Panasonic BL-C131A Network Camera Wireless 802.11

I bought this camera through ebay and got a good deal ([...]refurbished but looks and works fine) to use for my home weather station. The setup was a bit difficult for my Mac (2007 imac) because the enclosed software is PC only. It is also strange that the only way to set it up is via an ethernet cable, even though it is a wireless camera. After a few calls to Panasonic (very minimal wait time and intelligent and helpful staff - WAY TO GO PANASONIC!!!) I am up and running with all of the features. The camera looks and works great - [...].
The network server and ftp feature work fine with my weather station ([...]) and I am now online and able to see my yard from anywhere with an internet connection - I still haven't figured out how to get the picture using a cellphone, but it is supposedly possible.

I couldn't get it to work on the internet, but will try again... Because I could tell for sure the problem was me, and not the product. I can see no reason not to recommend this camera. It seems to be exactly as advertised.

I own 6 webcams from two different manufacturers (Toshiba, D-Link). This Panasonic blows them all away. Setup was a breeze, Image quality is great (although it doesn't do as well as my Toshiba in low light) and the performance of it's "streaming" video mode is 2-3x better (frame rate) than my other cams. I thought the motion-detect/store would be a "throw-away" feature, but it's turned out to be very effective. I'm planning on gradually replacing my other cams with more of the Panasonics! Very highly recommended!

Nice product, but the documentation could be a little better for a Mac. Once I found that the default IP address was 192.168.0.253 I was able to get into the unit and configure all the options I wanted. So you can basically toss the diskette they send since is PC only. In general the documentation is useless but who reads that stuff mostly anyway. Got it configured to do wireless communications with my Apple Airport nicely. Haven't set up a DDNS yet, but that will be next. The triggers are a little odd, not sure I understand them but I'm sure I'll figure them out. The main thing is it works with Safari over the Internet. I'm a happy camper.

Overall, this camera is a good buy. We had tried a Linksys camera before and everything everyone says about Linksys is true. Bad idea. This panasonic camera was easy to set up, about 2 hours with a call to technical support. Techinical support is excellent by the way. The only downside to this camera is a little bit of false advertising: it says you can access it from anywhere in the world. There are many computers I have not been able to access it from due to some type of firewall. It seems like it only works on personal computers, not public computers like at the public library or at work.