Surveillance cameras are increasingly moving away from the analog to the digital domain. Advances in image and video processing silicon, emergence of efficient video compression standards and abundance of cheap storage have all contributed to bringing surveillance cameras to the consumer mainstream. As connected homes become more ubiquitous, surveillance cameras are tending to become network enabled. These IP cameras are used to record surveillance videos while also finding application for casual home monitoring, baby monitors etc. Their networked nature enables users to keep track of the video over the Internet (at work and on-the-go).

We have already reviewed a couple of IP cameras at AnandTech. The Dropcam Echo came across as very consumer friendly, while the Compro IP540 with the Pan-Tilt-Zoom feature was more professional and catered towards businesses.

We have Compro's entry level offering, the IP 70, in our labs today. While the hardware itself has been around for quite some time, firmware updates were provided recently to bring support for Seedonk. Seedonk is a generic webcam / IP camera service supposed to make the devices more consumer friendly. We will start off with the package contents, cover the setup impressions and talk in detail about the Seedonk service and the ComproView software. A separate section will be devoted to the video and image quality.

 

Unboxing the Compro IP 70
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  • dac7nco - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link

    That picture with the banana, altoids, calculators and dolls is the creepiest image I've ever seen in a tech review. Congratulations!

    Daimon
  • GridConnect - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link

    I am from Grid Connect and we are a re-seller of this product. You can find it on our website here:
    http://www.gridconnect.com/ip70fixedipcamera.html

    I believe as the posting of this article we have the lowest price on this device available, its a very nice cameras as the review said and definitely worth checking out.

    If this comment is read by the author we would appreciate it if you could update the post and put in the link to the product by our name.
  • ArtShapiro - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link

    Why would a technical review of a product promote one particular vendor of said product?
  • GridConnect - Friday, July 29, 2011 - link

    They have linked to vendors in previous reviews that tell you where to buy it. If they dont want to thats fine, I was just trying to save people a step from having to Google our name, find the product, etc.
  • Hrel - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link

    Only use I see for these things is security surveillance. Image quality looks WAY above minimum needed for that. Set it up to only record when it detects movement to save space and back it up to hard drives for later review. Still, I've seen whole systems for 200 bucks that include a DVR and 8 cameras. 1 Camera for that price is insane.

    Maybe there's another niche use for networked cameras I haven't imagined? Probably, people do crazy stuff with camera's and tech.
  • GridConnect - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link

    Actually for these types of cameras with comparable features these are very affordable. Most cameras with all of these features would cost you 3-4x that. The types of systems you are speaking of dont have things like email notifications, movement detection, and monitoring via cell phone just to name a few things.
  • sc3252 - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link

    Those $200 systems suck! As someone who has setup these cameras you do not want to go cheap, it just means they will fail or something else will go wrong. As they say, "time is money" you will find this out fast if you cheap out on security cameras, you will constantly be driving to and from the place of work to reset the camera or to make sure they are working, and good luck getting a usable picture in court...
    PS: $200 is cheap for a security camera, the cheapest you really want to spend is around $400, going up to $2000 per camera...
  • bobbozzo - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link

    There seems to be a word or two missing on page 5:
    "so this is something we are not entirely about with the Compro IP 70"
  • ganeshts - Friday, July 29, 2011 - link

    Thanks! fixed :) It was something we were not entirely happy about with the Compro IP 70
  • Nihility - Friday, July 29, 2011 - link

    Is the feed encrypted?

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