Foscam Reviews

Foscam is inconsistent connecting to cameras. Very frustrating. Even when I know cameras are online Foscam does not always find them. Even when it does find them it may connect for only a few seconds then loses connection. Very very frustrating. Please fix this. There are not any good alternatives that I have found yet, but I will keep looking. Not sure how you can sell cameras with such a terrible way to view them. Please make Foscam connect constantly and stay connected once the connection is made. So far it barely deserves a 1 star rating. Also Foscam does not give you access to all of the settings for the camera so when set it up you better get it right because changing the settings is not possible outside the network.

In response to contacting support I have done that and am working with them. So far they have not had any suggestions that have improved the P2P connection. There last solution was the set up a static IP and dens service then set up port forwarding to set the camera up. But this is an internet service that does not provide a WAN, or out side IP address. So I need help making the P2P work. That is why I bought the camera. They connect with echo show at the same time that I am unable to get the camera to connect via Foscam . Foscam needs work.

This cloud recording service is unreliable and technologically way behind the competitors. For example, most of the recorded motion events are recordings of nothing, since this service does not pre-record motion events like all the competitor’s services do. AmCrest records at least three seconds prior to every motion event, therefore you catch everything in your recordings. With Foscam, if a person, or a car are moving quickly past your cameras, you only get a blank recording. By the time this service starts recording, the person or vehicle has already passed the camera and is long gone. This service would only be useful, if it would pre-record motion events, like the AmCrest service does. Without this feature, Foscam and service are absolutely useless.👎🏻

Well, one reviewer said they didn’t get the hate.... if that person had my experience with Foscam, they would totally get it. With each update I keep thinking it will improve but to my dismay it has dropped even lower. I too have used Foscam for years and what once worked now has trouble doing a basic connection to the camera. Nothing has changed on my end except for updating Foscam . Now a remote sign in is not functioning at all. There are times I want to turn off the alarm remotely but Foscam won’t sign in to the control to do that despite the fact that I’m connected and viewing the camera feed. Help?!?!?!

Foscam is unreliable and annoying. Alarm alert notifications do not provide information regarding which camera observed unusual activity, requiring the user to open Foscam and check. Additionally, viewing of recorded alarm activity is unreliable, and sometimes impossible. Finally, Foscam requires frequent logouts followed by logins in order to receive alarm notifications. This is foolish. I can understand the automatic logouts for purposes of camera or app changes, but a user should remain logged in for purposes of alarm notifications. At the very least, if the user is required to log in, Foscam should provide a notification as such, rather than simply stop sending alarm notifications without informing the user.

As usual for all of my online interactions, I created a unique email address that I've only ever given to this app for account creation. I do this for security purposes to avoid the same address being used across multiple sites, as well as to track who sells my address. I've even been able to detect when sites are hacked months before their public announcements (assuming they even make one).

Now, a few months after creating the account and installing Foscam , I'm getting generic "account maintenance: please confirm your settings" phishing emails on that unique email address linking to dangerous domains. It seems either this app has already sold the address to one or more unethical parties or this app itself is unethical or compromised. Beware!

this app has done downhill in the 5 years I’ve had it. Now it takes FOREVER to connect to a camera it used to connect immediately with. Frequently one camera I have won’t connect when I’m not at home. Though oddly it connects if I’m home. Hear something outside? Too bad. By the time you connect (if you do connect) whatever it was is long gone.

And now I get ads every time I open Foscam . No I don’t want to buy your cloud service. That’s exactly why I bought the camera - because it didn’t have cloud service at the time. Nor do I want to buy a new camera. The ones I have don’t connect.

this app should focus on improving their existing services not adding new services.

Truly would give zero stars if possible. Every single other 3rd party app is more reliable than this app’s own app. (this app’s app consistently returns an “Establishing a secure connection with the camera” message...and never connects to said camera.) And, if you do get it to connect (I would say less than 10% of the time) it will not play video from SD card, meaning you must rely on their cloud service which works okay except that it does not include the 5 second pad for motion alerts...so, it rarely catches what actually triggered the recording. Have requested this several times, but it never seems to get fixed. Also, if you reorder your list of cameras, the wrong camera gets matched with the wrong name (and order) on a regular basis.

Can I give zero stars? Nothing but trouble since I first set up this camera. App is really only for the higher end cameras and the purchasing of the cloud storage is bate and switch what you actually get. Now after this latest update, camera no longer works. Nothing will log into Foscam , won’t connect to the WiFi and won’t take a wired Ethernet connection due to the fact that the camera came from the manufacturer without a name and password on the back of the camera (needed for a wired connection.) I’ve rebooted so many times, uninstalled and reinstalled Foscam a dozen times, NOTHING WORKS. So, I’ve only tried to use the camera and their laughable cloud service for 3 months and it’s been a disaster. No help after 2 weeks of contacting them. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY AS THEY HAVE SEVERAL BBB COMPLAINTS AGAINT THEM.

I don’t use Foscam a lot since I tied my camera directly to my HomeKit setup but I always thought I’d have it installed just in case I needed it. Well guess what, Foscam does not respect the system settings on my device and even though I turned all notifications off for it Foscam kept pushing notification sounds every time motion was detected, no banners or badges just sound or vibration if on silent mode which made it very hard to find out what was happening. I can reproduce the behavior even on a factory reset device so Foscam is doing something fishy to keep itself open. The only way for it to stop giving me notifications is if I turn off background refresh for Foscam and force close it. I’m report it to apple.

Update: as I already said in the first review I can reproduce the issue on a factory reset phone. I have to turn off background app refresh for it to stop giving me sound and vibration alerts.

The setup for the cameras was seamless; easy to install, easy to view on Foscam , and I THOUGHT everything was great, until I tried to view the cameras remotely. After multiple attempts to refresh and repeatedly closing and reopening Foscam , only one camera out of four would load and then froze after a few seconds. I have tried everything on their support page and their FAQ, read through the manual and quick install guide numerous times, but they are all poorly written, missing steps, or take you down another line of issues. Following my frustration, I attempted to contact support and they only respond once at 5:00 AM and then are never heard from again. I am truly disappointed with Foscam and company and would not recommend using their services. Use Ring, they are affordable, easy to use, guaranteed to work, and have amazing support.

Connectivity to the cameras often is slow and often fails even though the camera is online. Even when that’s not an issue Foscam is not able to access the SD card most of the time. It’s either the files do not appear on Foscam or the camera needs to reconnect again, or when you do see the files and want to view, they will buffer until it fails or if you want to download it mostly partially downloads then fails. When it partially works it could take half and hour to download a file after repeatedly opening and closing Foscam . More recently, the file do not load at all even when reopening and closing Foscam multiple times.

It’s been a very frustrating experience.

Besides this, the cameras I have are made of some kind of silicone that melts away over time. Time to look out for other brands.

I have been having issues with “mystery” vibrations on my phone for the last couple months. Turns out it’s alerts coming from the cameras. The problem is I have notifications turned off for Foscam so I figured my phone wouldn’t vibrate with these alerts. After multiple appointments with Geek Squad and Verizon I finally figured out it was Foscam sending rogue vibrations in the background without authorization. In order to fix I had to enable do not disturb from within Foscam and turn off push notifications. this app should strongly consider linking these settings to the notifications settings within the settings of the phone to reduce future headaches for others!

Otherwise Foscam is great and has seen some improvements over the last couple years! If this were fixed I would consider bumping to 4 or 5 stars. I almost bought a new phone this was driving me crazy and I thought I had a hardware issue!

I tried to use Foscam to manage cameras both on local and remote locations. I added multiple cameras manually using the IP address and external port. There was no problem installing the cameras, changing configuration and updating firmware. The problem is when Foscam is closed and reopened, I am not able to log on to any of the remote cameras. I added the cameras a second and third time with the same result. When Foscam is closed and reopened, it's impossible to log on to any of the remote cameras.

UPDATED: Per developer recommendation, I uninstalled cameras and app on my iPhone Xs then reinstalled Foscam and cameras using DDNS rather than IP. Unfortunately, that didn't solve the problem. As an FYI, I have been using IP Camera Viewer for many years to view the same cameras without any problem. I wanted to use the this app app because it offered more control over the cameras and makes firmware updating easy. However, I can't seem to get it to work on my phone.

The cameras worked well for awhile in Foscam , and now two years later and it’s still randomly recording and having to be restarted. I have three cameras. Two with a 3 days worth of recording package. The last week it won’t record or at least it’s not showing a recording for more than 6 hours. I’m paying $80 a year for two cameras and the recording is never consistent. I’ve contacted cs multiple times and their solution is to delete Foscam and reinstall. Then I was told to put it on an unsecured address. Not. How about fixing Foscam . If it’s still not right when my contract is over I won’t be renewing. I have had a contract for two years so I’m not a newbie who doesn’t know what to do.

Just not quite up to par with other live camera systems & applications. Newest update made some new progress, just not enough unfortunately.
I’ve installed and reinstalled everything from Foscam , the camera, updated firmware, you name it... I’ve even had to go thru the exchange process to have a new camera shipped thinking something was wrong with it. Same thing every time, works for 1-2 days then you get the wheel of death. “Establishing a secure connection with Camera”. Whether your on your home WiFi or not. Funny thing is you can review your recording even a minute prior, but not live.

Was somewhat hesitant to buy this app based on the poor reviews of Foscam . But decided to take a chance. Haven’t had the camera installed long enough to review the hardware, but Foscam is working fine for me. About the only thing I don’t like so far is it takes longer than I’d like to get a notification when a person or a car is detected in view. Might be a setting I can adjust but I’ve played around with most of the settings and nothing makes it better, and my camera is connected to my 5G network with very solid connection status. So the issue is not my wireless connection. But all in all Foscam isn’t as bad as the 2.4 star rating would make you believe.

Paid 25$ for their 1080p night vision baby monitor. Foscam works great with it and can even view the cam when I’m not on the same network (ie: anywhere). Sure, it’s got some ads for foacam cloud services but they aren’t intrusive or annoying and you can minimize them. I’ve never used the recording feature though as his ahas always been used as a baby monitor. I also use his app across many devices and even access the cam on pc. I don’t know why the ratings are so low for a quality product.

I’ve been using Foscam for four years now and it’s simply great. I have purchased new Wyze cameras but my five of my six C1 cameras are still up and running for all this time with zero issues. So they are still in use, and the sixth is working too. Foscam connects all the time, either on WiFi or LTE. Sometimes, if you open other apps after checking your cameras, the this app app may not connect (a dead give away is when one or more of your cameras thumbnail previews show the camera as “off”). The solution for all these years, through all the upgrades, has been to force close Foscam , then reopen. To close Foscam on gesture-only displays (no circle ‘Home’ button), swipe from the bottom and when the recents open, close this app by swiping up.
For button (fingerprint button), fast double hard click on button, then swipe (not sure if up or sides). Come on. It’s not rocket science! This thing works.

UPDATE: Thank you to this app support for the quick response. Their recommendation worked. My app is working again. Love my this app camera! It helps me monitor my vacation home 1000 miles away when I can’t be there.

Been using this reliably for several years. All of a sudden today I can’t open Foscam . I’m told my account holder is no longer sharing Foscam . I need to download and pay for it. My husband did not stop sharing with me. I can’t download Foscam because Foscam Store sees it on my phone. Help! I need to monitor my home!

I am not sure why there are so many negative reviews. I have been using Foscam for many years and it has becomes one of my most often used apps on my phone. It works really well. The developers have added more features and improved the reliability of Foscam in last few years. I want to say thank you for the good work. I believe there are many satisfactory users out there.