Many of us who have wireless IP cameras at home would like to be able to view the images when we are not at home. To do this, one way is to use a Dynamic DNS service such as dyndns.org. To those looking to use dyndns.org service or something similar, you must first understand the theory behind this.
For those on ADSL, whenever you logon to the Internet, the internet service provider (ISP) will assign an IP address to your line. So if you are wishing to access your home network from the WAN side (i.e. from outside your home), unless you can type the IP address directly (169.24.224.43 or something), it may be better to use a named IP address.
That is why dyndns.org or dynamic DNS service provider comes in. If you set up your router to use DNS, each time you (i.e. your router) logon to the Internet, the router will inform the DNS service provider the IP address that your ISP has assigned to your router. Thus, if you set up to use dr_archer.dyndns.org, then all you need to know is that dr_archer.dydns.org is the URL of your network.
This is the first part, which is to give yourself a named URL via the DNS service. Next, you must configure your router to allow you access to your camera (or any other equipment) from the WAN side (i.e. the internet side). Basically, this means doing port forwarding. On your home network (LAN side), each PC/gadget has its own IP address. For example, your IP camera might have been configured to be 192.168.1.50. You will need to set the port forwarding such that any request on the WAN side be redirected to 192.168.1.50. Typically, you would set up a port such that any reference to the port on the WAN side will be redirected to 192.168.1.50. Finally, you may need to create filter rules to allow for inbound traffic.
Using the DIR-655 as an example,
(1) First set up the Dynamic DNS page. In this example, I am setting up the URL to be archer.dyndns.org.
(2) Next set up the port forwarding. In this case, I am using DIR-655's Virtual Server function. The Local IP address of my IP camera has been configured as 192.168.1.50. By setting up the public port as 33350, it means that if I want to access the camera, I will have to type
http://archer.dydns.org:33350 (note the 33350 after the colon on the URL).
(3) Finally, set up the inbound filter. Here, I set up the filter to allow all WAN IP addresses (0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255) permission to access the network. You may want to restrict the IP address to certain ranges only (e.g. your company's IP address).
If you are using a camera (via 3G) to access your camera, you will need to get the right app. Typical information you will need is
a) URL of your camera. In the above, the URL would be
http://archer.dyndns.org:33350. If you are required to indicate the port, in this example, it would be 33350.
b) The login username and password used for your camera (e.g. User: smc, Password: smcadmin
c) Camera model. Choose the SMC model from your app. If you can't find the SMC camera (it is after all quite new), you can use Trendnet IP-422 model, since this seems to be functionally identical to the SMC camera.
Happy baby monitoring with your SMC!
