Home > Consumer Reviews > Unibrain Fire-i Firewire Color Digital Camera for Mac

I have over a dozen different webcams, including Logitech, I-Bot, Pyro, Creative Labs, and several others. The Unibrain camera is by far and away the best of all of them, and I now own four of them. Unlike the one-star review, I found setup and function of all four cameras to be trivial, the cables worked great, and I can clip it pretty much wherever I need a camera. The clip also doubles as a simple stand, similar to the stand on the back of picture frames.

Combined with firewire repeaters, they make excellent security cameras.

I just wish someone made a camera with 1394B 800MB+ speed capabilities.... I wouldn't be surprized to see Unibrain one of the first to have one.

I've owned a Unibrain Fire-i for about a year now. This is the best webcam available today. The FireWire interface is a must for something as demanding as digital video (much better picture than a USB cam). The picture quality is fantastic. Of couse, for videoconferencing, all VC apps end up pixilating your image, but a lower quality camera will produce poorer results. I have not directly compared this to the iSight, but based on other user descriptions, this cam produces as good if not better images than Apple's iSight webcam.

Customer service is excellent. My Fire-i stopped producing an image after about 9 months. I contacted the manufacturer - the email was very responsive, and after a few emails back and forth and determining it was the cam that was defective (and it was not a problem with software or the cable), they allowed me to send this one back, and they shipped me a new cam immediately. Five stars for customer service.

I videoconference w/my parents using iChat AV (we both have Macs). Even though both of us are able to use our miniDV Sony camcorders as a webcam using the Firewire connection, the Fire-i is a lot more handy and a WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT. First, the Fire-i is very small and powered by the FireWire connection, so it does not need a power cable. Also, it is a hassle to plug and unplug a FireWire camcorder to use as a webcam, having to plug/unplug a power cable and firewire cable all the time. It is nice to just leave the Fire-i by the computer. So I just purchased a second Fire-i for my parents.

The only negatives I can think of with this webcam are that the clip mount only opens so far, so that it will not clip on my LCD display, which has too thick a bezel. So you may find it challenging to find a good way to mount this cam (I found a good enough solution.) But the mount DOES swivel in many positions, which is a BIG plus. Also, note that the Fire-i has no microphone, so you will need an external mic for audio.

Other positives, beside excellent picture quality, is the manual focus ring for super-sharp focus (many webcams are fixed focus), and the fact that this has TWO FireWire ports, so that it can be part of a FW daisy chain. I think some don't realize or read the instructions about the manual focus ring, so they give this cam one star (duh!).

I would highly recommend this webcam to anyone. It is a simple plug and play with the Mac OS. It also comes with a lot of software, including a $40 value videoconferencing title. But this webcam works great with Apple's iChat AV and also iVisit (two other programs I have tried it with.), and comes in at about $60 less than Apple's iSight cam.

I have an old Mac G4 running at 350mhz. with a 9800 RADEON PRO video card my operating system is Panther Mac OS 10.3. I plugged the camera into my firewire port, clicked iChat and I was off and running, it was that easy. I adjusted the focus ring and the picture was perfect; it works great in low light situations. My computer friend said that the picture she received was perfect.

I would say the picture is as good as the Apple iSight camera. The camera comes with software that enables it to run with Windows Me/2000/XP.

I just purchased the Fire-i Web Cam for my Mac, the picture quality was phenomenal. I was able to clip it on my Powerbook, and the add software was exceptional. I high recommend this camera to anyone. One other thing the customer service was out of this world, it was a great pleasure to find a company that truly cares about their customers.

I ordered one of these straight from the manufacturer...

The picture quality was terrible. I tried in better light, the picture quality was still terrible. I emailed with tech support who (to give them credit) admitted that the picture quality was terrible and set me up with someone in Greece who RMA'd it.

A month later I get another one. The picture quality is exactly the same. It's going back, and they are GOING to give me my money back.

On top of the terrible picture quality is the way that the lens was really wobbly, the coil effect of the cable that it comes with (too thick) was stronger than the clip so it was really hard to keep it .. ahhh .. upright; and it didn't come with a user manual.

But none of these things matter. It failed so completely and absolutely in it's basic task of being a webcam that there is no point in considering any more a practical solution than, say, shoving cashew nuts into the firewire port of your mac.