Wifi Video Monitors

[topnole]

We use a very good digital monitor system at home. We took our 6 month old daughter on Allure of the seas with Grandma and Grandpa a few cabins away but it wouldn't quite reach (unless the door was open). The wife and I will be with our Aunt on an upcoming cruise and again the best we could do was several cabins away. So we would like to get a wifi camera so she can keep an eye on her from her own cabin a few of the nights to give us a chance to enjoy the evening. With that said I looked up the "Summer Infant LIV" camera but I'm not quite sure how the wifi works on that one? Anyone know? It says you don't even need a wifi network (it creates its own) but that to me suggests the range is minimal. Can you tie to a larger wifi network with this camera? It is priced at about $90 which would be perfect.

 

If not, is there a wifi camera out there that would allow a longer range from smart phone to camera? We would also like to know if we could use it if we got a babysitter (if that is allowed) and then we might feel more comfortable using this service.

 

We have a nice one for at home so only need a wifi camera for travel or less occasional use. So we don't want to spend a bunch on this. Budget friendly is what we are looking for here.

 

Also, if you use these systems how many wifi devices does it use? Do the camera and Iphone each count as a device per Royal Caribbeans Wifi service plans? Is Royals Voom good enough for the Wifi Cameras and is it reliable enough?

 

Any shared experiences, thoughts, or recommendations would be appreciated.

[pl281]

Personally I would suggest just having your Aunt stay in your room until you get back for the evening - or get one of the cruise line baby sitters - It would probably be less expensive that way then buying a monitor

[topnole]

Personally I would suggest just having your Aunt stay in your room until you get back for the evening - or get one of the cruise line baby sitters - It would probably be less expensive that way then buying a monitor

 

Well we may want it for more than just this cruise. So it would be with it to us to have it. Plus we want our aunt to be comfortable in her own room and she can then watch tv.

[Ashland]

Keep checking for the cabin next door (consider asking to be put on a waitlist) or consider changing cabins to get connecting ones (waitlist these too).

[the_dylaness]

I'm not familiar with your particular brand of monitor you are considering but I have a Samsung video monitor at home and the range is about 80 feet (quoted in the brochure, not measured.) It works inside or outside and I would guess that the quoted range is about accurate. But, there's no "sort of", it is either working or completely black and beeping and screen saying "out of range."

 

You might almost have better luck having cabins right on top of each other.

[cj_one2000]

I'm not familiar with your particular brand of monitor you are considering but I have a Samsung video monitor at home and the range is about 80 feet (quoted in the brochure, not measured.) It works inside or outside and I would guess that the quoted range is about accurate. But, there's no "sort of", it is either working or completely black and beeping and screen saying "out of range."

 

 

 

You might almost have better luck having cabins right on top of each other.

 

 

Hubby and I use wifi camera for our toddler and the range is good in a house with sheet rock and wood framed walls. On a cruise ship the walls are metal so the range is most likely worse. The more range and features and those baby monitor camera systems can be quite expensive.

[chengkp75]

The problem is that whether the monitor is "wifi" or simply wireless, it uses radio waves to transmit the signal. Units that work fine at home, or on shore on vacation will not necessarily work onboard ship due to the difference in construction. What works well outside, in clear "line of sight", or indoors through sheetrock and wood, does not normally work well when surrounded by the virtual "farraday cage" of the ship's steel construction.

 

I would suggest researching this on various "geek" websites and forums where the folks would know more about which frequencies work better for steel penetration (higher), what frequencies are available for wireless units, and what frequencies various manufacturers use, and generally what works and what doesn't. While there are probably some very tech savvy folks on CC, you'll do better on a forum devoted to this particular problem.

[topnole]

Thanks for the ideas but we can't switch cabins and we will be getting some type of wifi camera. We already have a motarola digital camera with a long range but on the ships the range is more limited so we want a wifi unit too.

 

The wifi units I've seen connect to a wifi network and let you view the camera from your phone from anywhere you have Internet access. Am I missing something here? Not sure why there would be any issue with the range (distance) if we have wifi available on the ship? We should be able to see the camera view from anywhere on the ship (or anywhere in the world for that matter) if we have wifi or Internet on our phone?

 

Surely someone here has used something like this while cruising?

 

Thanks again for the help.

[BuffettFan1]

Took a quick look at the Summer Infant LIV and it looks like it doesn't have the ability to connect to a wireless network, it just creates its own network which you connect your phone to and has an advertised range of 250 feet. Generally, these range ratings are under almost ideal conditions.

 

As chengkp said, metal just wreaks havoc on wireless signals, so anything trying to create its own wireless network would have to be close to whatever is trying to connect to it. Which would basically put you in the same scenario as before with your other camera. Plus this camera would be in the same frequency range as wireless network on the ship which may cause interference depending on which wireless channels each network was utilizing.

 

As for other camera options that could possibly connect to the ship's wifi, that may or may not work. It would depend on how the phone gets the video feed from the camera. If it is trying to connect directly to the camera, that will most likely be blocked by the wifi network. Most public facing wireless networks are not set up like a home network. Typically, on a home network all devices on the network can see and connect to each other, but for security most public facing wireless networks have an isolation feature that blocks devices on the networks from being able to see and connect to each other. If the camera pushed the video feed to somewhere on the internet and the phone was also going to that place on the internet to get the video feed, that might work, but would be dependant on the bandwidth of the internet connection.

[topnole]

Took a quick look at the Summer Infant LIV and it looks like it doesn't have the ability to connect to a wireless network, it just creates its own network which you connect your phone to and has an advertised range of 250 feet. Generally, these range ratings are under almost ideal conditions.

 

As chengkp said, metal just wreaks havoc on wireless signals, so anything trying to create its own wireless network would have to be close to whatever is trying to connect to it. Which would basically put you in the same scenario as before with your other camera. Plus this camera would be in the same frequency range as wireless network on the ship which may cause interference depending on which wireless channels each network was utilizing.

 

As for other camera options that could possibly connect to the ship's wifi, that may or may not work. It would depend on how the phone gets the video feed from the camera. If it is trying to connect directly to the camera, that will most likely be blocked by the wifi network. Most public facing wireless networks are not set up like a home network. Typically, on a home network all devices on the network can see and connect to each other, but for security most public facing wireless networks have an isolation feature that blocks devices on the networks from being able to see and connect to each other. If the camera pushed the video feed to somewhere on the internet and the phone was also going to that place on the internet to get the video feed, that might work, but would be dependant on the bandwidth of the internet connection.

 

Thanks so much for that info. That is what I suspected regarding the LIV camera.

 

So this brings me to the Internet cameras. I know they exist. It should be as simple as they connect to wifi and my phone has an app I use and I can view the camera view from anywhere I am at assuming I have Internet on my phone. Maybe someone else can chime in if they used one.

[chengkp75]

Thanks so much for that info. That is what I suspected regarding the LIV camera.

 

So this brings me to the Internet cameras. I know they exist. It should be as simple as they connect to wifi and my phone has an app I use and I can view the camera view from anywhere I am at assuming I have Internet on my phone. Maybe someone else can chime in if they used one.

 

You'd have to purchase the ship's internet package to access their wifi, I believe, and even then, wifi coverage on the ship can be very spotty, especially in the cabins.

[topnole]

You'd have to purchase the ship's internet package to access their wifi, I believe, and even then, wifi coverage on the ship can be very spotty, especially in the cabins.

 

We will have free wifi on our upcoming cruise so not an issue. On oasis with the new voom Internet which is supposed to be pretty good.

[chengkp75]

We will have free wifi on our upcoming cruise so not an issue. On oasis with the new voom Internet which is supposed to be pretty good.

 

Internet and wifi are two different animals. Voom internet has increased the speed of the internet connection, by utilizing low earth orbit satellites. This has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the wifi signal around the ship. Wifi is only a wireless signal that allows your device to connect to the internet portal, in this case the ship's servers, which then connect to the internet. So, while your wifi is free, there is still no guarantee that the signal will be strong enough between the two cabins to allow video streaming.

[pl281]

I believe you are going to have a couple of issues using a "wifi camera" - a.k.a. internet camera / security camera / etc

 

1) While you might be able to get it to "connect" to the wifi, without "logging into the internet" I'm not sure you would be able to connect to it

 

2) For security purposes I really don't think the ships wifi allows you to connect to other devices on the network

 

3) Typically the unlimited internet is limited to 1 device at a time

 

A brand / camera I've used before is Amcrest (also known as Foscam)

A feature (at least of their older cameras) is that they could create an "Ad-hoc" network or in other words a private network direct from your phone/tablet to the camera - you might still have signal issues on the ship this way, but this would get around the issues of connecting to the ship's network

 

You may have to manually setup IP addresses in this mode so just be ready for that

[judycruiser]

A question for the OP, are you planning to leave your child alone in the cabin with the baby monitor if you can find one that works?

[topnole]

A question for the OP, are you planning to leave your child alone in the cabin with the baby monitor if you can find one that works?

 

 

 

Not really. Only from a few cabins away which would be no different than at home as she sleeps from across the house and we monitor the camera. We did this last cruise from next door in my FIL adjoining cabin but my folks had a suite a few doors down that our camera range wouldn't quite reach. Would've been real nice to have been able to be over there with a wifi camera for naps or early in the night. They had an aqua suite and we could've watched all the shows etc at night while monitoring the camera and knowing we were only 30 ft down the hall. We will likely have a similar situation in the future so this is why we think a wifi camera would be a good addition for us. Also if we hired a ship babysitter for the cabin I would like to know if we could have the wifi camera on for our piece of mind.

[reallyitsmema]

Not really. Only from a few cabins away which would be no different than at home as she sleeps from across the house and we monitor the camera. We did this last cruise from next door in my FIL adjoining cabin but my folks had a suite a few doors down that our camera range wouldn't quite reach. Would've been real nice to have been able to be over there with a wifi camera for naps or early in the night. They had an aqua suite and we could've watched all the shows etc at night while monitoring the camera and knowing we were only 30 ft down the hall. We will likely have a similar situation in the future so this is why we think a wifi camera would be a good addition for us. Also if we hired a ship babysitter for the cabin I would like to know if we could have the wifi camera on for our piece of mind.

 

Have you tried asking on the Royal Caribbean board? Someone might have tried a wifi camera by now. What level of voom are the suites getting? Is it the full streaming or the more restrictive? That will make a difference. You will get one access code per person in the suite, so the babies code could be used for the camera if there is a way to get it to accept the code. The issue could be what pl281 said about setting up an adhoc network, many have reported that they have not been able to setup networks with travel routers, so this could be an issue.

 

The pervasive wifi on the Oasis class ships is great, never saw people sitting in the hallway with a laptop as I have seen on other ships.:p

[topnole]

Have you tried asking on the Royal Caribbean board? Someone might have tried a wifi camera by now. What level of voom are the suites getting? Is it the full streaming or the more restrictive? That will make a difference. You will get one access code per person in the suite, so the babies code could be used for the camera if there is a way to get it to accept the code. The issue could be what pl281 said about setting up an adhoc network, many have reported that they have not been able to setup networks with travel routers, so this could be an issue.

 

The pervasive wifi on the Oasis class ships is great, never saw people sitting in the hallway with a laptop as I have seen on other ships.:p

 

Didn't post to regular rci board yet. We will have surf and stream so that is the best at sea from what I hear. I guess this isn't as easy as connecting the camera as one device and using a smart phone as our other device?

[Ashland]

Didn't post to regular rci board yet. We will have surf and stream so that is the best at sea from what I hear. I guess this isn't as easy as connecting the camera as one device and using a smart phone as our other device?

 

When are you going on your cruise? Please post back what you end up getting and how it worked for you onboard...Very interested in the outcome ...Thanks so much.

[gerif]

Not really. Only from a few cabins away which would be no different than at home as she sleeps from across the house and we monitor the camera. We did this last cruise from next door in my FIL adjoining cabin but my folks had a suite a few doors down that our camera range wouldn't quite reach. Would've been real nice to have been able to be over there with a wifi camera for naps or early in the night. They had an aqua suite and we could've watched all the shows etc at night while monitoring the camera and knowing we were only 30 ft down the hall. We will likely have a similar situation in the future so this is why we think a wifi camera would be a good addition for us. Also if we hired a ship babysitter for the cabin I would like to know if we could have the wifi camera on for our piece of mind.

 

Call me a paranoid grandma, but across the hall in a securely locked home is not quite the same thing. There are several crew members who have ready access to your cabin - the steward, the person who services the mini-bar, maintenance workers, etc. If they knock and no one answers, they open the door and walk in. Would not add to MY peace of mind. Not sure how old your baby is now, but must be 12 months for in-room sitting.

[Ashland]

Call me a paranoid grandma, but across the hall in a securely locked home is not quite the same thing. There are several crew members who have ready access to your cabin - the steward, the person who services the mini-bar, maintenance workers, etc. If they knock and no one answers, they open the door and walk in. Would not add to MY peace of mind. Not sure how old your baby is now, but must be 12 months for in-room sitting.

 

Even with the "Do Not Disturb" sign up :confused: