Microform WebCam Zoomvu review

The Zoomvu is a little different to other webcams we've seen, as it lets you monitor images from your mobile phone.

Installation is a little tricky, though, and the manual is littered with spelling mistakes. It's also hard to register the software, as there are no clear instructions on how to format the required email.

Once working, WebCam Zoomvu 's preview has a fixed resolution that's jerky to watch. Fortunately, it records at a smooth 30fps at a resolution of 352x288. The software helps you to monitor a specific area of the camera's view, such as a window, by simply using the mouse to draw a box around the area of interest. Any movement triggers a recording; you can also email alerts and set off a warning sound. The camera is good and has six LEDs and a light-sensor, so when it gets dark it can turn on its lights and keep shooting.

Although you can view the camera's images using a mobile phone, we found it was a nightmare to get it working. You can connect directly to your PC provided you know its Internet Protocol (IP) address and reconfigure your router. However, as most internet connections don't have fixed addresses, there's a Bridging server available, which you connect through instead.

This was difficult to get working, though, and our PC often reported that it was impossible to connect. There's no indicator to show that it's online and working, either. When we finally got it to work, though, it was impressive and the image quality was sharp. Frame rates will depend on your phone's internet connection, but over GPRS ours was about one frame every three seconds, which is enough to see what's going on.

It's a shame there's no internet viewer for a PC. The webcam is fine and the main monitoring software works well enough, but the mobile monitoring needs to be more reliable and easier to configure.