Panasonic KX-HCM110A

The Panasonic KX-HCM110A is one of the more affordable pan-and-tilt cameras on the market. It offers a substantial 173-degree pan and 105-degree tilt range to monitor a much larger area than fixed lens cameras. Though it’s missing optical zoom, the camera’s 10X digital magnification (still with scroll wheel control) adds to its flexibility. Dual-stack support for IPv4 and IPv6 may appeal to future-proofing fans, and IPsec support (the same technology used in many VPN connections) eliminates nearly any chance of a hacker viewing your video. Panasonic also included an integrated microphone and a jack for speaker output.

Additionally, the KX-HCM110 features an I/O port so that, for example, when motion or a door sensor triggers an alarm, an external light might be switched on to assist recording. The camera can remember up to eight preset location and zoom combinations for quickly “patrolling” common areas in its field of view. Other basic extras, such as cell phone compatibility, configurable motion detection, and FTP, round out Panasonic’s midrange offering.

The picture quality on this camera fit well with the other lower-midrange cameras. Daylight results were noticably below the KX-HCM280A, but low-light tests were suprisingly good (but still not on level with our higher-end cameras). Strangely, this unit does not support multiple cameras in the viewer application, and VGA mode still holds you to a 12fps limit. So although this is a solid choice for wide-area general monitoring, we wouldn’t count on it for surveillance image precision.