D-Link DCS-6010L review

Most IP cameras have a wide-angle lens, but D-Link’s DCS-6010L goes a step further, with a fisheye lens for a 360-degree view. It also boasts Ethernet and 802.11n wireless, has an integral mic and speaker, support for H.264 and an internal microSD card slot.

The camera is part of D-Link’s cloud range, and employs the firm’s mydlink portal for remote monitoring. During installation, you register the camera with the service. The live view can then be accessed directly from the portal, where basic settings such as motion detection can be modified. Wireless setup is a doddle, too, since the camera supports WPS. Pressing the small button on the side had it linked to our router in seconds.

You can create three profiles, each with its own resolution, codec and frame rate for PC and mobile viewing. The maximum resolution is 1,600 x 1,200 and, although only 15fps is supported, we found motion to be reasonably smooth.

The camera’s live view allows you to choose between several different modes. There’s a classic circular fisheye view, and a “normal” view, which crops into a part of the image and allows the viewer to browse and zoom around. There’s a panorama view, which straightens out the image and splits it horizontally into two, and there are two multi-views – one splitting the image into four equal segments, and the other replacing the top-right segment with a full fisheye view.

There’s also a patrol mode, which allows 20 preset positions to be defined and cycled through, while scheduled motion detection can send video or snapshots via email or FTP. The camera requires minimum light levels of 2 lux, so it doesn’t work in the dark.

Unfortunately, image quality in daylight is poor. Colour balance and contrast is fine, but focus isn’t sharp enough and makes distant objects fuzzy.

The D-Link DCS-6010L packs in a lot of features, and is around a third of the price of the Mobotix Q24M-SEC-D11. However, disappointing image quality rules it out of the running for an award.