As a result, we can, unfortunately, expect to continue to be subjected to surveillance and criminal behavior from the devices that we think we own. We can't say we weren't warned. Jonathan Corbet

NOT RECOMMENDED: Requires a plugin to be installed in order to edit settings in their Web interface

I’ve bought 3 Foscam C1s. One in the UK for 53.97GBP and two in Singapore for 100SGD each a few months later. Btw I’ve now noticed a new C2 on the market, which offers 1080p over C1’s 720p.

Before Foscam was recommended to me, I only had experience with the Y-cam brand of IP cameras after @edent recommended them to me and Raspberry PI cameras.

Annoyances

Hostname is blank on my ZNID24xxA-Router’s DHCP Leases.

Doesn’t show up on avahi-browse -alr. Can someone PLEASE EXPLAIN what is this P2P address and how can I peer or at least discover it?!

To my surprise almost, the Webcam doesn’t seem to setup UPnP Port Forwarding Rules by default, making me a little suspicious as to how it punches out of my home network!?

If UPnP is enabled, to my suprise it opens a few ports!

Starting Nmap 6.47 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2015-09-09 10:54 SGT
Host is up (0.0038s latency).
Not shown: 994 closed ports
PORT    STATE    SERVICE
53/tcp  filtered domain
88/tcp  open     kerberos-sec
443/tcp open     https
888/tcp open     accessbuilder

I access it from the odd address of http://192.168.1.10:88/ (port eighty eight). It has a fairly odd nmap scan.

Number one annoyance is that FOSCAM’S WEB INTERFACE DOES NOT LET YOU LOGIN WITHOUT YOU INSTALLING THEIR PLUGIN. Yes, it’s a black hole of an untrusted proprietary binary. You could be basically installing anything on your system. It could be malicious. That I find is completely unacceptable. You should be able to adjust Webcam settings without running their plugin!!

You cannot change a most settings without access to their Web interface.

Doesn’t sync ntp time by default

What on earth… why?? Time should always be correct. Except on this Foscam, by default.. it isn’t!

No API

There is no documented API for the C1. There are drips and drabs around the Internet about how to interact with Foscam Webcams with a restful API, but a lot of the material is out dated or just wrong. Very frustrating !

FTP ..OR.. SD CARD

You can’t seem to have both which is a shame. Ideally the flow would be to save to SD card and upload. If upload fails, retry and with sdcard we always have a backup.

Also it can’t upload via HTTP which is a sin in 2015.

Lots of “Foscam” apps on the appstore

It’s hard to compare and judge the value of the zillions of Foscam or Webcam Apps in the Apple Appstore.

• https://itunes.apple.com/sg/app/foscam-viewer/id740126713?mt=8 sucked
• https://itunes.apple.com/sg/app/foscam/id924381688?mt=8 is what I use but argh…

So many bugs with it. No way to listen to audio. No sane way to manage alerts, like only get them when out of the house. Often fails to connect (says it’s OFF). Yes I have UPNP enabled.

The one GOOD thing I like about the app is that it shows the bandwidth it’s using on the top right:

I was expecting to see a Foscam cloud service that had images and videos of motion alert events. To my surprise, there aren’t!

Web confusion

There are lots of foscam Web sites and I am still not sure which one is canonical.

foscam.us offers some worrying security advice.. Backup link

1. install latest firmware - this is absolutely non-trivial on foscam cameras .. like where do you get the firmware?

• never use the defaults… well the defaults are blank soo….
• choose a long password >8 chars … argh
• change your default ports
• check your logs… I have not figured this out myself

SDK access

To get documentation or SDK access to Foscam’s camera, so you can… use it better, you need to sign an NDA.