Biltema IP-camera review

Robert AndresenInternet of things, Reviews 20 Comments

Today I bought two IP-cameras with Wifi from Biltema (Norway).

Price:                    649 kr ($79,78) each.
Sensor:                1,0 MP / 25FPS CMOS
LED range:         20 meters
RTSP URL:         rtsp://< IP-ADDRESS>:<PORT>/11

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Hardware

The hardware looks like a basic “china-camera” and has the same wall mount as my YianTime 5060L-camera. This does not mean bad quality though, as its looks like a solid build and the size is perfect.

biltema_ipcamera02_unpack biltema_ipcamera03_unpack biltema_ipcamera04_unpack biltema_ipcamera05_unpack

Software

The Camera comes with a CD, but as I don’t have a CD-rom anymore – I had to find the IP-address from my router (under DHCP-options).

The web-interface looks good for a camera in this price range, and it allows you to setup and configure most of what you would expect from a IP-camera (like Wifi, P2P, FTP, change time, IP-settings, etc..).

biltema_ipcamera06_finding_ip

Networking

Most camera uses different IP-settings for wireless and cable. This camera uses the same IP for both (only tested with Fixed IP on camera).

Setting fixed IP requires a reboot and worked without any problems.

biltema_ipcamera09_wifi

Security

Like most of the cameras out there, this one also comes with default admin/admin for login and P2P activated as default.

First thing I did was deactivate P2P and changed the admin password.

Note: The password accepts any length, but max length is 15 characters. I generated a 32 character long password and had some problem accessing the camera after applying the settings. I had to remove one character at the time, to find out the max length.  The camera probably has a reset-to-factory-button, but that involves me getting up from my chair 🙂

Read under RTSP below also!

biltema_ipcamera08_p2p

Image quality

The image quality is good, but far from the best. I specially have a problem with the color, as it got kind of a blue blur. If I change the IRcut option to “low” or “Black&White” (BW), it changes to nightmode/BW and the image quality is much better.

biltema_ipcamera11_bw_image biltema_ipcamera10_color_image

RTSP

To add this camera in iSpy or any other surveillance program, you probably need to use RTSP. In iSpy there is already a camera with the brand “Bilteam” «Biltema» that you can search for and use. This RTSP URL is:

rtsp://admin:admin@<IP-ADDRESS>:554/11

But if you try without “admin:admin@”, it’s stills connects and streams the image. You actually don’t need username:password to connect with RTSP, which concerns me a little bit.

This means that anyone in your network can search for the camera and see the video-stream. In most cases, this is not really a problem as long as all your users on the network are aware of the camera, and it is not filming any sensitive locations.

Update 14.09.2015:
rtsp://admin:admin@<IP-ADDRESS>:554/11 and
rtsp://admin:admin@<IP-ADDRESS>:554/12 will give you the different channels (streams).

biltema_ipcamera12_ispy

Summary

Great camera in this price range.