What our experts say …
Wireless video cameras have been around for a good while, as have network cameras, and there are plenty of both to choose from, but the combination of wireless and network technologies is comparatively rare and this just happens to be one of the more eye-catching features of the Y-Cam Black.
There is also a Y-Cam White and oddly enough, in a market as small as this one, bears an uncanny resemblance to another Wireless IP camera, the Panasonic BL-C20. Hopefully it’s just a coincidence but the similarities, both physical and operational, are quite remarkable.
Wireless in this case means industry-standard IEEE 802.1 Wi-Fi, which provides the camera with a fast two-way network connection to a nearby wireless router or access point. Images, and audio from the camera, can be monitored on PCs connected to the network using a standard web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer only), and with a little additional tinkering, over the Internet, potentially from any PC, anywhere in the world with a net connection.
Wireless operation is the headline feature, though, and at heart the Y-Cam is an IP network camera designed for connection to a network using an Ethernet cable. In common with most other cameras of this type it has a number of extra functions and a few useful tricks that you’re not going to find on conventional hard-wired analogue surveillance cameras.
These include sending email notifications with a still image attachment to nominated recipients, triggered by the camera’s on-board motion sensor. All of the camera’s setup and configuration menus can be accessed though a network PC, and the ActiveX Viewer applet has provision for recording live video and motion detector triggered events and capturing still images.
The actual camera is based around a 1/4-inch CMOS sensor with 310k pixels, yielding images in three resolution settings: standard VGA (640 x 480), QVGA (320 x 240) and QQVGA (160 x 120). Minimum low light sensitivity is a modest 1.0 lux but this model has a 30 LED IR illuminator built in and that, plus auto colour/BW switching and some extra signal processing, allows it to see up to 12 metres ahead in zero lux conditions. MPEG4 compression is used and live video is sent over the network connection at up to 30fps.
The simpler and cheaper Y-Cam White mentioned earlier has a smaller 1/6th inch CMOS sensor and it doesn’t have the IR illuminators, otherwise they have a near identical specification.
Back now to the Black model which we have been bench testing. The camera is housed in a compact square shaped two-part plastic case with the camera looking out through a circular window, surrounded by two rings of infrared LEDs. A single dual colour LED on the front indicated power on (green) and Ethernet connection (orange). On the opposite side of the front panel is a small hole for a light sensor, and in the top right hand corner is another small hole for the built-in microphone.
A short stubby antenna protrudes from the top of the case and there’s a recessed Reset button on the side. Around the back there are just two sockets, for the power supply (5v DC, via a supplied mains adaptor) and the socket for an Ethernet cable. A threaded boss for the simple L-shaped mounting bracket is in the middle of the back panel.
Inside the case there are three PCBs. One is mounted on the inside cover and this is for the infrared LEDs. The image sensor, lens and some processing chips are on a board fixed to the rear cover and sandwiched in between, on the third board, is where all the clever stuff lives, with all of the processing, comms and Wi-Fi components.
The supplied mounting bracket is very easy to fit and suitable for wall or ceiling installations. The only thing to watch out for is clearance for the antenna. The case isn’t weatherproofed and is designed for indoor use only, otherwise it looks reasonably tough and the quality of construction is very good, so it should be able to stand up to the rough and tumble of domestic and small scale commercial or retail installations without too much difficulty.
Setup and operation
All professions have their slang and jargon and perhaps the best known in our business is ‘RTFM’. The Y-Cam Black is a salutary lesson in practicing what you preach, and not reading the ‘frigging’ manual bought us a good 30 minutes of frustration as the camera stubbornly refused to connect wirelessly.
Getting the camera up and running via an Ethernet cable is no problem at all, simply hook up the network and power cables and pop in the installation CD. This contains a setup program that searches the network for the camera. Double click the entry and it opens an Internet Explorer window asking for a username and password, and once entered sets about installing the ActiveX Viewer plug-in. Once that’s done you have full access to the camera’s live view and setup menus.
It appears very straightforward and clicking the ‘Settings’ link on the viewer opens a new web page displaying a set of menus, one of which contains a section for Wireless setup. If we had read the instructions at this point and followed the excellent advice to use the ‘Wizard’ setup, the camera would have been communicating wirelessly in a matter of minutes. Instead we decided to ‘go off road’, ignore the booklet and completely miss a vital option for searching out nearby Wi-Fi routers and access points, with predictable results.
Otherwise setup and configuration is an absolute doddle. The setup menu has four sections: Camera, Network Alarm and Tools, each with their own set of sub menus.
The Camera menu has two options, Camera Setup and Night Vision Setup. The former covers Image size (also selectable from the main viewer window), Frame Rate (2 – 30fps), Bit Rate (64 – 2048kbps) light frequency (50/60Hz), image rotation (180 degree flip), Show FPS (displays frame rate), enable/disable microphone, microphone volume (also on viewer window) and audio bitrate (16 – 40kbps).
On the Night Vision menu there are three switches for the IR LEDS (on/off/auto), black and white mode (on/off/auto) and ‘Moonlight Mode’ on/off (gain-up/slow shutter).
On the menu
Five sub menus under Network cover Wireless setup, TCP/IP setup, PPPoE setup, DDNS setup and UPNP setup. The wireless submenu includes the elusive site search option, mode (infrastructure/ad hoc), security mode (WEP 64/128 bit and WPA/WPA2), plus entry boxes for the encryption keys.
Alarm Setup deals with motion detection, which uses three positionable and resizable detection windows, each with their own threshold and sensitivity settings. The Alarm menu also has configuration settings for the email notification and FTP upload facilities, for live web viewing.
Finally, on the Tools menu there are sub menus for setting the camera’s network identity, managing users, setting date and time and optional Internet time server, switching the front panel LED on and off, backing up the camera’s configuration and upgrading the firmware.
You can take it as read that none of the setup options are particularly taxing (providing you read the instructions) and apart from the more detailed networking settings, which you will only need to access if you want to set up remote web viewing etc, it’s virtually ready to run straight out of the box. Day to day operation is also virtually effortless; the browser Viewer window has just a handful of controls, for adjusting audio volume, taking a still snapshot, magnifying the image, manual recording start and setting the resolution.
So far it all sounds fairly uncontroversial, but there are a few unexpected omissions. The first is the lack of an on-screen camera ident. It’s not a big problem on a single camera setup, but if two or more cameras are in use on a network there’s no easy way to distinguish between them. In a similar vein, there doesn’t seem to be any provision for multi-camera operation in the supplied software, which seems a pity, given the ease with which network IP camera systems can be expanded.
Another oddity is the absence of any on-screen indication of an alarm event, or alarm log; in fact, unless you set up email notification, the only way to know if it had been triggered would be to go to the folder where the alarm recordings are stored and check the times and dates.
We are also a little disappointed by the paucity of camera controls; there are none, apart from the ‘Moonlight Mode’ option in the Night Vision setup menu. This would be forgivable if the camera had competent automatic exposure and colour balance controls but as we shall see, it leaves something to be desired in that department. One last gripe, and that’s the lack of flexibility when it comes to web browsers and operating system. As far as we could determine it only works with Internet Explorer (v5 or later) and Windows (XP, 2K and Vista), which obviously covers the bulk of the market, but it does seem a little short sighted not to include the growing number of Firefox users, not to mention those using Mac or Linux systems, who are also left out in the cold, as the setup utility is Windows only.
Performance
Even after taking into account the price of the camera, the modest performance claims and difficulty of sending live video over a wireless network, we have to say that image quality is rather average. There is a small improvement when connected by network cable but overall the effects of the heavyweight compression are fairly obvious in the digital artefacts and coarseness of the image.
The exposure systems are fairly basic too and have difficulty coping with bright lights and windows in the scene and strong backlighting. Colour accuracy is quite variable too, and overall the image on our sample was a little dull and quite contrasty. To be fair it’s not too bad when the scene is lit by good natural light but tube and dull mixed artificial light do all sorts of strange things to the colours.
On the plus side, and we really don’t want to sound too harsh about image quality, the exposure system is quite nimble and responds quickly to changes in lighting levels, it handles motion well, and low light performance, with and without the IR illuminators, means it is able to produce a useable image in a wide variety of conditions. Audio quality is surprisingly good too, and mechanical stability is excellent – it never missed a beat when given the customary beating with the Security Installer rubber mallet.
What the manufacturer says …
Y-cam has responded to the growing demand for simple, affordable IP monitoring solutions by launching the Y-cam series of IP cameras. We are a UK based company that specialises exclusively in the manufacturing and development of easy-to-install IP cameras, and we have invested heavily in this technology as we strongly believe it will be the future of all video monitoring. Our teams of developers, in both Europe and Asia, are able to develop our core principles into products that are the best value-for-money in their class, quick to set up and easy to use, and designed to work in everyday environments.
We also understand the problems security installers are facing with IP technology, therefore we have designed a user-friendly installation procedure and an intuitive web-based interface which allows quick connection with minimal effort. We have a dedicated technical support team should our customers need any assistance in setting up Y-cam cameras.
The Y-cam’s high quality video and reliability make it the ideal solution for the SME and home-user market. Its small, unobtrusive design also ensures it is better suited to home and office environments than other traditionally-styled cameras.
With our Multi-Live software, the installer can offer a solution where the user can monitor up to 16 cameras at any one time.
The real benefit of IP technology becomes clear when each camera can be situated in a different location. Y-cam has now made remote viewing easier and more affordable than ever before.
Y-cam – view your world from anywhere …… anytime.
