Wilife DVS800I LukWerks Indoor Starter Kit

Highlights---------Pros:1. Combines the advantages of wireless cameras (no messy, expensive wires) and hard-wired cameras (dependable picture transmission, free of interference).2. Price is much lower than traditional surveillance systems. No need to buy a video recorder. Your PC is the recorder.3. Recording can be either motion-activated or continuous.4. Retrieval of video is easy if you know exactly what time you want to replay.5. Camera lens swivels for easily changing the viewing angle, even after mounting the camera.6. Mounting hardware includes a desktop stand, a wall/ceiling mount, and a window-pane mount.7. Any video frame, live or playback, can be saved to a JPEG file.8. Free internet account provides remote access to the cameras (live only, no playback).Cons:1. Retrieval of video is cumbersome and slow if you want to review a long period of time to see if anything of interest happened.2. In the viewing windows, motion (both live and playback) is jerky.3. My computer sometimes (about once a week, on average) loses contact with one or all cameras, requiring unplugging and replugging either the camera or the USB connection.4. The new "Homeplug" technology that this system uses has some quirks that haven't been ironed out yet. Some wiring systems seem to have more problems with it than others.Detailed Review---------------There is much to like about this product. I love the convenience of looking out windows through my computer monitor. And setting up an internet account to get the same views while traveling was as easy as checking a checkbox and deciding on a password.At first, it was difficult to keep the cameras working. The worst problem was that the power supplies tended to overheat, where their lights are, and cut out. After unplugging and cooling off, they would usually return to duty, but eventually they died completely. This happened twice; each time, WiLife promptly replaced the dead power supply. Then I hit on the idea of setting up little fans to blow on the right side (again, where the lights are) of each power supply. I have submitted a customer image that shows the setup. (See the customer images link near the product photo.) Ever since I started that practice, the WiLife system has performed much better.When working, the cameras perform reasonably well. Picture clarity is slightly better than that of my older surveillance cameras, and the field of view is wider. I can watch a car go further down the street, but I still cannot read the license plate. One little complaint: The video, both playback and real-time, is jerky, even though I have set the frame and bit rates to the maximums.Regarding the motion detection, I like how WiLife designed the setup. You can draw motion-detection boxes in the viewing area. Outside these boxes, motion will not initiate recording. You can also adjust the sensitivity, i.e., how BIG a moving object will start a recording. You can make it so sensitive that it will record a cat walking through the picture, or so insensitive that it won't even react to a truck. It is true, as one reviewer complained, that there is no middle ground between too sensitive and too insensitive. If you make it sensitive enough to be useful, then a bird flying by, the sun going behind a cloud, a branch moving in the wind, etc., will start a recording. It is still better than not having motion detection. Take advantage of LükWerks motion zones to avoid objects that frequently move in the wind.LükWerks shows a bar graph of when it detected motions and therefore recorded video clips. You can click on a mark to replay the video clip for that time. Or you can step through the clips. I have a complaint about this interface. It is slow. There are no thumbnails. You're just looking at a bunch of marks, and you have to replay each clip to see what happened. To be fair, as you step through the marks, you are shown the first picture of each clip, one at a time, and this could be thought of as a crude thumbnail interface. But these pictures are not very helpful because the recordings start three or four seconds before motion was detected. This has the small advantage that the video clip shows the context of the motion -- nothing happening, then motion, then nothing happening -- and the large disadvantage that the thumbnail is useless because it is a snapshot of the first, nothing-happening part. In another system that I use, an array of thumbnails shows WHAT WAS MOVING. If the thumbnail shows nothing of interest, it's because something innocuous, like a tree branch, was moving. Looking at a screen full of thumbnails, I can immediately spot the clip(s) with interesting objects. I have to scroll through several screens of thumbnails, but each screen takes only a few seconds, and I can review a day in five minutes. I would love to see LükWerks provide this type of interface to the video clips.11/28/06 update: I just realized that a true thumbnail interface is available by using Windows Explorer to look at the LükWerks video folders. However, as I mention above, most of the thumbnails miss the moving thing that was the whole point of recording the video clip. LükWerks should provide an option to NOT retrieve the pre-motion video. Even better, LükWerks should provide thumbnails that look forward half a second or a second into the motion, thus allowing the moving object to get all the way into the thumbnail. This would miss the occasional bird flying across a corner of the picture, but that is a small loss compared to capturing the vast majority of moving objects in the thumbnails.

After searching for nearly a year for a security camera system for our home that we could view while travelling, I was thrilled to find out about Wilife.I read all the information on the Wilife website, and also what was available here on Amazon before purchasing. Because our needs were specific, I made sure that they would be filled with this kit. Here's what we needed:1. Remote camera that did not require hardwiring to connect to computer (computer is upstairs, camera position is downstairs).2. Camera triggered by motion, rather than always recording.3. Online access to the recorded video.After reading about the system, I realized I'd need to not only pay for the camera kit, but to get online access to recorded video (streaming video access is free) I'd also need to sign up for WiLife Platinum, at an additional $80 a year. A steep price, but worth it if we'd be able to see any activity in the house by reviewing the recorded video online every evening.The system was very easy to set up, and worked acceptably well (the software did have a glitch when changing settings which I never did work out). After signing up for platinum I was able to access recorded video online with my laptop computer, but my mobile device (HP iPaq 5915) would only access live video.I tried different operating systems (upgrading my Explorer Mobile, and switching to Opera Mobile), but still was only able to get live video to work.After re-reading the information on the WiLife site which stated:"Go beyond live Internet viewing. Access your recorded video at anytime, anywhere. Use easy search tools to locate and view video by date, time, and site - with up to the minute availability."The site even showed a photo of a person accessing recorded video with a Blackberry, I assumed this must be an issue with my hardware, my software, or just 'operator error', so I continued to work through the problem.After a week of trying every possible solution, I contacted WiLife support, and after a few useless emails which did not address the problem, finally received one stating:"Cellphones/handheld devices can not do remote playback. They can only do remote viewing in relay mode."So, it is being packed up and shipped back to Amazon.I'm left wondering why Logitec would use a proprietary viewer for the recorded video, when the streaming video uses the regular Windows viewer available on all systems?And the biggest why - why would they advertise that remote playback was available 'anywhere anytime' when in fact it is NOT?In my opinion, this system is not worth anything to the average user until we can access recorded video via mobile device. Once Logitec actually offering what they're advertising (anywhere, anytime), I'll happily purchase the product again.

The software is adequate, it certainly works once you learn the interface. I had a system with one camera running for 1.5 years and added 2 more cameras about 10 months ago.I just had a power outage in my house, and unfortunately the original camera is now fried - both the wall power line converter and the camera itself are dead. The problem is that the wall plug cannot be plugged into a surge suppressor, so your stuck trusting the devices ability to handle line noise. Apparently, not so good at it.My low rating is mainly due to the price and robustness, when you spend this much on a camera you expect it to be well designed. Failing due a lightning strike I can understand, but this was no such event. In retrospect, my recommendation would be to buy a more professionally designed unit that is not susceptible to power line noise. With 3 cameras, I've already spent over $500; that would purchase a much higher end unit then this one.