Panasonic Cameras

Community Playground General Discussions
1

The Panasonic cameras that are sold through Micasverde say that they are plug n play for Vera but what if I will be using a Mac with Vera?

Thanks

2

I’m using all Macs and I have two Panasonic cameras and they work fine. I didn’t purchase mine through MiCasaVerde, so I had to manually configure them myself. It wasn’t hard to do, but the camera’s setup use a Windows configuration util for 1st time setup. I use Parallels , so that wasn’t an issue for me. The cameras are wireless, but you have to connect for the first time using a wired connection. I probably could have bypassed the Windows config util and connected directly to the cameras via their IP address using a web browser (instead of using the Windows config util).

Once the cameras are initially setup, I then just added them manually to Vera.

3

Cameras sold by MCV are just pre-configured for your particular Vera, that’s all.

4

The Panasonic cameras don’t have DHCP turned on by default and are a PITA to setup without the software (in fact I’m not sure it can be done, I had to find a 'bootleg" version of the software since Panasonic won’t publish it on the web.)
The IP camera companies are living in the dark ages with lousy UI and support and mediocre security. The “pro” level cameras are better but way too expensive.

5
I probably could have bypassed the Windows config util and connected directly to the cameras via their IP address using a web browser (instead of using the Windows config util).

Actually the engineers of Panasonic are brain dead, imho. Until you run the Windows utility the Pansonic camera will not even get an IP address. So you can’t do anything with the camera without the utility. The utility uses broadcast packets to talk to the camera when it’s fresh out of the box to tell it to get an IP address. Of course, Panasonic won’t tell anybody what the format is so we can do it automatically. This is so dumb. The camera should, out of the box, get an IP address when connected to the network. It is an IP device, after all, so why on earth would anybody buy a network IP camera and not want it to get an IP. Now once you run the Windows utility and tell the camera to get an IP address, from then on it’s fine. But this is a problem for a Mac/Linux user who buys the camera elsewhere, not on our web shop.

I added a wiki page to explain this: http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Panasonic_IP_Cameras

6

Camera sets up fine on a Mac. If it’s the wireless model:

  • switch it to “Wired” (physical slide switch on back)
  • run ethernet cable to it and your router
  • default camera IP is 192.168.0.253 (if I remember correctly)
  • use the web browser interface for the camera to adjust any settings.
  • switch it back to wireless, unplug Cat 5 cable, power cycle the camera and you’re all set.

Note: I have not been able to get it to interface with Vera, but that isn’t the camera’s fault, as it works great directly over my LAN. The fine folks in VeraLand are working on it.

.//A.

7

For what it’s worth, I recently purchased a Panasonic BL-C131A camera and while the user manual said that the default network address was 192.168.0.253, it actually appeared on my network at 192.168.1.253 ! Make sure you check that address as well. I have a windows free home here so I always use the direct connection to configure these cameras.