TRENDnet TV-IP851WIC 640 x 480 MAX Resolution RJ45 Wireless Day / Night PTZ Cloud Camera TRENDnet TV-IP851WIC 640 x 480 MAX Resolution RJ45 Wireless Day / Night PTZ Cloud Camera

Pros: Setup is simple
High quality video stream
Night vision is very good
Mobile app is very convenient

Cons: Not battery operated, so it requires a nearby power outlet.
Digital zoom only
Sound wasn't working
Mobile app is slow
Image/video uploading is a little confusing
Constant static in audio

Other Thoughts: This was installed using a router without a WPS button using the included CD and LAN cable to manually set it up. The setup sounds more complicated than it actually is, and it would be even simpler with a WPS router. Once the setup is complete, you can remove the LAN cable and it works wirelessly, even after removing power and moving it to a different location.

The mounting hardware was not used in my case but it would come in handy if it was necessary to wall or ceiling mount it, otherwise it works fine just sitting on a flat surface.

Privacy is definitely a concern with this camera in my opinion. There is no secure connection, and the only security it offers for your video stream is the username, password, and the web address to view it from, all of which can easily be taken advantage of in my opinion.

Sound quality is great apart from a constant static in the background, and even though this camera is only 640x480, everything is shown fairly clearly, except for fast motions.

The night vision can see farther than the advertised 7.5 meters in pitch-black conditions, which is absolutely great.

The online app for controlling the camera is very in-depth, and allows complete control over the camera including resolution, frames-per-second, digital zoom (which is a big downside compared to an analog zoom), camera angle and orientation, and allows you to set up a daily recording period, patrol, motion activation with the ability to set zones to look for motion within the camera's view, emails of images sent from your camera every x amount of seconds when the camera is activated, and the ability to upload it directly to your computer.

The mobile app works, but has a rather high latency when trying to pan or angle the camera, however video is only somewhat delayed. To quote Louis CK, “Can you give it a second? It's gotta go to space!”

I believe the term “cloud” is a little misleading with this camera as there is no video saved to a cloud server, only a real-time video stream available online. However, the ability to save it to your computer or send it via email is still there and makes it a little more versatile without having to keep a constant eye on the camera when you're away, however getting it uploaded to your computer is a little complicated. The option is there, but after trying to figure it out for about half an hour I just gave up as I was getting to frustrated.

All in all, this is a pretty good camera with a lot of options, most of which are easy to use. It allows you to easily check on your house, room, or wherever you may have it set up, any time of day.

Pros: TrendNet's TV-IP851WIC camera is one of the best wireless camera's I have came to own. Before I received this camera, I had actually owned a D-Link day/night camera, and comparing the two is a waste because this camera blows the D-Link one I own out of the water.

Here is the breakdown of the Pro's:
-Quality camera with great resolution.
-Offers email function where you can have it email you a picture of where you have set it whenever you like.
-Offers FTP (file transfer protocol) so that you can have it save any motion detection pictures to your FTP site.
-Has a great panning motion to where you can have it look almost 360 degrees around your home.
-Easy to setup (had a little issue though setting up...see cons)
-Apps for Android and Apple devices available and allows you full motion control of the camera while you are away.
-Night vision is a clear as most of the best camera's you can find with it.
-It has a server client which you can setup with multiple camera's (and I don't think they have to all be TRENDnet's) to create a security monitoring system, which would be great for small business owners wanting to setup something like that.

Cons: While there are many great things about the camera, there are a few downsides to it as well...thus the -1 egg:
-When I first tried to set it up, it had the hardest time with connecting with my router using the WPS setup...I fiddled with it for about 15 minutes trying to reset my Netgear router and doing it over and over again to no avail. I finally gave up, reset the camera to factory settings and did it the hard-wired way and it finally worked.
-The LED's on it are pretty annoying at night...you definitely don't want to have it if you are a light sleeper who is annoyed by blinking lights throughout the night. I have it in my living room pointed at my front door and it annoys me while trying to watch TV. I wish they would have added a feature that once setup, the LED's can dim.
-I was having trouble setting up the server software on my computer and getting it to show me the camera through it...I couldn't get it to work. Going to try and troubleshoot this later down the line, but for now it is not needed.
-I wish there was a battery in the camera to keep the date/time incase of power outage. It really annoys me because I have to go and reset it to make sure my FTP/Email settings work the way I want them to.

Other Thoughts: This camera has many great features and a few items I'd like to see be fixed. Overall, I'd say this is a great camera for a home/small business setting. The greatest feature is the ability to pan to see more of the place where you set the camera.

Pros: I have used this for just under two weeks.
Overall, I'm fairly impressed.

In short, really good video quality, good audio if you need it, a wide range of pan/tilt angles (every conceivable) you could want, and you can remote control that through any web browser, which could be in your house or across the country, and you can see what the camera sees.

You are not limited to just one person using the camera. Both myself and family members in in another state could log on to the camera simultaneously, and I'm sure that will appeal to people wanting to set up a baby monitor, watch the dog at home, etc.

Technically it's not rated for outdoor use, but I have it set up under a porch with zero chance of rain or even fog hitting it.

I was able to watch the UPS guy drop something off at my house, then trot back to his truck. I can think of all kinds of uses where you might want to "check in once in a while" on something.

Good both wireless and wired connections:
I tried this both with a wireless setup, and on a LAN cable.

Both looked good. To me that's pretty impressive as many wireless devices hiccups or have other issues. This seemed to produce a consistently good, clean steady video/audio stream.

Wi-Fi transmission to my wireless router performed really well. I tried the camera in a variety of locations around the house, including some that had poor signal (2 bars on my laptop), and I didn't notice any drop in quality.

Top-quality mounting equipment included:
One important positive is the sturdy, baked enamel metal mounting bracket for the camera. I've seen some of remote/IP cameras which have little more than a couple screw holes, and you're lucky if they include the screws.

This kit includes *everything* you would need for mounting, and it feels rock solid to me.

Setup was simple.
As others have noted, setup is exceptionally simple and straightforward.

I do not use the pushbutton WPS system. Instead I used the CD and the "manual method." The set up text makes it sound like this will be hard, but actually it was very straightforward and required very little technical knowledge.

I quickly had it up and running, and it went so fast I wasn't sure if I'd missed some important step, but I didn't. Complete set up was under 7 minutes.

I used both Firefox and Internet Explorer on a couple of different computers in different locations. Everything worked fine and was very straightforward [as long as your have the password and unique IP address].

Each individual camera has it's own web address, which is cool but you need to have that info to access the camera.

Low power consumption:
On the company website, it rates the power usage as 7.2 watts. But on my Killo-watt meter, it only uses about 3-4 watts. I never saw it go higher over several days of checking.

Cons: For basically "good TV" 640 x 480 (VGA) video, this looks really nice.

But when panning and tilting, or if someone is in motion, the picture can smear or ripple a little bit which I think is a result of the CMOS chip, but this is fairly minor for a home system.
This could be a problem if you're trying to capture high-speed motion.


Is the login and info securely transmitted??

My biggest concern is how the system works over the Internet.

You log into the camera through the TrendNet site, but I don't see any HTTPS "secure socket" connection.

**Everything** about my home network, including SSID, WPA2 password, and everything else you can think of is displayed.

It sort of makes sense if you ever want to change these settings without dismounting the unit, but frankly I wish this wasn't so boldly displayed.

I'm concerned that someone "snooping" could easily snag my wireless password.

Okay, I know that's kind of unlikely but I'm uncomfortable having this flashed across the Internet on a connection that doesn't look secure.

I could not find anything on the manufacturer home site to indicate whether the connection has any sort of security or encryption.

I don't care about the video signal being encrypted, but I do care that all my wireless network settings are potentially at some risk of exposure.


I'm not detecting any eggs because it clearly states its 640 x 480 (VGA) video, but this might be a negative for some people.

You need AC power for it:
This doesn't run on batteries, so you need some kind of AC power, although you do not need LAN cables. Some mpeople might not think of this and think wireless means no need for AC power.

No eggs taken off, just a note that user 's locations must have power.


No steady pan/tilt. Single click only.
You have to keep pressing the left/right/up/down button to get it to move. I wish there was some way to press and hold the button so that it would continuously pan or tilt. If this function is there, it wasn't obvious to me and I couldn't find it.

Other Thoughts: Please note the fine details:

This camera is designed for indoor use.
TrendNet says they have other products for outdoor use.
640 x 480 (VGA) video max at 20 frames per second.


Make sure you write down your password and other information. You might need a magnifying glass to read the very fine print for the IP address on the included sticker, but once you have it (hopefully saved in a file along with the accompanying password) you won't need it again.

Since the VGA resolution is so prominent, I can't dock them an egg for that. However, most people will at least want the option to go for some higher resolution.

The microphone is surprisingly sensitive, and I'd recommend setting it at the default "20" setting. When I tried setting it higher, it was unbelievably loud.


I'm not sure why they call this a "Cloud Camera," as this might imply you can save videos to some provided cloud server. That is not provided, however the ability to access the camera over the the Internet from any browser on any computer (I suppose anywhere on earth) is pretty good.

When they say "cloud" I think they just mean "via the Internet." Still, this is nice and easy.

Contrary to what another reviewer said, there is no true "zoom." You have the ability to digitally magnify the picture, but it's not really a true zoom in.

I don't consider that a problem, especially a camera at this price point, but some people might get misled reading other reviews.

These issues are maybe "nice to know" but no all that bad.
Overall a really nice and versatile unit, performs well and is worth it.

Pros: The phone app works great the first time I used it my connection was not to good and I could not control the camera. Once I got a good wifi or 4G signal I had no problem panning the camera around. Even with my old Droid Bionic. I can check on the dogs from my desk at work.

Cons: Resolution not so hot, but I knew that going in so I did not take off an egg.

Other Thoughts: I have never had it not connect to the camera since I set this up. Even in 3G and poor wifi signal it still connected and I was able to view the picture.

Pros: Picture clarity is excellent.
Color saturation is near perfect.
Night vision is really good up to about 20 feet
PTZ - Pan and tilt range is excellent.
Wireless N - good wireless range
Can be viewed via cloud without Dynamic DNS
Easy setup. Connected to router using WPS in 10 seconds.
Works with IE and any browser that supports Java
Can monitor via Android device
Included free multi-camera viewer - SecureviewPro

Cons: SecureViewPro software is somewhat cumbersome
Web Interface appears slow at times

Other Thoughts: When I unpacked this, the first thing I noticed is this camera looks and feels like a quality product. The package comes with everything you need including installation CD, mounting bracket, cables, and even the hardware to mount the bracket to wall or ceiling

TRENDnet designed an easy setup and a nice web interface. Most IP cameras require some computer skills to setup, but even a novice could have this up and running in less than 5 minutes. If your router supports WPS, simply press WPS button on router, then press and hold the WPS button on the camera for about 5 seconds. The orange LED will light up and you are connected.

All the software and manuals you need are included on the CD. The CD has an autorun menu that allows you to step through and install the features that you want. I ran the setup camera option and it was a breeze to setup. The setup utility even places a shortcut on your desktop with the URL to view the camera through the TRENDnet cloud website.

The picture is clear and with excellent colors. This is a 640 x 480 camera, but the picture quality easily beats both of my megapixel IP cameras. You may have to manually adjust the focus. I adjusted mine using an object about 15 feet away and the picture is clear both up close and at a distance.

The SecureViewPro software would be somewhat difficult if you have never used multi-camera viewer software. It takes a lot of clicks and screens to setup up camera with recording and motion detection. I find this software inferior to the multi-cam viewers that came with my other cameras. I took one egg off for this feature, but in truth, it is decent for free software. Software only works with TRENDnet Pro series cameras. If you are setting up software with multiple cameras it will take some time to get everything working. Once you have it setup correctly, it is fairly easy to use. This software needs a better interface.

TRENDnet has a video on their website showing sample video from this camera. The video is accurate and you actually do get the nice picture quality on both day and night. Visit the product website and click on sample video to get a good idea of what to expect.

If you don't need the multi-camera viewer, this is definitely a 5 egg IP camera. You do not need the multi viewer to monitor the camera. You can monitor, configure, and manage the camera through the web browser and the cloud feature allows you to do this anywhere you have an internet connection. I have been happy with my other IP cameras, but this is the first one I am impressed with.

Pros: Connected right up and was using it within a few minutes. Got my Droid woking on it too. Now I can check on the dogs from work or My son while I'm on the computer. Actually I watching him while writing this review. It was very well packed and simple to follow instructions. My biggest issue was finding the password to my router.

Cons: The video is a bit slow coming through my phone...could be an old phone issue I have a Droid Bionic. Don't see a pan and zoom on the app like the computer. Can only do presets. A wide angle mode would be nice but it has a pretty good field of view .

Other Thoughts: After reading the first review I was a little worried but once I got it and set it up those worries quickly were gone. They even give you a bar code to get the app without have to look for it.

I'm using Win 7 with a Linksys E3000 router connected to Linksys dual band wifi card.

Pros: This is a very solid offering in the PTZ IP Cam space by Trendnet. I was always curious about setting up a camera in our babies room (1 1/2 yr old) to see what exactly goes on in there all night when she's sleeping. This camera does not disappoint! The image is very sharp for the resolution in both color and infrared modes.

I set the camera about 12 feet away from her crib and even in pitch black ambient light we were able to see her tossing and turning and waking up to "play" during the night. The overall construction feels very solid and the internal motor is quiet enough that we were able to spin it around without waking her up.

When I first plugged it in I was afraid I wouldn't be able to use it because the LED lights are VERY bright, specifically the blue power light. Luckily after digging through the menus I found where you can turn it and the wireless indicator light totally off.

The included software is also very nice (and free, no "trial to premium" demo here).

Another feature I found incredibly useful is the wireless setup. On other IP cams I've used you had to connect it to Ethernet first, then unplug and relocate the camera. Using the WPS button you can setup the camera where you want it located the first time which was very convenient.

Using the free iPhone app you can add (make sure to write down your serial # because you'll need it) a camera in a few seconds and start monitoring remotely. On 3G speeds I got a fair amount of lag and just a few frames per second, but on wifi it was much more responsive and more "real-time".

The cloud link function is fairly handy and rather responsive when performing remote control. I gave the code to a friend who lives across town and during streaming and rotating the camera I saw an average of 150 Kbps from the camera so its very bandwidth friendly.

I also have to disagree with one of the reviews below me. I'm not sure if he was using an android device but you CAN control the pan/tilt/zoom with the iPhone app.

Cons: The LED's are way too bright and need to be diffused on a later revision. I found them incredibly distracting even with the camera placed away from me and during the day. At night they are blinding. Although they can be turned off I still think they need to have an in between setting if possible.

The web interface works, but is clunky and prone to slow loading times. It just looks and feels out dated and is really one of the few low points of the overall package.

The included surveillance server bundled in to control multiple cameras is not user friendly or intuitive. I'm still trying to figure certain features out after almost two weeks of usage. I don't see the average consumer finding use for it, but for anyone who does who has not used software like it before I would recommend reading the online documentation first.

Other Thoughts: Overall this is a very nice bundle at a competitive price point. I was so pleased with it's performance that I am permanently installing it in my home to provide 24/7 monitoring and I plan on setting up the motion detection for when we go on vacation. A little peace of mind goes a long way.

*full disclosure, I was offered this product for reviewing purposes*

Pros: Can be utilized for more than just security, (in addition to main review pros)

Cons: Online software downloads are still not working for me, so I just stick with the dvd

Other Thoughts: I am finding out more ways to utilize the camera. The old lady was at our daughters softball game and actually signed onto the cloud to see if she had left her equipment bag by the front door, or was somewhere else, and voila' there it was! She has also used it as a temporary "nanny cam" stopping the kids from some bad behavior that they would have gotten away with...lol Due to the appearance not looking like a traditional surveillance or security camera, it gets forgotten and gives us another way to keep an eye on them when in another room, or otherwise. The ability to move the view pretty much in any direction, even with the cellphone makes this very useful!! Also, having the ability to clearly hear what er're seeing is a big plus as well. It's nice to keep finding new ways to use something that was designed for another purpose.

Pros: The camera came with all kinds of great accessories: software, mounting hardware, an ethernet cable, etc. Its a very well rounded package.

Android App
iPhone App
Web App
Motion detection
TRENDnet made some great how to videos (youtube) for this camera and the included software
High quality packaging, shouldn't get damaged in delivery
3 year warranty
I was able to get video archiving working
If all you want is the cell phone app and web viewing, you can have this camera up and running in 10 minutes
This camera is so much fun!

Cons: The LEDs are kind of bright for a home application
There is no iPad app, just have to use x2 button with the iPhone app
Its not HD
The SecurView Pro software is not very easy to use. I had to reference TRENDnet videos to set it up.
Recording and motion capture stuff can only be done with SecurView Pro software.
Price is a bit high

Other Thoughts: I use a GoPro Hero 2 for other activities and it has way better resolution
During software installation there is a step where it asks the user to record the MAC address displayed on the screen. If you only have one camera, don't worry about this.

Pros: This is a very cool product! It's so much fun to use.

Extremely easy set up: simply plug the camera into your router and run the wizard from any computer connected to the same network. That's it.

Ability to view and control the camera from any internet connection with unique url.

FREE iOS and Android app for viewing the camera.

Night vision!

336 degree turning radius. 126 degree pan radius (can look straight up, but not straight down)

Sends audio!

Comes with mounting bracket.

Wireless internet, but requires power (no batteries).

4x zoom.

Ability to set preset positions & name them.

Can take snapshots

Reliable (except with mobile app)

Cons: Mobile app is mediocre. It is really slow (sometimes I don't even get feedback), and you can't control the camera from the mobile app. (Why I'm only giving it 4 eggs.)


Night vision is automatic and cannot be switched manually.

A battery option would be cool.

Other Thoughts: When viewing the camera online, the Java program seems to work much better than the Active X.

Overall this is a great product. I wish I had more cameras set up. It's not too large and can be easily hidden. I would recommend to anyone that is trying to easily watch their home or children without spending too much money.