simplicam HD WiFi Home Video Monitoring Camera with one year of 1 day Closeli Recording Services

I bought this particular bundle in February 2015 to use at my office, and while it was initially great, these past few weeks have shown that it is not very reliable.Despite having a great wifi signal, the camera has been disconnecting constantly. I have contacted ArcSoft through the simplicam app, but it seems highly unlikely they will ever respond. While I'm hoping the camera will eventually reconnect to my wifi, that is just too risky.I bought simplicam after my office was broken into (thankfully nothing was taken), and its reliance on wifi is not good enough.I just read about a camera from another company that connects through existing electrical wiring. Even if the power were to go out, that seems like a much reliable option at this point.The best thing going for simplicam is that you can download clips and share them. It was very handy when I had to share footage of teens causing property damage to another office nearby. Setup is relatively easy, but it is annoying to constantly make sure the wifi is connected properly. Their smartphone app could also use some work; more controls and such would be helpful.If ArcSoft ever reads this, I hope they will add better features to their future cameras, especially stronger wifi reliance and other connection options.

This IP camera was easy to install and connected immediately to the home wireless internet. The flat power cord is long enough to reach to a required nearby 110 A/C power socket. The web and iOS APP are nicely written and easy to navigate.The cost of the annual video storage program is more than I would have liked, but reasonable when compared with other similar providers. You do not get an option to select other storage providers or use your own NAS.The facial recognition is a nice new feature, but only allows one to "register" a face from a user that willingly goes through the 1 minute process. I would rather have the facial recognition allow me to register faces that have been captured in the surveillance video, like the package delivery men, occasional guests, pets, etc, since having to manual register these people would be awkward and they would probably refuse. For this lacking feature, I have rated it a 3 star product. Asking customer support for this enhancement ended up with them telling me there stance for privacy, which I can understand their stance, but this makes the "facial" recognition about 10% functional from the notifications I get with "Unknown Face"... when I know who they are. Other software, like Google Picasa, and Apple Photo allow me to label faces, but apparently Simplicam management does not want home users to label faces.The cameras are not directly accessible from your local network, but you must use their web or mobile applications to view the video stream. I also consider this a limitation since I would like to be able to capture the video stream using 3rd party software and be able to create additional alerts or capabilities for these cameras.

Not happy. Here's why.Camera started turning on and off intermittently despite having constant power and constant wifi service. There were hours and hours of non-functioning equipment. I originally purchased the camera and service for reliability, but I'm not receiving either. AND to make things worse, simplicam / closeli stopped fulfilling the monitoring service 4 months early. I ordered this camera in July 2015 and by March 2016 the "year's worth of monitoring" had expired. So I paid for 12 months but only received 8 months of monitoring. Terrible.

5/2017 UPDATE:Camera drops off network daily now and requires a hard restart to get it to work again making it completely unreliable as a security camera. Down to 1 star.So the quality of the image is acceptable...it's 720P resolution so zooming in isn't going to give you much detail. It always (like most security cameras) gets triggered by shadows, wind, etc. when you've got alerts setup for motion. The deal breaker is that now after a year of use it refuses to stay on the network (nothing has changed at my house on that end) and requires a reboot every day to keep it working. No good...especially for the price...you can get better deals on cameras of this caliber that are more reliable now.Update.For some reason the camera now no longer has trouble staying on the network. Possibly fixed through update. Raising back to 3 stars.

The camera works pretty well but not flawlessly. Intermittently it will display in black and white instead of color even in daylight. But it's been a good value for the price. We also subscribed for the least expensive video recording plan which holds the video for 24 hrs. The video can be downloaded and saved if needed. The android app was terrible for a while but seems to be working better lately. The problem was that the app would appear to be opening but would not connect and finally would result in an error. The only way to open the app was to go to apps on the android phone (both Nexus LG and Motorola Droid), force close, and then return to the app which would then usually load. There is also a time lag between the time motion is detected and the time of the app notification of same. And there are intermittent short lapses in image recording. Hard to tell whether that could be due to the wifi or internet connection. I would definitely buy this camera again.

Set up was extremely easy. The camera looks nice and solid. Quality of video was good. But in the end, it was totally unreliable and I am returning it. After lots of back and forth with customer service, they could not figure out why it kept disconnecting. They sent a replacement, and that one disconnected too, despite strong wifi. I tried connecting it directly to my router, and to my wifi extender - made no difference. Kept disconnecting. Unless you have reliable service, the product is pretty much useless.