Foscam FHC994 Megapixel HD 1280 x 720p H.264 Mini Video Camera and DVR (Black)

I dont know why people are giving this camera a negative rating unless it was broken when it shipped because mine works great. if you have the dial slid to the left it records continuous and when it runs out of disk space it over writes what it recorded at first. if the dial is slid in the middle its motion detection mode which i got to work pretty well but it does not record sound. if its slid all the way to the right its custom mode which you can set with your wigit disk on your computer to record motion or vibration or sound. when you have it set to custom it will record motion detection and record the audio too so if you want to record sound slide it to custom side and set it with your wigit . when you first turn it on it starts recorded then when you leave the room it shuts off right away probably about 3 - 4 secs after it stops picking up motion. then when it picks up motion it turns back on and records for at least 2 mins even after motion has stopped then it turns off until motion again. but it does shut off right away when you first turn it on and doesn't record a lot when you first activate it only after you leave is when it will record for 2 mins minimum. you can plug it on the wall adapter and leave it on it or you can charge it with wall adapter or USB and use its battery. ive always used the wall adapter. the camera will NOT turn on when plugged into the USB. the camera does come with a USB to computer cable but its VERY short i suggest you pick up an extension or a longer cable. i have a long one that came with a digital cam i bought a long time ago and use it. when the light is solid orange its charging when its solid green its done when its flashing green its recording when its flashing green and orange it's recording and charging at the same time and when its red something is wrong. i read reviews about people having trouble keeping the camera card in the camera but if you follow instructions and put the metal pins facing up it works great and fits in perfect and does not come out. the camera has a really wide angle lens. i had a suspession people were coming in our house when we were gone and i put this cam in our kitchen and it could see all the way to the right in our hallway and the bottom the of stairs , the kitchen and fridge, and all the way to the left where the living room was. i hid in the back and walked far out of range to see if it could pick me up and it did turn on and record so hopefully ill catch the people in the act next time. also you can buy a cigarette car adapter for this and it will start recording when you turn the key to off and turn off when you turn the car back on. also it does the opposite and you can use as a dash cam and it will turn on when you turn the key and turn off when you turn the car off. this comes with the wall adapter you don't have to buy that separate. it was well packaged, i even accidentally dropped it on the floor before i opened it and everything was ok. it has a couple large air bags in a small box. everything comes in a small box. the camera is really small like a pack of cigs. the biggest thing in the box was the power adapter. you turn the camera on by holding the power button for 2 secs but it seemed like on mine it would come on almost right away when i would hold down the button. people also complained about the video not being good. well if you set it to the middle dial it doesn't record the 1000 pixels or whatever it says it only records 600 just like it doesn't record audio when on the switch. you have to set it to custom setting and set it to record the higher pixels. i have not tried nighttime camera yet as because i don't have to use it. i just will leave the kitchen light on when i have it in there and there is enough light i don't ever need to use it. i read some bad reviews about the nighttime being blurry but what to you expect for 70-80 bucks with a micro camera like this. its not going to be perfect. it didn't take long for me to charge the camera also only like 1 -2 hrs of playing around making vids and it was charging while i left it on to view the vids. it comes with a 4mb card and it was a large adapter card it fits into so you can view it with a SD card slot. i just view the vids by connecting the camera to the USB and reading the camera like a USB drive disk. i think it should come with a carry case in my opinion. its a pretty neat camera and i will buy another for the upstairs as soon as i get extra cash. i think this is a better rout then a trail camera because this has vibration detection and sound and motion where a trail camera only has motion. but if you are going to take nighttime pictures a trail camera would cost the same and be a better choice. Also one of the things i didn't like is that it runs on batterys and if you charge it everyday it will work for just over a year then stop working. its designed like that so the batteries doesnt get old and catch on fire when charging. if it stops working before the year they will replace it and their costumer service is really good at foscam just email them. another thing i didn't like was its kinda hard to hide. i know its small but not extremely small you maybe could put it inside a box and then make a hole for the camera or do something like that. hope this all helps in your decision to buy.

I maybe would have given this camera more than 1 star if the audio had only worked like it was supposed to, but it also took terrible vids and is NO WAY even remotely comparable to HD quality. It is compact and versatile and it fits easily into your shirt pocket. It's very light and you can adjust the camera angle about 180 degrees. I was a little upset that the audio seemed to be turned off by default, and I had to install a widget from Foscam to change the default settings. However, even after doing that (and upgrading the firmware), still no audio. My call to Foscam customer service was equally frustrating as I could barely understand what the lady was saying because her accent was so thick. Her only advice was to reformat the Micro SD card, which I did to no avail. To add insult to injury, when I returned the camera and ordered a new one, I had to pay $10 more. I'll review it when it arrives. I own 6 Foscam cameras and usually they're the bomb, but I've had trouble with 2 out of the last 3 I ordered, and customer service seems like it's been shipped overseas now. Up until about 2 weeks ago, I had nothing but praise for both the cameras and customer service. What happened? ********************EDIT************************* My replacement FHC994 came in last night (UPS left it exposed in an open mailbox during a moderate rain, a definite no-no) and after letting it dry out, I charged the battery. I tested it this morning and.....same problem. No audio. I started playing around with the settings and here is what I discovered. The audio DOES work, but only if you follow the specific instructions on the instruction sheet concerning custom mode...to the letter. The kicker is that the audio ONLY works in custom mode, not surveillance mode. Also, the LED on/off setting is bogus. The LED flashes regardless of how you set it. I can't recommend this camera to anyone.

Item and included parts arrived as described. Device functions well with a 64GB memory card. The video is very good for what this is but you should not expect broadcast video. As long as the scene is well lit, video will be very good but the camera does not do very well to compensate for any light sources in-frame (a lot of blooming around the source and it makes everything else darker and grainier). I use a Macintosh with the latest OS and had no trouble downloading and using the software from Foscam's website, it is simplistic software but functional. Captured video files played back just fine in Quicktime 7 Pro and Quicktime Player 10.3 with no tweaking or converting. I was able to hide the camera sufficiently to watch some property over the course of a few days and am pleased with the results for the price. This is not a network or connected camera, you cannot view a live feed from it on your computer or smartphone; you need to connect the camera to your computer via USB to configure it and/or download the captured video/audio. You can also remove the card and connect it to your computer separately if you have a compatible reader. When connecting the camera to your Macintosh keep in mind that two drive volumes will show up, one is the internal memory of the camera with a settings file and the other is your data card (if there is one currently inside the camera body) and both should be ejected properly before disconnecting the camera. I had no problem reformatting my ExFAT 64GB card as FAT32 using Apple's Disk Utility. I was worried when I could not configure the record-time or pre-record-times when using in-frame-motion activation but the resulting files captured what I needed anyhow - it appears to have a few seconds of pre-record and enough post-record to not leave you wondering if you missed something. Overall, I am pleased with this purchase and will use it in the future for a quick-setup surveillance camera.

These cameras are fantastic, especially for the price. I purchased two of these for surveillance in my apartment, for numerous personal reasons which I won't get into. It's sufficient to say that the cost of the cameras is a very small price to pay for peace of mind. The design of the cameras works very well for covert recording. Their small size and inconspicuous appearance allows you to hide them in plain sight or easily stash them someplace where they won't be noticeable. Setup is incredibly easy. The first time I used them, I was in a bit of a hurry (on my way out the door for work), and I pulled them out of the box, popped the sd cards into their slots, plugged them in (using included power cables - I haven't tried running them on the batteries because I haven't wanted to mess with figuring out how long they'll last, how long they need to charge, etc.), turned them on, flipped the switches to what I assumed (correctly) was motion activation, stashed them in inconspicuous places, and left. And ya know what? They worked perfectly. It was that easy. The disk that is included has a quick-start guide, some video tutorials (which I've yet to watch), and a software widget, which is not needed unless you're either setting the time/date or trying to make a custom setting (or apparently formatting your sd card, if necessary). The custom settings include various options for use in your car, as well as voice activation. Nice options, but I'm sticking with the default motion-activation setting on mine. Their recording quality is perhaps not spectacular (if you're trying to film a movie, you probably want to invest a bit more money to get a camera that's intended for that use), but certainly is good enough for surveillance purposes. A few notes about the recording: 1 - Though really unimportant, if the camera is placed sideways, the recording will not automatically correct itself, as it might with a recording on your phone. So if you record sideways, you watch it sideways, unless your media player (or device) of choice will let you rotate it. 2 - These cameras record in night vision. Although that may be an extremely useful feature to have, for my purposes, it's unnecessary. I leave lights on in my apartment when I'm not home (I know, shame on me), so the night vision option does nothing more than distort the colors in drastic and unpredictable ways. Items that are black, for example, may appear black, dark gray, light gray, brown or even white in the recording. Something that's bright Iron Man red may look light gray. Now, for personal use and just reviewing the recording on your own, this isn't a big deal. It could be a potentially major problem, though, should your recording happen to capture an unknown person marching into your apartment. "Yes, officer, here's the recording...but the person's hair color, clothing color, and maybe even his skin color are sort of a mystery." The settings do offer "day," "night" and a few other ways to tweak the lighting options, but I've found that no matter which setting I use, the colors in the recordings do not get any truer-to-life. They're just way off. 3 - This can be changed when you install the software, but I found that, straight out of the box, both of my cameras were showing a time and date that was about 18 hours off. One of my cameras, for some completely unknown reason, suddenly decided that the year was 2065. It's simple to reset it when you connect it to your computer, but after seeing it do that, I have to wonder if it will change itself again. 4 - I've only used my cameras set on motion activation, and they work extremely well. However, I've seen my kitties teleport from one room to another. In one file, a kitty can be seen walking into the bedroom and not coming out, while in the next file, he appears in the living room. Either my kitties have some unique abilities, or the cameras' motion detection isn't sensitive enough to kick on at their walking from one room to another. Assuming it's the latter, granted, kitties are small. I would assume that this wouldn't happen if a person walked through the room. There are options to change the motion sensitivity, which presumably would resolve this oddity. But then, I'm not too worried about my kitties' every move. For playback, it creates .avi files, separate files for each time the camera kicks on. I've connected the cameras to my laptop and viewed them directly from the camera, using WMP and VLC players, and they play beautifully. I've also popped the sd cards out of the cameras and put them into my phone to view the recordings, and that works just as well. Out of curiosity, I tried hooking them up to my BluRay player and to my tv, but neither seemed to want to play the files (though I use them to play .avi's all the time). Not a big deal - I just tried it because I was curious if it would work. Customer service from Foscam appears to be outstanding, even if they are persistent. Immediately after my purchase, I started getting emails from them, firstly offering to help me in any way they can, and answer any questions I may have. That, to me, seems unusual these days, and rather nice. I've continued to get emails from them, asking me to review the product. Fair enough. I do really like these cameras, and I've intended to let the world know, but I wanted to explore the options in the software before doing so, and I hadn't gotten around to it until now. Overall, like I said, I think these cameras are fantastic, especially for the price. The only negative thing about them, in my opinion, is the night vision and its crazy color distortion. Perhaps I'll take Foscam up on their offer for assistance and find out if there is a way to change that.

The Camera was ok, I used it on motion detection and it did a nice job. However the software would not install so I could not program the camera. I compared this camera next to a much cheaper one and the only difference was the battery life. The battery life on the camera is great, if you use this camera on motion like I did you can expect to get over 10gb worth of video. With the tilt camera option, you can install this into a teddy bear, a soft side bag, a battery charger for cordless tools, and even into a printer. Any place with dead space. You can buy rivets with holes in the middle and even though this will change the view-able angle of the camera, you will Not be detected!!

Small near construction. even though capturing decent film during daylight. The camera function needs to vastly improved to be on par to other offers in its current class. Objects captured even in daylight is not clear. Dark or night capturing is unusable as the frame capture drops to a staccato-like rate. It's does capture sound very well.

Arrived quickly and as promised. It is a nifty little camera. I bought this camera because someone kept vandalizing my car. It works as advertised. I mostly use it during the day, and the picture is clear (not HQ), but clear. I would not recommend this camera if you are planning to use it at night. As for the actual recording, I bought thr 32gb SD card which works great. It is easily connected to my Macbook air, and I am able to view all the video clippings that occured that day without an issue. I was able to customize it so any noise or movement gets automatically recorded. I cannot complain for the price- I recommend it if your looking for an inexpensive camera, and if you need it for basis use.

I have been unable to get this to work with the Surface 3. I have used two different 32g SD cards and one 8g SD card. I can plug each of the cards into a reader and see everything on the Surface 3. Using a usb cable and connecting to the Surface, in every case it says there is not an SD card plugged in. The surface keeps doing weird things, resetting, etc. The camera works, but I am unable to run the widget to set the date, time, etc. I do not like having to remove the SD card and looking at its contents through a reader, especially when I cannot use the widget to control it. Would not buy it again! When I said the camera works, I need to explain. It records video but has a strange color tint to it and the video is not very clear. I have tried resetting it several times, but still no good. 12-29-2015 Update Tried different cable and it now works. The video still looks like crap, very pink.