Pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) controls add a layer of video-game-like fun to the Compro Cloud Network Camera TN600W for a while. Once I got over that novelty, useful as it is, the camera itself is fairly standard, with features not entirely unlike the $120 stationary Compro TN50W. The TN600W ($199.99 list) also adds infrared night vision, but it lacks is an online video recording option (the cloud DVR) found with products like the Logitech Alert 750N or the Dropcam HD. The $80 jump from the TN50W to the TN600W is almost all for the motorized PTZ function; you don't get any higher quality video.

Design and Setup

The Compro TN600W measures a hefty 5 by 4.2 by 5 inches (HWD). That's not including the external Wi-Fi USB dongle, which inserts in a pre-set antenna slot. It adds 0.9 inches, making the full unit almost six inches deep. It needs all that room because the base is huge, housing the motor that allows the camera a full 340° pan left and right, plus 100° tilt up and down. The camera comes with a warning label: "Any manhandling of the unit will void the warranty."

The 10x zoom is entirely digital, not optical. Don't expect any pin-point precision when you zoom in using your smartphone.

The motor makes it heavy, so mounting the TN600W on wall or ceiling requires use of a steel plate. You screw it onto a surface and connect the camera to the plate with another screw. If you pan or tilt a lot, you don't want this device coming loose, so make it secure.

Compro has a practically zero-configuration setup—no PC required. Plug it into your router with the included Ethernet cable, enter the camera into the app either by hand or QR code, and once it sees the camera, turn on Wi-Fi. There's a Wi-Fi Protected Setup button on the back, if your router supports that feature.

The camera will come up when you sign in on the C4Home service via the C4Home.com website or the C4Home mobile apps. Signing up for C4Home can be done via Web or app. (Am I the only one who doesn't like the name "C4Home"? It makes me think of plastic explosive, and the NSA watching me type it into Google...)

Unfortunately, C4Home's video stream requires an ActiveX control, so using browsers like Chrome are out—it's pretty much Internet Explorer only. You could, actually, use any of the Compro cameras without ever going to the desktop PC. However, there is a Windows CD included with the camera for installing the business-level ComproView desktop software that supports multiple cameras—what you'd want in an office park full of Compro products. The wizard on the CD sets up the cameras, but isn't necessary if you've got a mobile device. The wizard will show you the IP address for the camera to access it from a browser on the local network, but again, that interface's Web-based controls only work with Internet Explorer—a very tiresome limitation these days.

With 12 infrared LED lights, the TN600W is at the night vision sweet spot. I've seen as little as four on the D-Link Cloud Camera 1150 and overkill of 30 on the Y-Cam HomeMonitor. Interestingly enough, the TN600W has the worst night vision of all the cams I've seen—the image is just muddy, much worse than its regular daylight video feed which is adequate at 640 by 480.

Features and Performance
PTZ is what this camera is all about. No one is going to confuse the TN600W's abilities with the kind of surveillance you see in the movies. But being able to swipe across a handheld screen to pan left or right, or tilt up or down, is still fun to do in real-life. With the mobile apps, you can't swipe diagonally to pan and tilt simultaneously. While there are diagonal arrows in the C4Home Web interface, the camera motor only works in one direction at a time (left, and then up, for example). There is, naturally, a bit of lag time in response to your finger swipe or pushing an arrow, but not an unreasonable amount of time.

The digital zoom works with a two-finger pinch to zoom out, and spread to zoom in, just like when looking at a photo on a phone. There are also + and – buttons in the C4Home zoom controls for zoom level.

When the camera lens sees what you want, you can create a travel point and give it a name. Then, in the future, you can choose it from a menu in the app—the camera will then move directly to that travel point. It goes a lot faster than repeated swiping back and forth to cover the full 340 degree sweep the camera can make around a room. Up to 30 travel points are allowed per camera, which is plenty.

You can't use the mobile app and the Web site access at C4Home.com simultaneously. Log into the app, you'll get logged out of the site, and vice versa. The mobile apps support push notifications if motion/audio events are detected, which can include the still image.

You can capture an image instantly from the mobile apps or Web by clicking the camera icon. Cloud storage of video is off the table, but you can save clips to a microSD card (slot is in the back of the camera base). You can get cloud storage of the auto-captured stills, but not to your C4Home account. You'll need Dropbox to do that. C4Home lets you assign that cloud-storage option to all your Compro cameras if desired. 

You can share the stream from your TN600W camera with others, but only if they have a C4Home account. C4Home has a nice feature called Private mode, so that when you're home, you can suspend the camera's video stream, even if you've shared it.

The lag time from camera to stream, over Wi-Fi on the same network, is very short, maybe a second or two. That's heaven compared to the agonizing multi-second lag of cameras like the Y-Cam Homemonitor. Lag increases a bit when you're remote, but on the TN600W it isn't painful. With iOS you can view one Compro camera at a time. The C4Home Android app from Google Play and the C4Home.com site let you watch four streams at once.

Audio on the TN600W is also not bad, provided by a basic pinhole microphone on the front of the base. Speakers on the sides enable two-way audio. At the rear are two 2.5mm jacks for plugging in speakers or a better microphone as you see fit—handy for setting off audio alerts in a different part of the room, if you can run a microphone line that far. C4Home also has an alarm. Push the button and the camera blares a siren. It's fun for scaring away interlopers or tricking the dogs into barking.

Conclusion
Adding pan/tilt/zoom (even digital zoom) to a camera makes for a fun and occasionally more useful surveillance experience—especially when viewing through your handheld. It's too bad it costs so much more to achieve this novelty. That's not enough to unseat better-rated surveillance cams with online storage like the Logitech Alert 750N and the Dropcam HD. Compro does a great job with camera setup and offers some high-end options, but only adequate video quality, especially at night.