D-Link has launched DCS-6101LH, the most affordable entry-level compact Wi-Fi camera from D-Link. Retailing at only S$39, it has enough features to watch over your home without breaking the bank.
Like most of their Wi-Fi cameras, D-Link does not print the model numbers prominently on their boxes, but you will see the model printed at the lower part of the box. The DCS-6101LH comes with the camera unit, micro USB cable, compact USB adapter, wall-mount screws, and installation guide.
It supports the following features:
- Full HD 1080p at 15fps
- 110-degree field of view
- 5m Infrared night vision
- sound and motion detection
- built-in mic to listen-in live
- WPA3 security
- works with Google Assistant and Alexa
From the device settings, you can see that there are some customisation that you can enable, like night vision, invert image, status LED, motion area.
What are the features that you will not get?
- Only record footage at 15fps max
- No two-way communication
- No internal storage
To configure the IP camera to your home network, install mydlink app and follow the on-screen instructions. To ensure smooth pairing, it is recommended that you disable mobile data so that your smarphone will lock on the Wi-Fi connectivity.
mydlink app
The mydlink app is a universal app for all D-Link home camera products, so what you read from this section will also apply to other D-Link Wi-Fi cameras. There may be variations to the functions within each camera, but the app features largely apply.
From the mydlink app, I can set scenes, automation triggers, and schedules to manage the scenarios or timing that you want to trigger the cameras. Automation trigger is where you define the rules that trigger the event. For instance, I will have to configure that when the camera detects either a motion or sound, I will want to trigger an action which is to start video recording or to send notification to my smartphone. Schedules allow you to decide what time you want the automation rules to be triggered. Finally, Scenes is a global setting to trigger some actions from the home screen, like “Home”, “Away”, “Sleep”.
While there is no local storage supported, D-Link has a free cloud recording plan that allows you to store up to 1 day of recording. You can download the clips before they expire. You can also choose to sign up the cheapest basic plan at US$2.49 per month or US$24.99 per year which gives you up to 7-day storage and save up to 3 D-Link cameras.
Once the setup is complete, you can tap the camera and load the camera view to either watch the live footage or access recorded clips. There are on-screen buttons to allow you to take a photo or record video into the smartphone. Tap the speaker button to listen to the room audio live.
To access the recorded clips, tap the top right icon below the “settings”. On the screen, you can select the date of recording, and scroll down to view the events in reverse timeline order. If you have a lot of footage for the day, it will take a lot of scrolling to get to the earlier footage. It would be good if there is a horizontal timeline bar to jump to the hour that I want.
Verdict
The D-Link DCS-6101LH has all the features that makes a home surveillance camera useful and usable. I like that it is compact so I can put it in any location without appearing too imposing. While there is no internal storage option, cloud recording is safer than microSD storage because you can access the clips faster from the app and there is no risk of lost data due to media theft or corruption. At S$39, there is no excuse not to install a couple of these at home to keep your family safe. Visit the official product page for more info.
Likes
- Inexpensive
Dislikes
- Needs to pay for longer cloud storage
1 comment
Hi Tan, how to “web access” the config for this cam? I intend to do port forwarding Thks