Hi there,
I'm a reader in this forums for quite a while ... as a BlueIris user it's a great source to get experienced hints!
Today I want to give a short review about the Foscam FI9900P. When we have built our new home in 2013 I've started CCTV with two ABUS TVIP 62000. These are 2MP cams and have been some compromise in price - I wanted to have a quality brand product but did not want to spend 1k€ per Mobotix. In the same year I've discovered and purchased BlueIris which is in my opinion the best piece of software you can get for a reasonable price.
As I still have some dark spots in and around our home I was thinking to extend the coverage by some more cams. The ABUS did cost me €450 per piece and this is currently out of my budget for the planned 3 more cams in the outside area.
Searching the web for a good compromise between price and quality the Foscam FI9900P came into my view ... but some comments here in the forums (especially fenderman ;-) ) made me a bit nervous on this. On the other side - we don't have any relevant Hikvision or Dahua branch here in Germany, so getting these is not that easy.
As a result I've ordered a FI9900P on Monday and had it here on Wednesday, installed it the same day. It was quite easy getting it into BlueIris and I was really positive surprised about the picture quality. It is *WAYS BETTER* than my €450 Abus cams (which have also 2MP), the cam is really cute and small and has a really great night vision.
On the con side:
- Currently the IR LED can't be disabled independantly from the night vision itself. As soon as I disable the IR LED the IR cut filter also goes off. I've sent a mail to Foscam about this, it's a must to switch them independantly. Yes, we have spiders here in Germany and they seem to love IR lights. I've ordered an external IR light which should arrive tomorrow, and as a first action I'll tape these IR LED's on the cam.
- POE is currently not suported, a FI9900EP is listed in the manual but not available in short time. OK, there are POE splitters for that
- As with most cams in this price segment the frame rate in night vision decreases from 25fps down to 7fps (with 1980x1020). But that's OK for me, the picture quality is excellent.
Of course I can't talk about durability at this point. But I'll get two more of them in the next weeks. For me they work great, and I hope that the biggest drawback which is not being able to disable the internal IR LED's will be fixed with the next firmware release.
Have a nice weekend,
Marco
I'm a reader in this forums for quite a while ... as a BlueIris user it's a great source to get experienced hints!
Today I want to give a short review about the Foscam FI9900P. When we have built our new home in 2013 I've started CCTV with two ABUS TVIP 62000. These are 2MP cams and have been some compromise in price - I wanted to have a quality brand product but did not want to spend 1k€ per Mobotix. In the same year I've discovered and purchased BlueIris which is in my opinion the best piece of software you can get for a reasonable price.
As I still have some dark spots in and around our home I was thinking to extend the coverage by some more cams. The ABUS did cost me €450 per piece and this is currently out of my budget for the planned 3 more cams in the outside area.
Searching the web for a good compromise between price and quality the Foscam FI9900P came into my view ... but some comments here in the forums (especially fenderman ;-) ) made me a bit nervous on this. On the other side - we don't have any relevant Hikvision or Dahua branch here in Germany, so getting these is not that easy.
As a result I've ordered a FI9900P on Monday and had it here on Wednesday, installed it the same day. It was quite easy getting it into BlueIris and I was really positive surprised about the picture quality. It is *WAYS BETTER* than my €450 Abus cams (which have also 2MP), the cam is really cute and small and has a really great night vision.
On the con side:
- Currently the IR LED can't be disabled independantly from the night vision itself. As soon as I disable the IR LED the IR cut filter also goes off. I've sent a mail to Foscam about this, it's a must to switch them independantly. Yes, we have spiders here in Germany and they seem to love IR lights. I've ordered an external IR light which should arrive tomorrow, and as a first action I'll tape these IR LED's on the cam.
- POE is currently not suported, a FI9900EP is listed in the manual but not available in short time. OK, there are POE splitters for that
- As with most cams in this price segment the frame rate in night vision decreases from 25fps down to 7fps (with 1980x1020). But that's OK for me, the picture quality is excellent.
Of course I can't talk about durability at this point. But I'll get two more of them in the next weeks. For me they work great, and I hope that the biggest drawback which is not being able to disable the internal IR LED's will be fixed with the next firmware release.
Have a nice weekend,
Marco
