Cheap from China: $3.10 – 6 LED 3M USB webcam/camera

Update: I had decided to take back this article from the archive.org and update it a little bit.

China has taken over ebay. There are Chinese sellers, selling anything at very ridiculous prices.

So, I had bought some stuff from china. Something turn out fine, other not so…

On this case I got a $3.10 (including shipping) webcam. After the 25 days standard shipping waiting time, i got the camera on the mail.

Information:

HardwareID:  090C:0203  or - USB\VID_090C&PID_0203

Devices that I have found with the same HardwareID on the Internet:

•  Feiya Technology Corp USB Composite Device

On Amazon and Ebay I had seen devices like this under this names:

• Cubeternet USB 2.0 Webcam with Microphone + Infrared LED Lights (UVC-Compliant) for PC, Mac and Linux
• LE 20.0 M Pixel USB 6 LED Webcam Mic PC Laptop Camera

Here it is the picture of the WebCam posted by the seller:

Notice that this web cam has the Mic hole under the lent. There is other camera which looks the same with the hole on top of the lent.

The ebay page says:

THIS CAM WORKS ONLY UNDER WINDOWS XP!!!

• USB interface.
• Comes with 3 mega pixels camera.
• High definition camera.
• 6 LED lights.
• Volume remote control.
• With mic for your convenience to communicate with others.
• Form of the video: 24 very various 1420RGbs
• Sensitization devive size: 1/3″ or 1/4″
• SNR: > 48 dB
• Dynamic range: 3CM; 1-2 CM (Little distance)
• Video date format: 8/16/24 Bit, CCIR601, CCIR656
• Support TWAIN, VFW, DWN technical specification.
• 2D3D display card, minimal 4Mram, up to 16 Bit colors.

Product Details:

• weight:154 g
• size:17*13*5.8 cm

Pack including:

• 1 × PC Camera Webcam with Mic and 6 LED Lights

The Facts

The picture
The picture posted on the ebay page, hides something interesting. “The Microphone plug”. Yes, the webcam says it came with mic, and it is true, but someone guess according to the picture that the mic is also USB, not in this case. It is connected separately.

The Mic

The Mic is NOT USB. Please notice that, it s a generic one that needs to be plugged to the Mic port. 

Only Windows XP? - No, it Works on Windows 7 - 64Bits

There is an statement that it is not true “THIS CAM WORKS ONLY UNDER WINDOWS XP!!!” I had tested this WebCam under Windows 7 – 64 bits and the driver gets downloaded automatically from the web.

Windows 8.1 - 64bits

Windows 8.1 (64Bits) recognize this camera as "USB 2.0 PC Cam"

I had tested it with Skype and it gets recognized fine.

The LEDs

It took me some time to understand that there is a LED dimmer, since I thought it was a volume dimmer. The LED lights turn on fine with the dimmer.  So at night you may turn on the lights for people to see you.

I don't think it has infrared LED, my empiric knowledge tells me that an infrared LED is generally always on, you can see it at night as red, and let you see a clear image on the night. This are regular LEDs with an on/off dimmer. 

Conclusions

Who is earth will make a review of a $3.10 (including shipping) webcam? It is so cheap that you may ignore the downside of the device.

Or possible you can paint your company logo on it and give it away to customers for Christmas.

Links

• Amazon has a similar webcam.