Review: D-Link 5020L Cloud Camera

 

I can’t stress enough the value of security. And because of security, CCTV systems are now very popular and even mandatory for businesses. The D-Link DCS-5020L Cloud Camera is just one of many surveillance cameras available in the market today and their camera touts a panning head, the convenience of wireless connectivity, and free online access.

I’ve used it for a few weeks to monitor a precious bundle of joy. Here’re 3 important features that I will cover in this article: Ease of Use, Reliability, and Clarity.

Ease of Use

Behind the camera.

There is a 0 step process if you have a D-Link Cloud Router, but I don’t have that so I settled for the longer “3-step” process as indicted in the box. The box showed the wizard installation as the 3rd step…but in reality, that install wizard took us through many more steps. It took a couple of frustrating and brow burning hours to get this thing to work, my wife even had to step in to calm me down and help me out.

So what went wrong? First, the installation CD contains outdated installation software so I had to download the latest installation software from the D-Link site.  Second, after installing the latest software, me and my wife had to take turns re-doing the installation steps to make sure that we were doing it right. After 4 tries, we finally got it to work. We were both tech savvy but couldn’t figure out how it finally worked…I guess we stopped thinking about it just to forget the frustration.

Light indicators for the camera.

Next, I created a My D-Link account so that I can access the camera online. No problems here.

Now that we got that set-up, using the camera was a much better experience. We downloaded the free My D-Link app for iPhone and used the webpage on my laptop and iMac. We just signed in and we were able to see what was going on in our home. The interface of the app and the webpage allows us to remotely take a picture, pan and tilt the camera, switch between day and night mode, zoom in and out, mute and un-mute the audio feed, and adjust the brightness.

Do note that the My D-Link website uses Java to stream the video so I had to download Java on my iMac that’s running on Lion...I think Apple has some security issues with Java and that’s why I had to do this extra step.

The camera wifi antenna.

Reliability 

We have a 1mbps DSL line at home with the bundled PLDT DSL wifi modem. We were able to access the camera at our office laptop and via 3G with the iPhone without much fuss. As long as the camera and our wifi router are on, we can access the camera online.

The bottom of the camera.

We were not able to test an actual power failure scenario, so I simulated 2 power failure scenarios. The first was to simulate a quick power outage or a power fluctuation by pulling the plug for a few seconds. For the second test I unplugged the power supply for almost 5 minutes. I was viewing the live feed with the My D-Link website when I did these tests to see what would happen.

For the first test, basically the video feed froze and all the functions were not responding. Shortly thereafter, I plugged in the cam and the My D-Link website almost instantly became responsive again. 

For the second test, the My D-Link video stream also froze, and eventually showed a message that the camera was not accessible and listed possible reasons. When I plugged in the camera, I was not sure if the My D-link webpage should have automatically reloaded the video stream. I got a bit impatient and did a page refresh to reload the Java applet and it was working like normal again.

Clarity

The clarity of the video feed was surprisingly good. The camera has the capability to transmit in day and night mode. The night mode uses IR light so for those who are not familiar with that it simply means that the image will be black and white even in no light.

Day mode image

Night mode image

The camera focus can also be fine-tuned…there’ a small notch around the lens is used to make the adjustment.

The small focusing notch pointing 10 o'clock.

There are options to set the video quality too. The default is at 640 x 480 at 30fps, which is the highest setting. The lowest setting is at 160 x 122 at 30fps. The speed of the video stream was not so bad at the highest quality settings, maybe a less than a second worth of choppiness with my 1mbps DSL connection. I didn’t feel the need to test the lower quality settings but would suspect a smoother video stream for those.

Some FAQs

Testing this out at home and checking up on our baby from work drew a lot of attention from relatives and friends all eager to know more about the D-Link Cloud Cam. Our relatives were all impressed and loved that they can sign in and use my My D-Link account to take a peek at what’s going on with our baby. Moreover, our officemates and friends also had a lot of questions.

Some asked about a recording capability. The answer is yes you can, but you’d have to purchase a My D-Link Camera Video Recorder and a storage device.

Some asked if we could turn the camera on and off remotely. The answer is no.

How about motion detection? Yes it does have motion detection and even sound detection too; however, this feature seems more suited if you have a video recorder.

One asked if there’s a subscription fee to use the My D-Link app and website. No subscription fee, those are absolutely free to use. We even tried accessing the account at the same time, and it works.

What else can it do? Well, it also functions as a wifi signal repeater. This feature was primarily designed so that you can “chain” multiple D-Link Cloud Cams instead of using a stand-alone repeater.

What are the specs? You can find them at the D-Link product page here.

Does it come with a mount? Yep, and here are the other items that come with it:

The power supply, LAN cable, and wall mount.

How much is it? 6,800PHP SRP with any local D-Link distributor or retailer. In Amazon, the item is on sale at $100 before taxes…with a 45PHP exchange rate, the item price is cheaper. Shipping it is a different expense though. A slightly cheaper DCS-5010L Cloud Camera also exists but it excludes the wifi repeater feature, and I am not sure if it is available locally.

Conclusion

The D-Link DCS-5020L Cloud Camera is a welcome addition to our home. Both me and my wife go to work everyday, and the peace of mind we get knowing that we can check up on our little boy anytime is truly a priceless thing.

Admittedly, despite the peace of mind it provides, I still find the price a bit high especially if you plan on installing cameras all over the house or a building. Not to mention the super hassle installation process. But if you can look past those two things, this surveillance camera certainly delivers great results.