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Panasonic BL-C230A Wireless Internet Security Camera |  | Brand: Panasonic
Category: Photography
List Price: $299.95
Buy New: $199.00
as of 9/8/2010 20:38 CDT details
You Save: $100.95 (34%)
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  38 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 8.3 x 5
Legal Disclaimer: We do not in any way represent that any part we sell is legal to possess in your jurisdiction. Check with you local authorities to ensure it is legal for you to possess before buying!
MPN: BL-C230
Model: BL-C230
UPC: 037988845699
EAN: 0037988845699
ASIN: B002JM5JSU
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your credit card will not be charged until we ship the item.
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| Features:
| | Image Sensor: 1/4" CMOS, 320,000 pixel | | | 3x Digital Zoom | | | Wireless Network | | | Max. Video Resolution: 640 x 480 (VGA) | | | 82?pan, 42?tilt F2.8 Lens brightness |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The BL-C230A is Panasonic's full motion wireless video network camera. It features wireless network connectivity and is suitable for a home or business setting. The integrated internet connection allows users to view camera output in real time full motion video from anywhere in the world using a personalized secure web address (provided for free). It is even possible to pan, tilt and zoom remotely. The camera employs H.264 video compression which provides higher video quality and uses half the amount of bandwidth compared to other formats. Built-in sensors detect body heat, sound and motion. The sensor settings are customizable so they can be used separately or all at the same time. They can also be set to be active at specific times of the day. When a sensor is triggered, an image is captured and can be sent via email or to a VIERA CAST enabled TV. There is built-in memory to store images and the included recording software connects up to 16 cameras.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
Good but needs several improvements August 30, 2010
Generator bill
I purchased the BLC230A and it installed very easily. Then the problems began as my camera dropped its wireless connection frequently. I spent hours with support who I give an A++ to. When I bought a second camera it was much of the same, all and all I spent probably 20 hours with Panasonic Support and Verizon (home router)support. Seems part of the problem was the cheap router Verizon furnishes.
The software sets up very easily but shortly you will learn that the software is very poor and there is almost no instruction or explaination of it. If you set up Motion Alerts, when it senses motion like the dog walks in front of the camera it will send you 10-15 emails with a photo from the camera in each email, then it Deletes them from the camera memory so there is nothing to review. Imagine 4 cameras and someone walking through, 60 email alerts?? If you turn Motion Alerts off it deletes all of the email setting information from the camera setup. To turn Alerts back on you must input all of the email settings again like the SMTP, port, email user name, password, email addresses and more. Could be much easier to allow a feature to turn on and off only without losing the settings.
The power blinked due to a storm and that wiped out the alert memeory also. With more than one camera in the "multi" view mode, often you have to set the refresh rate to 3 seconds rather than immediate or the other camera won't come through. Very noisy motor that moves the lense from side to side.
Panasonic has a great start on a good product but it needs to be tweeked a lot before I could fully recommend it. The best thing is their on-line fully capable software is FREE while Logitech charges $80/year to use their full feature on-line software.
 Excellent security camera August 29, 2010
A. Black (Atlanta, GA USA)
The motion sensitivity of this camera is perfect. I have it pointing out the window of my basement. I have some tall plants about 20-30 feet away, and it correctly does NOT trigger if those plants blow in the breeze; however, if someone walks into the frame (even from 30 feet away) it sets off the motion sensing trigger perfectly. If you get a flickr account, you can get an email address from there and set up your camera to email pics to that address. Then it's really easy to see what the camera has captured. Note: You will probably need to call Panasonic Tech Support to set up the camera unless you really understand routers, but they are very helpful.
 Unreliable, Buy an Older Model Instead August 24, 2010
Christopher Crim (San Jose, CA USA)
Let me start by saying that I've owned a previous generation model BL-C131A for years which has worked great all along. It runs day and night, capturing time lapse and motion and is always accessible and responsive both from inside my home network (based on an Airport Extreme N) and outside my network via port forwarding.
So, I thought it would be nice to have a couple of additional cameras as I like being able to check on my cats and so I bought two of this newer model, BL-C230. Good grief, so much grief! They were a hassle to set up even using a Windows environment and the native software. It took a great deal of fussing and troubleshooting but I finally got them working.... for minutes at a time. Yeah, no kidding. They do sometimes seem to stay up and running for hours or even a few days, but they're incredibly unreliable. You check back and find that one or the other of them have gone off-line again showing an amber light rather than green and being completely unresponsive to web access. I can power them down and get them up and running again but it doesn't last long.
I've tried them both in wireless and wired mode. It seems like the trouble is in wireless mode, as they seem to keep working in wired mode. Meanwhile, the BL-C131A just keeps on humming just fine in wireless mode. I've upgraded these two new ones to the newest firmware but they're still not any more reliable. Next up I'll see if Panasonic tech support can help but from the sound of reviews from other owners, there seems to be one or more serious flaws in these camera's firmware.
Anybody wanna trade their old models for the new ones? ;-)
Connectivity for Apple August 5, 2010
Jean-Manuel Nothias
Thanks to other reviewers for the setting on an Apple Airport. It works fine on my Time Machine home network.
In order not to use a PC, I used the Parallels Desktop software to run the first install.
The only trick there is to make sure that you run the virtual Windows machine in a "bridge networking mode" and not in the shared networking mode (in the device menu/network adapter 1/Bridge networking and there select whatever your network connection is).
After connecting and setting the camera re-configure to the shared networking to allow internet connectivity on both Mac and virtual windows machine.
I will buy few more of these cameras.
Cheers
JMN
 BL-C230A Wireless August 1, 2010
sakamoto
I didn't quite believe the wireless problems with this camera that people were seeing until I ran into the problems myself. Bought 2 of these cameras and they arrived as promised just in time for the weekend so I could set them up. I didn't even bother to read the manual/guide; just popped in the CD and ran setup.
The cameras started up in Wired mode and the app could see both cameras and I was able to access them fine. Updated firmware to v4.31R00 (from v4.13R01) using the browser (not from the setup app). Changed IP to Static. Setup Wireless (SSID, WEP). Everything was fine and dandy until it came time to switch to wireless mode. First I unplugged the power from the camera then flipped the switch from Wired to Wireless then plugged the power back in. The camera went thru its usual initializing mode but then the Power LED just kept on flashing in amber and never went to green so that meant it was never ready.
Several things went thru my mind at the time. 1) It couldn't establish wireless connection with the router (wrong WEP key, wrong SSID etc.) 2) It's not compatible with my AirLink N router 3) Static IP conflict...
I then tried pinging the camera's IP and the reply was coming from the IP of the laptop I was using to do the setup (the laptop auto obtains IP and is wireless) which was very strange.
I decided to reset all back to factory default settings and restarted the setup over from scratch - this time I used a Wired PC to do the setup. I went thru the same steps as before this time I made sure to match the Router's SSID exactly caps and all. Keep in mind this camera only supports Open authentication (for WEP).
Switched to Wireless mode again and this time I was relief to see the Power LED went to green. Went to 'Multi-Camera' Setup to add the second camera to the first. Both cams can now be seen side by side in the browser. I also have a Sony SNC-M3W PTZ cam and I thought I could add it to the Panasonic pool. Well it didn't work. Maybe it can be done but this is as far as I got....
Haven't tried accessing the cams from outside my LAN yet but that's just a matter of a couple of ports forwarded.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
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