Once I bought a wireless mouse from dollarama. Instead of a functional on/off switch the plastic was just kind of a mold where the switch ought to have been (and was labeled). But it was all one contiguous piece of abs plastic. Like a prop or something. I didn't take it apart but it seemed to have electronics and everything inside it. You just couldn't turn it on. Very weird. I kept it for a long time, partly because it is a very funny thing and partly out of self doubt, thinking one day I'd solve the puzzle. But it was certainly an error in manufacturing, not my abilities. I guess they forgot. On Mon, Jan 12, 2026, at 2:55 AM, Colin McGregor via Talk wrote:
Last week I was in Dollarama and saw they had a webcam with a built-in microphone for $5.00 (plus tax) under the name "WORK FROM HOME WITH VIVITAR". I bought it, it works, but... The images from the camera are clear, but the resolution is ... not so good (640 x 480). The connector for the camera is USB 2.0.
The built-in microphone has a 3.5 audio plug (which I didn't test). So this means you will need an microphone input connector on you computer to use the microphone, If you want to use this was a computer without a microphone connector (yes, I am looking at you Raspberry Pi computers) you will also need the likes of a USB sound card, or put another way you will need two USB ports to fully support this webcam if your computer doesn't have a microphone jack built in. Also, adding even a low-end USB sound card would more than double the cost of this set-up...
The camera base is designed to clip over the top of an LCD monitor, if you want to use this camera on a desktop or on a tripod you will have to jury-rig something.
I can see some use cases for a $5 webcam, put it in a somewhat dangerous place where you know the camera might get damaged or destroyed, sure, no great loss if things go to @#$%. Need a back-up webcam in case your good webcam fails, sure it is better than nothing (but not by a lot). Want to dabble with home security systems, or simple robots, yes this could be fine to get started with. As a day-in/day-out video conference webcam with "important" people, NO!!!!
As I see it this webcam is a decent value for the $, just so few $ that you should pay attention to the camera's ... limitations.
Colin. ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/CWECSXT...