Wi-Fi network clogged by Foscam

[35remington]

Tonight I got sick and tired of my streaming movies buffering over the internet, so I started running some diagnostics and unplugging things.  I was blown away when I cut the power to my two Foscam 8910W cameras.  They have been absolutely murdering my Wi-Fi. 

Using the apps Airport Utility and Speed Test, I took readings several times all over my house.  I quickly found that I'm getting 5 and 2 Mb/s on my iPad and iPhone, respectively, with the Foscams running.  Unplugging them immediately takes me to 16 Mb/s with the iPad and iPhone each.

So this post is not immediately related to the iCam app, but am I the only one who's seeing this, or have others experienced the same?

[SKJM Support]

Please drop the FPS for each Foscam down to about 2-5 fps to see if that improves stability.

You can adjust the frame rate of Foscam cameras by adding a parameter to the URL.

http://x.x.x.x/video.cgi?rate=<PARAM>

<PARAM> can be a value between 0 and 23, and each value corresponds to:
    0:maximum
    1:20 fps
    3:15 fps
    6:10 fps
    11:5 fps
    12:4 fps
    13:3 fps
    14:2 fps
    15:1 fps
    17:1 fp/2s
    19:1 fp/3s
    21:1 fp/4s
    23:1 fp/5s

So to connect to the camera at 2 fps, you would use http://x.x.x.x/video.cgi?rate=14 … or to connect at 5 fps, you would use http://x.x.x.x/video.cgi?rate=11

[35remington]

Thanks for the quick response.  How can I check and see what the frame rate is currently, before adjusting?

[OUAnthony]

Login to each camera's webpage and it should be somewhere in the settings.

[35remington]

Ok, so I can't find anywhere to view the *current* FPS settings, but I followed the instructions to lower each camera to 5 FPS.  Question: Does typing in blah.blah.blah/video.cgi?rate=whatever into my browser actually *change* the settings of my camera, or does it just show me  the camera's view at the FPS rate?

[OUAnthony]

No, it does not change the settings on the camera...it only changes the rate at which it feeds frames to icamsource. If you were to use that same URL in your web browser (I think it'd need to be Firefox if on Windows), but remove the rate limitation, you should see pretty fluid motion (assuming the internal camera settings are set to 25 or 30fps...and assuming the cameras have a strong wifi connection). Were you able to login to the cameras' webpages? I have a FOSCAM knockoff (LOFTEK), and I would think the web interface would be very similar. Mine has a fps setting on the page that displays the camera feed, along with a frequency (50Hz, etc) setting, resolution setting, and some other stuff. Do you you not have that?

[OUAnthony]

On second look, it seems like you cannot change the settings permanently within the camera...at least not on my knockoff brand. It seems those settings only apply to the video that you are viewing through your web browser. In addition to the modified URL info SKJM provided, I found this article, which you might like:

http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/Foscam