Am now receiving video and operating the Foscam over the internet! Yeah. Now to get my smartphone to pony up!. I have a Motorola Bravo Android. It connects via internet to the camera, dispalys the menu and allows me to to Admin functions and move the camera however I never see any live video…just a blank screen. When I access the camera (with same phone), in house with my phone connected to the in-house WIFI, I can then see video. The problem with the phone is only over the internet, outside my in-house network…..an ideas? Thanks

Now…..a small problem….well maybe two. I can control the camera movements however other than taking a snapshot I can see on live video…..just a blank black screen. I can see the lites on my ATT router running like crazy but no video. Could this could be due to my slow
DSL? It’s only running at about 1MB. What speed should I be have to support live video via the internet? Also, when I take a snapshot, it works, howver I can not take another and see anything different…..after moving the camera. The first snapshot continues to show even though i (can see that I ) have repositioned the camera and the next snapshot SHOULD change…

Thanks for your GREAT help…at least now I can talk to the camera over the internet…just a little more to go……Happy New Year.

Thanks for the flattering comments. Foscam should send me some free stuff. :)

To clarify, a static IP address is not needed for the camera to work “stand alone” as you suggested. I have a dynamic IP address and my computer is not involved at all because the camera itself is stand alone. At least mine is. I don’t have the FR4020A2 and don’t know its capabilities but if it’s an IP Camera it should work pretty much the same way.

Let’s first talk about port forwarding, what it is, and why it is needed because I feel there might be some confusion.

IP Address Analogy
In order for the Post Office to deliver mail to your house each home has a unique address. This assures letters are delivered to the correct location. The same is true with computers. Each computer has a unique address. This is called your IP address. A static IP address is very much like a home’s mailing address in that it never changes so the post office always knows the exact geographical location to deliver letters and packages. At least for static IP address’s this is true.

Port Analogy
Continuing from the previous analogy, letters delivered to an apartment building all share the same physical address. So when the mail man comes to deliver the mail he knows what physical building to enter. The only problem is that more then one family live at this address. To assure the right family gets the right mail, each family is assigned a unique apartment number (within that building). In networked computers, ports perform the same exact function. That is, they more precisely define which computer within a particular network should receive the information.

In your case, you have 3 PCs on your network and a foscam camera. The static IP address you have helps computers on the internet find their way to your network. But once the package is delivered it is your router’s job to deliver it to the correct device (either one of your three computers or the foscam camera (i.e. apartment)). This is done through port forwarding.

By default, routers are configured to reject all incoming packets. That is, there is a big muscular guard at the entrance of your building (firewall) who turns away the post man. They will open the door to let mail out, but have strict orders to keep the mail man (or anyone else for that matter) out.

By talking to the guard and giving him specific instructions he will allow packages in. This is a port forwarding rule. You set this up in your router and say “I would like all deliveries addressed to the ‘Smiths’ to be delivered to apartment 10″.

In computer parlance it would be, please send all packets received on port 8100 to IP Address 192.168.1.22 (e.g. your foscam camera).

To set this up you have to use port forwarding and it has to be done through your router.

For example:

Under the NAT configuration screen of my router I would do something like this:

This tells the router what ports I want to forward.

This tells the router where to forward those packets to. In this case it would be the IP address of the foscam camera.

Of course your foscam camera should be assigned a static IP address within your network and should be listening for the same ports you are forwarding to. It seems like you know how to do that since you can access you camera internally on your network so you just have to make sure you forward to the correct port and IP address within your network and you should be golden.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you get it to work.

-Mark

I’ve a ATT 2wire router with 3 PCs attached and a Foscam model FR4020A2. Like most, I had no problem attaching and make it work to MY SIDE of the router using either a direct connect to my network or using wireless mode.

I purchased a static IP from ATT and need to set the cam so it will work as stand alone (no port forwarding from my PC) so I can view my biz from home. That’s the problem. Mr ATT worked with me, trying sereral differnet settings in the router without success. When attempting to access the camera via the static IP or the internal router assigned IP, the result was always the same NADA…no connection possible..nor could the IPs be pinged.

I’m at wits end and am now just recharged enough to try this again. Sure hope you can give me some pointers. PS…I’m able to navigate myself around both the 2wire and the camera fairly well, so maybe with an example of what needs to be set to what, I can do this thing.

Thanks very much…Earnie

I own the FI8918W so I really can’t talk to the FI8910W. With that said, I believe the email feature (on the FI8918W) will work even when connected to a Synology NAS. Even if you can’t have both functionality it is highly doubtful that you would permanently lose that feature, say when you move the camera to another network or the NAS dies (as you suggested). What I would do is test it. Get the email function working, then connect it to your NAS and see if both still work just to be sure.

-Mark

I appreciate the positive feedback.

Sincerely,

Mark

A lot of great information, thanks. I have a Synology NAS and the current operating system indicates support for both FI8910W and FI8918W but only “guard” for the first. Guard is apparently their term for using the NAS to pan and tilt while performing surveillance. I’m concerned about an earlier post indicating inability to email an image with the FI8910W, I don’t see this in what little documentation I’ve found. As background, I don’t want to lose this feature when the camera isn’t connected to the NAS (ex. if I want to temporarily relocate the camera off site, NAS dies, …).

This was really a great post on niche markets, and how to set up a blog with a niche topic. Thanks for expressing everything so clearly and sharing the information.

Doris Hullett

I wrote about this on my other blog. If you are using Internet Explorer and are experiencing this problem check out:
How to Get the Foscam FI8918W Wireless Pan And Tilt IP Camera to Work in Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7

-Mark