Mini Wireless Color Camera with Microphone

• Miniature Wireless Camera with Microphone General Features: 380-lines resolution
• 150-foot range (no obstacles) 2.450 GHz output frequency Built-in microphone
• Full motion real time color video with no delay
• Camera runs on 9-volt battery or AC adapter (battery not included)
• Composite video connections on receiver

I picked this unit after much research, for a home-made robot (class project). Here's the scoop:

For the price, it's fantastic!

Performance: Our best results, with a fresh battery, camera unit transmitted ~200' of open parking lot AND ~75' of industrial building w/ lots of flouro/wifi etc. with minimal interference. However, signal strength fell off with batt pwr. Unfortunately, we used a variety of 9Vs at various stages of use or I'd have a lifespan for you. Best guesstimate is minimum 30 minutes full strength from fresh batt.

We also played around with it indoors, with the AC adapters on both units.

Either way, you'll occasionally have to tweak the RX tuner for best reception if the camera is mobile, or the environment changes (body blocking the antenna of the Tx etc.) See that little knob by the Rx unit's antenna? That's the tuning knob.

How does it work?

Camera unit powered by AC adapter, or 9V battery (short life as expected) sends audio & video to receiver unit.

Receiver unit->RCA cables->TV/VCR/whatever (I used an old portable TV/VCR combo from a junk sale). No "Wifi" here.

If this thing had night-vision AND digital tuning it'd have 6 out of 5 stars. Speaking of IR, this camera will detect IR like most digi-cameras. The only test I managed to do before it's demise* was to point a TV remote at it in a sealed darkroom, and it did register the IR LED.

*The TX unit was smoke-checked by an idiot miswiring an improvised AC adapter after we lost the first one, but I'm definitely getting another.

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I bought this setup for birding. Installation was a breeze. One bit of confusion was the manual which stated the power adapters for the camera and transmitter should not be interchanged and could damage the equipment if hooked up wrong; however, the adapters were identical. I installed everything and had it working in less than 10 minutes. There is some interference as others have pointed out, i.e., occasional lines and jitters, but all in all a very good color picture for the price. I do not see a problem with low light conditions I have a robin who built a nest under my deck, and was hoping to watch the babies hatch. Today they did within half an hour of my installation of the camera. The camera is tucked up underneath the joists and there is no direct sunlight, yet the picture is clear and bright. This may not hold true for dusk, but for use in normal daylight, I'd highly recommend this system if you're on a tight budget. I couldn't ask for more considering cost/performance ratio.

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This is an overall great value once you understand a few things.

This device is susceptible to RF noise. Its either gonna work, or you have to much RF noise and it will not work.

The camera has a series 2 dip switches which give you which give you 4 frequency ranges to play with. The base has a tuning knob to fine tune each setting of the dip switch.

When you initially plug this thing in IT PROBALY WILL NOT WORK. Play with the dip switches on the back of the camera in all positions and fine tune on the receiver dip switch each position.

My intial setup all I did was plug and hope to play. It didnt work, and I felt like I belonged in the 1 star camp. I through it aside and said fegetaboutit...

Fast forward a few weeks later I dug it back out noticed the dip switches on the camera and adjusted them. Fine tuned on the receiver side for each position until I found the one that worked best. BAM, perfect picture! Added it to my Kguard DVR setup and set to record.

Then a week later bad horizontal lines rolling up and down while in live view. AARRGHH, whats going on? Then I tried to think what changed in the last week with my RF enviornment. I happened to add and XBOX 360 slim to my entertainment setup. So I went over to the XBOX, unplugged it and BAM, perfect picture again. Plugged it in , boom lines are back.

So be aware that once you dial it in and you still have scrolling lines, its probaly the RF noise in your home. Try unplugging items that generate RF noise one at a time (cordless phones, XBOX, wifi routers, microwaves while in use, etc.) to see whats killing your image, Its probaly not the camera. For me I live with the lines. They're not that bad. Plus I love the fact I can add a camera anywhere by simply plugging it in.

PS: The lens on the camera can be turned to focus.

Pros:

Cheap

Very small

Well built

Great resolution and color for price

Easy to hide

Audio

Easily added to a Cheap Chinese CCTV DVR for a low cost additional camera

Battery operated

Cons:

No IR lights

Very susceptible to RF noise in the 2.4GHZ range

XBOX 360 Slim interferes

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This little camera works great for keeping an eye on things. A word of advice, be sure to set the channel on the camera so as to not interfere with any wifi network you are running. The switches are on the camera. two tiny white switches on the side of the camera, then adjust the reciever to that channel with the adjustment knob on the top. Once that was don, all of my wireless stuff was happy and working well.

We got this rather than spend $140+ on a baby monitor for our child. We always swore we'd never get a video monitor as it seemed like an invasion of our child's privacy. However, she is now 2 years and 3 months and we are in the process of transitioning from a crib to a bed, and we have quickly learned that we need to see what she's doing during nap times. We thought we'd try this out. Granted, it only broadcasts to one TV, but we mostly sit downstairs and fold laundry while the kiddo sleeps, so we just set the TV up (Picture in Picture) in our living room.

Pros:

We were impressed with the small size of the camera.

Field of View For the most part, it captures most of our child's room. We have vaulted ceilings and placed the camera at the highest place (14 ft). From here, we can point it down and capture most of the room (room measures 16 X 14). If we had shorter ceilings, we probably wouldn't get a good areal shot.

It was easy to set up. We had to buy a RF modulator since our TV has already used up all of the RCA inputs in the back.

The picture is mostly clear as is the audio. There are a few interference issues (see the Cons section). Our daughter's room is upstairs and the TV we attached the receiver to is directly downstairs. In all, I'd say there's about 30 ft from transmitter to receiver. It seems to do ok transmitting through the floor/ceiling. I didn't test it to see how far I could go before the picture got bad.

Doesn't affect our home phone (5.4 GHz) nor our Wireless Internet (ATT Uverse whatever band they use). Cell phones didn't bother it either even in WiFi mode.

Cons:

This device does not like our microwave. I'm unsure if they are on the same circuit, but when the microwave runs we get lots of interference. This is a minor inconvenience though since we don't usually run the microwave for more than a few minutes. We could probably try an AC interference adapter, but we don't want to spend the money on something that isn't that big of a deal for us.

The camera only tilts up and down. The arm the camera sits on does allow you to twist the camera, but the picture twists with it. What this means is that you can easily tilt up and down, but you can't go left to right when you're trying to set it up. In order to get the camera to look slightly left, I had to twist the camera mount. This means our picture isn't exactly level, but again, it doesn't bother us too much.

Battery life is pitiful. I decided to try a 9 volt to see how long it would last. It was a matter of hours before our picture started degrading. Once I attached the AC adapter the fuzziness went away and the picture got much better. Don't get this for it's battery operation option; be prepared to always use the AD adapter.

In all, I'd recommend this. At least try it before you spend $140 on video baby monitors. Worst case scenario you return it and are out only the shipping.