Although I work from home, my office is downstairs from where my mom hangs out and I can’t always be sure she’s completely safe. I’m pretty sure I could hear if she took a tumble and fell to the floor, and I do check on her every couple of hours, but I wanted something where with a quick glance, I could see she was fine.
When I was offered the chance to test out the new Vimtag surveillance camera, I was excited to give it a whirl.
I was expecting some huge, complicated system, but it was so easy to set up. It took less than 5 minutes. The camera has a power cable and an Ethernet cable. It can also work wirelessly which is great because the DSL router is also downstairs in my office. This camera is less than $100.00 which I find amazing. Other cameras can be added to the system to create a larger or multiple viewing areas.
The camera requires an SD card to save the videos it records but I don’t need to save the video so I bypassed that part of the set-up. The SD card needs to be purchased separately as it is not included in the kit.
There are two ways to view what the camera is seeing: from an app called MIPC and from the PC at MIPCM.com. The picture is very clear (so clear that I could see the reflection from the television in a picture frame) and the camera can be turned in four directions right from my phone, tablet or PC. So If I don’t see Mom sitting in her chair, I can turn the camera to scan the hallway to see if she has gone to her room.
I get up early and head to the office downstairs while Mom sleeps for another two to three hours. With the camera, I can see that she is up, has her coffee and is reading her paper. When I see her put the crossword puzzle down, then I usually head upstairs for a short chat.
A microphone is also included in the camera system so for instance, if the doorbell rang, I could speak through the camera to tell Mom not to answer the door, that I would be right there.
I love this camera and cannot believe that such a quality camera is available at such an inexpensive price.
This post is sponsored by Vimtag. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about the camera I only share information I feel is relevant to our readers and I’m always completely honest about the experience, be it positive or negative. Vimtag is not responsible for the content of this article.
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I initially liked the camera. I liked that it is WiFi as I didn’t want to run an ethernet cable from downstairs where the router and the laptop I’m using to monitor the videl to upstairs where I want to see what my elderly parents are up to. I wanted to be able to leave the audio monitoring capability on all night so I or a night monitor person I would be hiring could hear if my parents called out for help. So, the WiFi seemed so flaky I did feel I had to run an ethernet cable, which I did. I felt I couldn’t leave the camera streaming audio and video all night as it seemed to use prodigious amounts of data and the tech support people would not state how much data the camera uses. So I had to install a second wire to run a separate audio intercom system. And, the software to run the camera and view the video it produces is very flaky as well. It won’t reliably start and allow someone to view the camera image. Sometimes the program won’t even start. It doesn’t reliably remember the settings you set to make the camera work, and sometimes, changing the settings back, such as from 50 Hz to 60 Hz, the frequency of electricity in North America, makes the camera work. Its like a TV that’s been on the fritz that you kick or tap until you get it to work for a while – its frustrating and doesn’t give you the impression that its going to keep on working reliably, because it isn’t working reliably now. I need to show night monitor people how to use it and I continually add new pages to the help manual I prepared for them to show the latest tweak that I had to use to get the system running. Once the camera decided on its own to rotate 180 degrees and stare at the wall. I wasn’t sure what was happening so we didn’t have video coverage that night until I could inspect the camera in the morning. I regret listening to all the rave reviews I read of this camera. I also found it a pain to set up. By now I have spent a lot of time working with it, and I’m wondering what other camera to buy. Is there a camera and software system that is reliable that can be used for this application, i.e. to observe elderly parents from another part of their own house? This Vimtag is the most popular camera sold on Amazon. There are so many reviews saying its the greatest thing. I wish I had not bought it.
Thank you for writing. I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had such problems, David. I’ve not had those same problems but I don’t continually run ours as I’m in the same home. Our WiFi is also very upgraded because we work from home and mostly online so it must be reliable.
I don’t know of any other camera systems that are not incredibly expensive. Hopefully, we’ll receive additional responses.
Best regards,
Shelley
I own a Vymtag security camera as well, and can I say I how dissapointed I am with their customer service? I called and it was an African male named George, who spent like half an hour with me on the phone, but had no clue what was going on.
Thanks for sharing with us. I had use vimtag security camera to monitor my baby.