D-Link Wireless Pan & Tilt Day/Night Network Surveillance Camera with mydlink-Enabled and a Built-In Wi-Fi Extender (DCS-5020L) Reviews
D-Link Wireless Pan & Tilt Day/Night Network Surveillance Camera with mydlink-Enabled and a Built-In Wi-Fi Extender (DCS-5020L)
Product Features
- Pan & Tilt – Pan and Tilt live video and keep an eye on a larger area
- Night Vision – View up to 26 feet in total darkness
- Sound and Motion Detection – Enhanced email alerting based on sound and motion sensing technology
- Wi-Fi Extender – Increase wireless coverage for adding more cameras
- Remote Viewing – Free remote live video viewing on mobile devices and web browsers with mydlink
Product Description
View more, do more, and protect more with the clarity and mobile control of D-Link’s Pan & Tilt Day/Night Network Camera (DCS-5020L). With no monthly fees the exclusive mydlink app you can view and control the camera -anywhere, anytime -on your smartphone or tablet. Experience confident clarity and control with the ultra-smooth pan/tilt and digital zoom functionality. Integrated motion and sound-sensing detection and night-vision technology provides around-the-clock surveillance. Designed with an integrated Wi-Fi extender to easily expand your wireless network. With simple installation, you’ll have an effective, affordable home or business surveillance solution up and running in no time.
List Price: $ 149.99
Savings: 55.34
Your Price: [wpramaprice asin=”B00CL8F98W”]
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311 of 327 people found the following review helpful  Excellent camera for the price – Use of D-Link service completely optional, This review is from: D-Link Wireless Pan & Tilt Day/Night Network Surveillance Camera with mydlink-Enabled and a Built-In Wi-Fi Extender (DCS-5020L) (Electronics) Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What’s this?)
Customer Video Review Length:: 5:51 Mins Wireless cameras are a dime a dozen these days but good cameras are often much harder to find. This one certainly ranks up with the best I’ve tried. It’s not because of its video quality (it has a low 640×480 resolution), but it’s because D-Link gives you options for how to use it and connect it to the Internet. You can use their free MyDlink service or simply “roll your own” and have the camera communicate directly with an FTP or email server without the need to use D-Link’s services. You can even do a combination of the two. The pan and tilt camera has a built in web server that gives you complete control of camera settings independently of the MyDlink service. There are also third party apps that will connect to the camera (again outside of D-Link’s services) to bring added flexibility. D-Link even offers a very robust (and free) security application that allows you to string up dozens of these things into a single security DVR system via a Windows application. The cameras can be configured in “patrol mode” and automatically pan and tilt according to set parameters. If you’re looking for a decent home security camera that’s free to use look no further. You won’t get spectacular resolution but you will have the flexibility to determine how you want to integrate the camera into your home or business network. 0 103 of 107 people found the following review helpful  Hard to Set Up, but Still a Good Camera, By This review is from: D-Link Wireless HD Pan & Tilt Day/Night Network Surveillance Camera with mydlink-Enabled (DCS-5222L) (Electronics) I have been wanting the D-Link DCS-5222L camera since it was first announced and waited months for it to be available. I purchased the DCS-932L last year and loved it, but I really wanted something that panned and tilted, so this was exactly what I was looking for. Since setting up the DCS-932L was a breeze for me, I thought this one would be the same deal. It was the total opposite of that. I tried setting it up with the included CD and was able to get through the entire install process up until the very last step. That step asks if you want to log in with your current MyDLink account info, if you want to create one, or if you decline. I entered my credentials numerous times and then it would just hang. Nothing happened. I reread the directions several times, tried redoing the install process several times, then started searching DLink forums for the answer. It was when I searched the forums that I became aware that numerous people had issues linking another camera to their already existing account. I couldn’t find any solutions to this, but I wasn’t ready to give up so I called Customer Support. Now, I’m not a fan of CS, and I try to use them as my very last resort, and while I understand it’s their job to ask the same canned questions at the beginning of each call (full name, phone number, address, email, etc. etc.) all I want is an answer to my problem. The CS Rep had absolutely NO CLUE what was going on and basically had me redo everything I already said I did and ask me repeatedly if I actually did them. What I thought would be a 10 minute call lasted for just over an hour. At the end of the call, his only solution was for me to box it up and exchange it because it was defected. I knew this wasn’t the case because I could get the camera to work; I just couldn’t link it to my account. So we hung up and I fiddled around with it myself. I was eventually able to get it to work, and I honestly cannot tell you what I did. I do know that I found a software update online and downloaded it. Maybe that’s what did it, who knows? Anyway, after a few hours of very stressful trying-every-single-thing-in-the-book, I had it up and running. I was even able to eventually link to my existing account. The camera is a little bigger and heavier than I thought, but it feels very well constructed and looks very nice set up on my shelf. The included AC adapter is long, which is perfect for me since the shelf it sits on is high up. The video quality is what you’d expect from D-Link. Not HD movie quality, but pretty clear. The IR sensor is much more sensitive than the one on my first camera (the DCS-932L). It switches from day to night vision more often than my previous camera and the day vision quality shows pretty vibrant colors. Even in almost total darkness, video quality is clear. Sound quality is great; very clear and very loud. Pan/tilt is a little jerky, but still my favorite feature and biggest reason for purchasing this. I didn’t realize it can record video, but it can, although you have to supply the micro SD as none comes with it. It does come with a remote that you can use to move the camera around, although I’m not sure how useful this would be for me since the only time I really need to view my camera or pan/tilt it is when I’m not home. I toyed around with the remote anyway, and while using it while viewing myself via the web portal on my laptop, there was some very audible, very ear grating feedback whenever the camera panned/tilted. The only cool thing about the remote is the privacy button, that when pressed, immediately points the lens downward so that no one can watch you. Might be good for people who let voyeurs watch them, but pretty useless for me since I’m the only one who looks at my camera, and again, only when I’m not home. Using it through the MyDLink website is very easy. If you’ve used this site before and already have other cameras, it just gets added to the top of the list and switching between cameras is quick and fast. It did take me more time than I thought necessary to change its settings. The advance settings page is not user friendly at all and you’ll have to dig around some to find the options to change video quality/SD card enabling/video recording/etc. There were several times when I made changes that I had to go back and redo them because my changes wouldn’t save. I’m not sure why they don’t give their website the same attention to detail that they do their hardware. What good is “very user friendly” hardware when the software is frustratingly difficult? I have Android products, so this portion doesn’t apply to those of you who use iOS. As far as downloading the Android mobile app, I strongly suggest you stick with the Lite version versus the paid. This is one of the few (if not only) instances where the free version is actually better than the paid. The only feature difference between the two is… 55 of 60 people found the following review helpful  Great camera with great potential, disappointing mobile features, By This review is from: D-Link Wireless Pan & Tilt Day/Night Network Surveillance Camera with mydlink-Enabled and a Built-In Wi-Fi Extender (DCS-5020L) (Electronics) Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What’s this?) This is a nice camera. It’s fast and easy to setup–even with Linux-based computer. Video quality is decent for what it is (a surveillance camera, not a high definition video camera). Motion and sound detection works very well. The microphone on this picks up a lot. It’s kind of spooky. The camera looks cool, is unobtrusive and has a mounting bracket if you want to attach it to a wall. Even firmware upgrades are a breeze to install. You have several options for accessing the camera. You can connect to it through mydlink.com, via mobile app, and directly through your local network. The camera has a built-in webserver that allows you to configure it over your local network, and even supports DDNS, so you can open up a port on your router and connect directly to it through the Internet while you’re away and bypass mydlink.com altogether. You can configure motion and/or audio detection and even have the camera email photos and video to you when it detects something. Once configured, you can turn this on and off through the mobile app. You can also configure preset camera views, so you can just select one from a drop-down menu through the web browser and the camera will pan and tilt to that target area automatically. The built-in wifi repeater is an unexpected and exciting feature. I haven’t needed to use it yet (I live in an apartment), but the repeater allows me to extend the range of my wifi router to other cameras and devices on my local network. I can see this being extremely handy in large houses, office buildings, across yards, etc. Putting a repeater in the camera is clever, since it’s the surveillance cameras that are most likely to be the furthest devices from the wifi router. Now for the gripes… 1. The manual is minimal. That’s fine when everything works as expected. Not fine if there’s a problem since there’s no troubleshooting guide. I once did a factory reset when the camera stopped working only to find out that it was because it was fighting the router for control of port 80. Once I switched the camera’s port to something else, all was fine. That was a wasted hour of frustration, though. 2. Almost all of the most useful configuration settings and controls are only accessible when accessing the camera directly, not via mydlink.com or mobile app. This means you’ll want to spend some time configuring everything before you leave whatever location your camera is at because, unless you setup the camera and your router to be accessible over the Internet, you’ll be stuck with the limited options provided by mydlink.com and the mobile app. This includes cool things like those preset camera views I mentioned earlier. Which leads me to the next gripe… 3. Camera control from mydlink.com and the mobile app sucks, plain and simple. There is no continuous movement. You have to hit a directional button, let the camera move a few increments, then click the button again. It’s a frustrating endeavor to try to pan or tilt more than a few feet, especially on the mobile app. It’s frustrating and surprising that no one at D-Link thought it would be a good idea to let those pre-configured views be accessible via mobile app and mydlink.com. Even if you do configure your camera and router to allow direct access via the Internet, you’re stuck using a web browser to view a page that is not optimized for mobile devices. 4. I *highly* recommend you set an incredibly strong password on the camera–but you’re not allowed to use anything other than letters and numbers. Yep, this is 2013 and D-Link is still using very outdated password restrictions on a device that has the potential to wreak havoc on your personal life if access falls into the wrong hands. All in all, I’m impressed with the camera and its potential. Unfortunately, mydlink.com and the mobile app (iPhone anyway) are bringing down the value of the product. It’s cool and all that I can sit on my laptop at home and do cool things with the camera, but not cool that I have such limited options when I’m away from home and want to check in on things. The good news is that these are conceivably easy fixes for D-Link to make and roll out to people with the cameras. 0 |
