Others say...

"Works as described...if you know what you're doing."
As I read product reviews, not just for this item but for other technology items, it occurs to me that many of the comments describing difficulty are often from people who likely don't understand basic networking principles. This is compounded by the documentation included with most D-Link products, including this camera. While not horrific, the documentation could be much better. The help pages accessed within the camera's web server itself are written in less than perfect english, and aren't detailed.

That said, I own two of these cameras, and they do work, if you understand a few networking concepts. Most importantly, you really need to understand IP assignments, port forwarding/port changing, Dynamic DNS, etc. If you don't, you're not going to get a lot of assistance from the camera itself. Yes, it can work right out of the box, and quickly, but if you run into special circumstances - such as the need to change a port number within the camera, forward a port, open a port in your router, or set up Dynamic DNS to view the camera through the web...you should probably grab your nearest computer geek and enlist his or her help.

The latest firmware seems to be more stable (1.07 I believe as of this writing - and here's a tip, when all else fails, try updating your camera with the latest firmware!), and the features are probably adequate for most users. You can record all the time, on a schedule, or via motion detection. One nice feature of the motion detection is the ability to "draw" a box on the camera's image to indicate what percentage of that box must be changed (it works by pixel changes) before motion recording is activated. It does work, but you need to fiddle with the sensitivity settings to find the sweet spot. Night time images are ok (but you may have to manually change the brightness settings at night)...for a lower priced IP camera, you're not going to get infrared vision, so don't expect it.

There are a couple features I'd like to see added to the camera/firmware, such as the ability to specify how long a recording should occur after motion is triggered, and the ability to shut off the microphone permanently as the administrator. As it is, if you create a guest account that can log onto your camera, the guest can turn the audio off and on (for their session) - not good if you don't want non-administrators to hear your audio.

If your camera will be placed somewhere where a power outlet isn't handy, I can confirm that the D-Link Power Over Ethernet (PoE) adapter works fine with this camera - you can find it here on Amazon as well. Just keep in mind that you'll still need to plug the PoE adapter into a wall outlet somewhere, and into your router.

Overall, this camera provides adequate value for the price, despite a few shortcomings.

"Buy other D-Link cameras or spend a little more on a Panasonic."
I bought this, a Panasonic Wireless camera, and a Toshiba IK-WB15A wired camera to sample externally-facing cameras for my home. The Toshiba is the best (and the most expensive), the Panasonic is acceptable during the day and a little more expensive, but the D-link is a huge disappointment.

The D-Link DCS-950 doesn't share video via MPEG or Motion-JPEG, unlike some of the other D-Link cameras. It requires a proprietary ActiveX browser plugin, so if you're running Mac OS X, Linux, etc., you'll either need to use Virtual PC or similar technology, or be happy with the single frame snapshots. Also as a result, a lot of the security DVR software will not work with this camera, so check the supported hardware list of any of these packages that you're using, or are thinking about using.

The worst thing is the camera stability. I don't mean physical, although that's very bad, too -- the software crashes frequently and requires power cycling (unplug and replug) to reactivate. As a result, this camera can't go anyplace remote or difficult to access, and can't be relied upon to watch your house if you're not home.

"Best Light Level poor support for cable modem network"
This is the best low light IP camara I have found in its price range. However I also own an Linksys IP camara and found their software to be far more intuitive and user friendly. They also include support for cable modem style network (DHCP) sharing so you can broadcast the feed to the world. The Linksys was poor in low light situations though. Linksys's motion triggered event software =was much better out of the box as well.

"Figured it Out Finally"
Finally figured out how to get around the constant rebooting issue. You shouldn't have to do this but the Camera does give a good picture. Once you open a browser and assuming you can log on and connect the first time, and after you have logged off, don't close the browser or go to another Web page on the same browser. Just minimize it and open another Browser for other Net activity. When you want to connect to the camera again, restore your minimized browser. You should have the Connect screen to sign in with. Have done this process the past few days and have connected everytime. It appears that when you log off from the camera and then go to other websites and then go back to try and log in again is when the reboot issue seems to come up way to often. Had also upgraded to the latest Firmware and that didn't seem seem to make any difference.

"A Poor Product"
You never can tell how to qualify opinions like this. I'm a big fan of Dlink cameras. I own and use at work 4 models. This one however is a HUGE disappointment. Here are some points:

1) The camera is very unstable. I upgraded to the latest (1.03) firmware version to be sure I wasn't outdated. The camera locks up at times requiring a factory default to fix. Of course, then you have to spend time configuring again. I've found that turning on "night shot" and sending to e-mail causes a lockup 100% of the time. I've also locked up the camera a few other times and I haven't yet figured out a pattern.

2) Limited functionallity. My other DLink cameras have nice features like upload to FTP and an image that can be pulled and used on websites and such. This one does not. It does have some kind of random image thing that allows you to view an image but since the filename is random, you can't do much with it.

3) Missing timestamp. When you record video, there is no date/time stamp. Support Case ID "DLK397450207" from DLink: "It does not have a date & time stamp." That seems like a dumb thing to do.

4) Inoperability with Server 2003. Support Case ID "DLK397450207" from DLink: "I know we tend to have issues with windows 2003 OS". In other words, if you're thinking about uploading images to Server 2003, forget it.

I bought this because I need a low-lux camera. When I can get a night shot picture, it does look ok. But not much use to me when I have all these problems.

Summary: Move on to the next product. Sorry Dlink. You failed on this one.