the a-b or what ever you have them set on.  sometimes those tiny little switches are hard to see what there on.  i'm sorry i couldn't be of more help.

[Bill H]

Thanks again, but did check all settings carefully and made sure no other camera was on at the time. Perhaps a bad batch of cams???

[hawk1]

are you using activehomepro to view or tv?  if using active home pro, delete the camera and resetup the camera. are all the new camera exactly like to old ones? if not then you are probably trying to view the wrong camera in iwitness. i don't know if the software uses the same settings as all there cameras but i would imagine not. if your using your tv, then i would have no idea. maybe you do have a bad bunch. if you using either or it would be a good way to test them anyhow. i hope this helped, maybe someone else will chime in. good luck

[KDR]

The cameras should have electronic shutters somewhere in the range of 1/50 to 1/10,000 of a second. I'm not sure what the range is with X10 cameras and don't recall ever seeing a spec on them. Are the cameras inside or outside? Maybe temperature is messing things up? Does the camera display a red or blue cast washed out image before whiting out?

^{----------------KDR}

[Bill H]

The cameras are inside and I've compared them to my other cameras in a variety of lighting scenes. On low-light scenes the new (bad) cams have a bluish tint and seem to be slightly more magnified than the comparison cameras. Brighter scenes, such a room with the sun coming thru a window, distorts the image, causes rolling and white out depending on the strength of the light. I'm monitoring the results in AHP and on several TVs around the house, each on separate receivers but all with relatively the same results.

[Aquadeveloper]

If you have 2 identical cameras side by side, it sounds like you have a bad (new) camera.

[Bill H]

I agree...cameras were returned to X10 with no questions asked. Thanks for the reply!

[Don N]

Bill, I'm experiencing the same camera "white out" as you've described.  I've got two XX11A wireless cameras that have worked fine for several years.  I just bought two XX16A cameras that don't work because of white out.  I've even plugged the new cameras into the old cameras plug and location ... and they still don't work.  Did you ever find a solution for your problem?

[Don N]

I tried another test.  I removed the lens from an old working wireless camera and inserted it into the new non-working (white-out) wireless camera.  The results were the same ... I still had white-out in the new camera image.  Unfortunately the power supply connection to the camera is different between my old camera and the new camera.  Therefore, I was unable to switch any other components (camera or power supply). 

I called and asked X10 for an RMA.  After receiving the email with the RMA number I noticed the explanation they gave for my return was "cameras are defective."  And not that the camera's image creates a white-out image.  Guess X10 doesn't want to admit specific problems.

Anyway, hopefully the replacement cameras will work.  More info to follow.  Inside each box I made a pencil mark just to see if I received the same cameras again.  

[Don N]

Ouch!!!!  X10 doesn't give you a mailing label with the RMA.  You have to spend your own money to send the defective products back to X10.  Then they make you wait another 10 days after they receive the products before they send you, hmmm hopefully, new working products.  Lets see ... I paid for cameras that were defective which I can't use ... but to get new cameras I have to pay to send the defective cameras back to X10.  And then wait 10 days before new cameras are sent.  Does that seem like good customer relations -- or is it just me?   

Anyway, just thought I would mention this in case you haven't experienced X10's return policy for defective products.

[Don N]

I received the replacement cameras today and they have the same "white-out" problem.  They are unusable in their present state.  In my opinion, too much light causes the image to be washed out.  When I say too much light, I mean just normal indirect sunlight.  If I direct the camera to a dark corner of the room, then the image is somewhat acceptable.  But anytime the camera is pointed into the room where there is normal indirect sunlight, the image is washed out.  If the room is dark and I turn on a light ... the camera image is washed out.

Side note:  I've been watching the hits on this topic for several weeks.  There seems to be a lot of views on this topic.  So is this a common problem with the X10 wireless cameras?  I've got two wireless cameras that I've used for about 7 years and they work fine.  But the new ones don't work.

[steven r]

...Side note:  I've been watching the hits on this topic for several weeks.  There seems to be a lot of views on this topic.  So is this a common problem with the X10 wireless cameras?  I've got two wireless cameras that I've used for about 7 years and they work fine.  But the new ones don't work.

One can't conclude that because a topic is read that the reader has the same problem. Some of us, with perhaps too much time on their hands, read just about every post.

I am interested if the new cameras are the same model as your old ones that work fine. X10 has been know to make design changes to their products without making or noting the changes. In some cases this is extended to not even informing their customer service and marketing departments of the changes.

If the models are the same, please post any product date codes noting which ones are working correctly and which ones aren't.