Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cool Wireless Video Camera For $75

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the cool-new-toys dept.

phutureboy writes: "Thought the gadget freaks and toy hackers out there would be interested in this badass video camera for kids. It transmits at 900MHz to a base station which has audio/video RCA outs you can connect to a TV or VCR. I bought one at Wal-Mart for $75, and have been fairly impressed with it so far even though it's sort of cheap and plasticky. Got me to wondering what other applications the Slashdot crowd could come up with for it, or whether anyone knew of other inexpensive video cameras suitable for experimentation." CT:You can get an x10 one too. Video quality kinda sucks tho.

10 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Do some homework! by juuri · · Score: 3

    Prolly get modded down for this, but who cares?

    Slashdot has taken a dramatic downturn since it was "purchased". Having seen how this works from the inside I understand how it can happen. When a website is acquired there is a certain amount of traffic it is expected to drive to meet AD revenues (if thats the only source it has). This in itself is fair... the site was purchased to at the very least pay for itself and increase the mindshare of whoever owns it.

    The problem is... the purchaser usually throws in weird conditions. Some slashdot conditions may have been, "a certain number of front page stories a day", "this many comments a week", or "this many less technical stories". I'm not saying this is the case here, but given some of the things we've seen over the past year its certainly plausible.

    Then again its prolly just popularity, Slashdot is for all intents and purposes a BBS and just like any of the old dialup BBS's once they get to popular they lose their spark.

    --
    --- I do not moderate.
  2. Samples... by lpontiac · · Score: 3
    To actually comment on this camera... sample stills, or even better an actual video sample from this thing, would be kinda cool.

    So, anyone got some?

  3. Interference by ShadyG · · Score: 3
    So how does it act around 900MHz phones? I know my 802.11b network occasionally has glitches when I use other 2.4GHz devices in its vicinity.

    -- ShadyG

    --
    Nerd Rock In Progress
  4. this camera... by B00yah · · Score: 3

    Is actually a waste of plastic, IMHO. I had to help hook one of these up for a friends kid, and the reception was terrible, the picture was barely recognizable, and the camera felt like it was made of the same sheap plastic they use for ball pits...:P

    --

    How Jaded Are You?
  5. I've got one of these by negspace · · Score: 3

    As a massive videophile, I picked this little sucker up as soon as I saw it. The lowdown is this:

    Picture quality blows....but what do you expect, it's $75.

    There is a fixed lens which they say you can focus by taking off the front casing, though i haven't had any luck with their method.

    The transmission is ok. I live in a house with a basement, the camera would work fine on the same floor as the receiver, though transmitting between floors is no good. It will go thorough walls with some interference. It will not transmit when put in the freezer with the door closed.

    I do all kinds of video stuff, one of which is live mixing/projections at raves. I was really hoping the camera would work there as a wireless livecam, but the damned thing wouldn't transmit at all. I guess with all the interference of electronics the signal just couldn't be processed well. All I got was an indistinguishable b&w image.

    As far as the neato factor goes, the cam is pretty good. If you are using it at home and don't mind the occasional hiccups in transmission and poor picture quality, then it's not a bad buy.

    It is only $75, and it is a camera, though I was hoping for something like the old Fisher Price Pixelvision PXL2000, it is no where near as cool.

    --negspace

    "can't depend on honest answers from dependent hands. won't accept an honest answer from an open hand." --jimmy eat world

  6. Advertising 101 by Mike+Schiraldi · · Score: 4
    Looks like the annoying, flashing ad in the left column of the space elevator story did its job.

    I guess that's why simple, subtle ads have more or less been replaced by in-your-face ones.

    On that note, check out the link in my sig. :)

    --

    --

    --
    Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again

  7. Vide Capture Card + Lego Robot = Security System by msheppard · · Score: 4

    Rubber band this to a lego robot and build a web interface to drive it around the house and you've got a fun little toy to play with at work. Plug the video outputs to your video capture card. M@

    --
    Krispy Cream is people
  8. You want cameras? by DaneelGiskard · · Score: 4

    I did some research for a robot project some time ago, here are some cheap, small, light cams:

    http://www.quasarelectronics.com/cmos_cameras.htm
    http://www.mars-cam.com/frame/optical.html
    http://www.supercircuits.com/

    cheers
    mike

  9. Any bet that... by CBoy · · Score: 5

    The number of "hidden" porn cams increase on the 'net once the general slashdot readership gets ahold of this ? :)

  10. Do some homework! by fmaxwell · · Score: 5
    "I bought a kid's camera at Walmart and it's neat..." is not a Slashdot story. I don't see any specs about resolution, lens information (fixed focus, auto focus, f-stop, etc.), or any other "stuff that matters" when it comes to "news for nerds." There's no hacking information (e.g., putting the guts into an old SLR body, enabling a hidden USB feature on the PCB, etc.). There is no really cool feature like the ability to pump digital data at high-speeds over the RF link. It doesn't have an IP address and talk to a wireless home network.

    Before you say "it's just a camera for kids", ask yourself this: Do we really want to see content-free postings about every toy that someone thinks is neat? When did /. go from being "News for Nerds" to "Ads for Walmart"?