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High Tech Baby Monitoring?
MrGibbage writes "I'm a long time geek and about to be a first time father. I'm setting up the baby room now, and I'm looking for a high-tech (and low cost of course) baby monitoring system. I'm already running a linux web server over DSL and I'd love to push the video to that in order to see the video on my cell phone when we are out and the babysitter is home....uhh....babysitting. How will I watch the video while in our house? What about on my iPaq? Laptop? Something else? What about audio? Any systems that integrate both? The Baby-R-Us systems are ridiculously low quality and not expandable at all and therefore not really an option. The last slashdot article about video surveillance is a few years old."
story author probably wants to spy on his neighbor's teenage daughter(s).
I'd like to see the video of your babysitter after you're gone too....
I'm sure we'll see it as a mpg on the newsgroups very soon....
WTF? Over?
to start teaching your baby about the PATRIOT Act :P
Monstar L
Oh, sorry, I thought you said low tech, high cost...
I demand a new topic to be immediately made under 'Your rights online' section so we can discuss it through and blame Bill Gates for it.
-el
Have you thought about trying good old fashioned parenting? Perhaps "being there" is the best way to monitor your child...
I agree, anyone who would even consider leaving their child alone for even a second should be at the top of CPS's hit list. Gonna cook, have the kid with you, or move the kitchen appliances into the kids room. Hafta poop, take the kid with you, or have a commode put in the kids room, or better yet, bond with the kid by wearing diapers yourself. I'm sure your employer won't mind you taking 18years of maternity/paternity leave. Wanna have some, uh, intimate time with your SO, do it right there. Junior will be two young and out of it to really grasp what's going on anyway (that and like your likely to get any anytime soon after just having a kid, yeah right). Grandparents, brothers, sisters, close friends, ALL not good enough to watch YOUR little one. Hell, leaving your kid with a grandparent is almost as bad as leaving your kid in a car in the Arizona desert with the windows rolled up and a quad processor Opteron running inside with a RAID array with 15k/rpm scsi drives.
You my friend are brilliant and your insights make it obvious that you are wise beyond your years. I was wondering what kind of car to get to replace my old beater that broke down for the last time. Having been enlightened by your wisdom, I shall now walk the 12 miles to my office. I shall also stop wasting money purchasing my food and simply hunt the small animals in my neighborhood for nourishment. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Try RFID Implants. You can get the sensors at radio shack and the implants themselves are real cheap if you go through your veterinarian.
A Friend who I work with has one of these wireless video baby monitors.... And he himself has said, you end up repeatedly running to the nursery 'cause it looks as if the babies far too still when viewed on the little LCD display.
;-) (just kidding - honest!).
So, I guess what would be useful is a button on the monitor, that when pressed will give the baby just a little electric shock, to cause the child to move or flinch enough to be seen over the LCD
Just install Linux on the baby and then you can monitor it with SNMP.
And if there's anything wrong, you can ssh in.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
It's the latest fashion, really. H.U.M.A.N. monitoring works like this:
:)
- acquire free time
- move to the baby-room
- check upon the baby (repeat this every hour or so, depending on the sounds you hear from a simple baby intercom)
Advantages?
- It's cheap (only costs time, no batteries recquired)
- It's the safest solution (if the H.U.M.A.N. is you)
- It's flexible
Sorry to troll here, I guess that's what telling the truth is (...???), but wouldnt't spending more time with the baby yourself be much better for the baby and you ?
For telling you this, I am more than happy to give up some of my badly earned karma. But hey, you asked for it
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Strange, I've gotten less tolerant. I have a kid. Why the fuck would I want to hear about yours?
5,3 and 1 ... funny names for kids ;)
Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do!
Plus, the kid will find a way around it. He'll hook up a VCR to the video camera playing a tape of him sleeping in a continuous loop. By the time you get suspicious and notice this, he's long gone thanks to Keanu Reeves' daring high-speed chase under the crib.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!
*ducks*
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
The only trouble is they are rather uncontrollable. When a camera is trapped to the head, the baby will often vary his/her view so you might want some sort of panning mechanism.
The only really good place to hide the battery is of course - the diaper. Believe me you'll have trouble reusing those later! You might want to go with disposables.
Babies, like Daleks, are generaly thwarted by stairs until older so be careful to select a baby with the right level of mobility for the monitoring mission you have in mind.
If you have a particular mark you want monitored try spearning a little strained peas in an inconspicious place so the baby is prone to follow them.
Good luck!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley