I bought a FOSCAM FI8918W expecting it use it as a wireless camera. The Amazon seller also included a 9dbi huge antenna. I pulled the camera into an ethernet port and got it step up pretty quickly. I had issues with wireless almost immediately, however. The scan functionality in the admin interface did not list any wireless networks. I restarted the device and tried again and my wireless network finally showed up. I was able to connect to the camera over WIFI. I installed tinyCam Monitor PRO on my MK802 III, and was able to connect to the camera. I was able to pan and tilt using the interface.
I started to wrap up the install when the video cut out. I tried restarting tinyCam but it could not connect. I restarted the camera itself, and I was able to connect. I figured it might be a one time glitch, but the camera WIFI died out again. I tried attaching the huge 9dbi antenna but that didn't help. Eventually, I gave up on WIFI. The location of the camera was right next to an existing hole for a coax cable. The whole was big enough to support both the coax and an ethernet cable. I ran an ethernet cable right to my router which is conveniently located right under the room where the camera is going to go. Once I was using ethernet, I no longer had any issues. I could leave tinyCam on for a while. TinyCam would eventually "time out", but that seemed to be a screensaver-like feature of either the software or the camera. It was easy enough to tell tinyCam to reconnect.
Since I wasn't going to use the huge antenna, I decided to try to hook it up to my Verizon router. Although the screw channels were the right size, both the antenna and the router were male. This meant the antenna could not actually screw into the router. It was worth a shot.
I was disappointed that the WIFI didn't work. If it did, I was planning on buying 2 more of these cameras. I tried reading various forums, and nobody had any of the issues I was having. Most answers were related to the fact that some people couldn't get WIFI working at all. These people didn't hook up the camera to ethernet first.
I've been having the same issue. I saw some rumblings trying to figure out what to do to fix it. Unfortunately, I don't have a convenient location to run cat5, so I've been looking for alternatives just thinking the camera is junk or having an intermittent hardware failure. Thanks for your post, gives me the idea of looking into alternatives than just trying to find a new camera.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading! A buddy of mine has an older Foscam that works fine. At first, I thought my camera had a unique problem, but its interesting to hear other people have the same issue. I'm wondering if its a problem with this specific model. If you find a camera that works great for you, let me know. I am still interested in buying two more cameras.
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