Axis M1011-W Reviewed

[wpns]

While the hardware build of the Axis M1011 is indeed quite solid, they have outsourced their firmware to Elbonia, and I've had to write code to reboot the camera by power-cycling it up to six times a day.

Their 209MFD and M3114 cameras are better, but these lowend ones aren't any good if you want reliable operation.

 

[sdeleeuw]

Thanks for the feedback on that. I didn't have to reboot them at all in the 3-ish weeks I tested them, which in no way is a long-term test. Are you using them wirelessly or by ethernet?

I did notice they constantly changed IP address on lease renewal, which caused me some pain in ReadyNAS Surveillance which I noted. Before I realized they changed IP address I was thinking they had gone unavailable.

 

[wpns]

Anything too complicated wedges them

I've got mine:

Writing an image to an FTP server every 10 seconds
Writing an image once a second during motion detection
Updating "IP Camera Viewer" on a couple of Macs
Occasionally opening a web browser on the main camera page
Occasionally calling it up with Live Cams Pro on an iThing or two.

Read the firmware release notes some time for a laugh, so much broken stuff there....

[Oh, and I'm using wired Ethernet with a PoE splitter, which makes it easy to cycle the power to it.]

 

[sdeleeuw]

I see that the jump to the 5.20 firmware had quite a few fixes, although none referred to TCP/IP connectivity. The subsequent revisions after that seemed to be minor issues.

It's a bummer that the real world experience has been what you've experienced, they worked rather well for me when I had them and their event notification and configuration is worlds above others in the same class.

The ARTPEC-B processor in the M1031-W and M1011-W isn't capable of a large amount of simultaneous datastreams, do you think that possibly weighs in to your problem with them going unavailable? It sounds like you are heavily using them at multiple clients.

I obviously didn't like the lack of night vision of the M1011-W.

 

[wpns]

I see that the jump to the 5.20 firmware had quite a few fixes, although none referred to TCP/IP connectivity. The subsequent revisions after that seemed to be minor issues.

Yeah, but just reading the release notes gives me the feeling that they don't have any quality, or any control. I've reported a few bugs to them over the years, and the hard part is getting them to understand the problem. Once they understand it they'll usually whip up a hacked firmware just for me to fix it, but getting that fix into released firmware takes more prodding. Just not very professional.

The ARTPEC-B processor in the M1031-W and M1011-W isn't capable of a large amount of simultaneous datastreams, do you think that possibly weighs in to your problem with them going unavailable? It sounds like you are heavily using them at multiple clients.

Well, sure, but unlike their 'high-end' models, there's no "limit to this many users" or "The reason you don't see a picture is that I'm overloaded", it just fails to respond (and stops writing to the ftp filestore].

If I hadn't inadvertently powered it down in a place I can't get to till November I could tell you if the Trendnet camera worked any better. Of course, it's apples and oranges, but $70 isn't easy to trump.

 

[sdeleeuw]

Agreed on the TRENDnet, the TV-IP572PI is one of my favorite cameras of the ones I've tested. It worked very well for how budget-friendly it was.

Out of the AXIS cameras I tested, the M1054 was MUCH better than the M1031-W or the M1011-W, but you definitely paid for the increase in quality.

Perhaps I'll add "breaking point" to my barrage of tests I do on the cameras. I've had additional clients get denied (via simply getting no connection), but never the camera locking up.