8.0

Edimax Wireless 11n Pan/Tilt IP Camera
IC-7000PTn V2

Technology continually keeps on amazing me and the Edimax Wireless 11n Pan/Tilt IP Camera is one of those devices. Boasting high speed hardware based on MPEG4 or M-JPEG compression, this tiny little camera allows you to view your home, office or whatever from anywhere over the internet. Although this technology is not new, the IC-7000PTn is boasts a few cool features such as Windows 7 compatibility and more importantly, iPhone compatibility !

Features

Before we get the crux of the review, lets talk about its features...

• Complies with wireless 802.11b/g standards with WEP,WPA and WPA2 encryption

• Records audio/video stream, "live" or on a predetemined schedule

• Supports motorized Pan/Tilt with a viewing angle (±355° horizontally and ±120 ° vertically)

• Views real time Motion~JPEG or MPEG4 video via Internet Explorer

• Supports motion detection and snapshots the triggered events

• Supports 4x digital zoom

• Supports SD card to store snapshot images locally

• Supports 2-way audio

• Supports UPnP protocol

As you can see, the device supports some interesting features from the latest encryption standards to some extremely generous viewing angles and even 2-way audio. The quality of the build is rather sturdy (albeit a little basic) and comes in a neutral silver finish. On the back of the device, you have your two antennas for wireless, power, SD card slot, WPSB button, Audio out and a LAN connection. It's basically everything you need for security.

Installation

The installation of the IC-7000PTn is not easy. There... I've got it out of the way and if you are not too familiar with wireless settings, than you might be in for a whole world of frustration. To make matters worse, the manual for the IC-7000PTn is unfortunately lost in translation and the word Chingish suits the translation perfectly. I initially tried to get the device working wirelessly because the manual stated that this was possible (so it sounded)... how wrong was that? Well for me anyway.

After attempting numerous things on the device and reading both the small paper manual that comes with the device and the PDF manual on the installation CD, I was none the wiser. I eventually connected the device to my wireless modem/router via a LAN cable and all of a sudden, the software worked. I fiddled with the settings and enabled wireless on the camera and presto, it was working wirelessly.

Software

The software that comes with the disc has an older Windows feel to it, that is... the interface and as you can see from the following screenshots, the developers have attempted to keep it simple. This works in some ways and not in others. If you have the device connected to a network in a home or office, you can run the software from the computer (see below) or it also supports a web interface when you want to check your camera when you're away, e.g. the internet.

I must admit that the camera quality is quite decent and it even supports a digital zoom of up to 4X digital. My favourite aspect of the device is that it can be sent to support motion detection. This means that when something moves in front of the camera, like a person or a dog, the camera will automatically start recording which is quite neat!

Offices will probably use the local software interface for the camera but for home users, the internet interface is perfect. Once you have it successfully connected to your network, you can log in from anywhere in the world to see what your camera is doing. That's great if you're in front of a PC but where this device shone for me was that there is an application available for the iPhone which basically does the same thing. The only issue in setting up the camera for internet use is trying to get the correct settings and for the average user, they will definitely need some support.

In conclusion the Edimax Wireless 11n Pan/Tilt IP Camera is a good internet security camera that can be installed in a variety of places, whether in the office, outside or in the home. You can even mount the camera on the ceiling as well. It supports all the latest wireless technology, contains relatively unbreakable encryption and can be remotely controlled. It even supports an SD card to store snapshots on the camera itself which is a nice little backup system. The only issue I had is that the installation is quite horrendous but apart from that, relatively smooth sailing!