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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."
try ww.com, it will give you software and a page to watch your kid and a jpg you can poll with your cellphone...
MP3 Search Engine
What I do is have the camera takes shots every 10 sec or so, and save to a static file. VisionGS does a great job with this.
After that, just make as lightweight of a autorefreshing page as possible, and then you can just point your phone browser to it. It works very well actually, and VisionGS can archive the shots, so you can have a record or what went on.
--sig fault--
Axis makes some very nice network cameras. I've got one DMZ'ed through my router so that I can view it from the Interweb.
Also, D-Link is now selling these in both wired and wireless models. The Axis ones are more sophisticated, however. (Embedded Linux OS.)
D-Link has some cameras with integrated webservers with a self loading java interface viewable from most browsers. You can even tell it to send you an email or upload shots to an ftp server. cost ~$130.
Pool covers, railings and common sense help to keep your kids alive.
liqbase
1. Take a wild stab and enter http://www.sids.org into your favorite browser.
2. Look at the sidebar that has a section labeled Reducing the Risk".
3. Read and digest, particularly the bit at the bottom that discusses home monitoring systems (apnea/bradycardia monitors). Consider that there are thousands of experts in the medical and electronic fields who've been working on this exact problem for years.
Seriously, when it comes to a baby, play it safe. If you can think of it and it can be done, there's likely an entire industry that's already designed the tool to do it properly.
Before you start videotaping a third person (a babysitter), shouldn't you check what laws in your area might apply to such monitoring?
We also found the monitor very useful for the second child. She has the loudest cry of any baby I've heard, even when she's just settling herself. With her door and ours open upstairs, just transitioning from one sleep cycle to the other would wake us up. With the doors closed, we couldn't hear her well enough to respond in an emergency, so instead we turned the monitor on *downstairs* and closed her door. That way, the sound we heard was at just the right level to wake us up in an emergency.
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
There are not very many video systems that handle dark rooms very well - and those that do are not cheap. I would suggest you stick to audio. Just make sure the audio system is dect or similar http://www.bt.com/babymonitor/ . Old analogue baby monitors are completely pointless.
Zoneminder. Has all the options you want (cellphone monitoring etc), and has motion detection and auto record features.
Actually, SIDS is largely explained, and is mostly caused by smoking in your kid's room.
Setup a Linux box, connect your webcam, and install a package called "motion" (http://motion.sourceforge.net/). You'll have motion-sensing webcam system that will give you your monitoring capabilities. Also works great as a DIY security system.
Regarding SIDS, there's one piece of advice that SIDS gives out which is potentially damaging to a baby -- and that is putting the baby on it's back to sleep.
Babies need to be in a position to be able to interact with thier environment in order to develop properly -- they are utterly powerless laying on thier back, and it's a very unnatural way for a child to sleep. By placing them on thier back, you make them unable to move and interact with thier environment (such as it is). Not to mention now you have to worry about the child coughing up something in thier sleep if they're on thier back.
In this case, the SIDS organization is basically taking a correlation and treating it as a causative factor, and ignoring the damaging side effects from thier solution.
My son is almost 1 - I wrote almost an exactly identical post on a newsgroup before he was born. I tried several alternatives, found that any camera that was reasonably priced was basically worthless, and I finally wound up buying a Summer brand wireless video baby monitor. The thing works FANTASTICALLY. The camera has built in infrared illumination - with the nursery completely dark we can see my son like he's got a spotlight on him, and the mic is so sensitive that if the A/C isn't on you can usually hear him breathing even though the camera's way up on the wall. Since I bought mine, they have now come out with a version that has a small handheld monitoring station rather than the clunky brick-powered unit that I have. The handheld monitor looks like a gameboy. I don't know if the vid is as high quality as the clunky one that I have though. Mine also has a button to turn the video on and off so if you want you can use it as a traditional audio-only baby monitor. I am a classic worrier and this is BY FAR the ABSOLUTELY BEST piece of equipment we bought. It allowed us to put the baby in his room very early on and not worry a bit, not to mention being able to not rush in every time we hear a noise - a quick glance at the monitor tells us he's fine. It also potentially saved his life - he had a reaction to some formula and threw up while going to sleep one time - if my wife hadn't seen it on the monitor we probably would have never noticed and I won't even speculate what might have happened. I also wanted an internet ready camera piped through my web server, forwarded to my cell with motion detection to email me when he moves, etc. but the Summer monitor wound up actually doing a fantastic job.
First as somebody already said, when the baby comes home sleep, more than anything, will be the most important issue for your wife and you. For the first couple of weeks your sleep and especially your wife's sleep will be interrupted. So, the most important strategy is to be able to sleep when the baby sleeps.
If your wife nurses, she will most likely be a wreck for the first month. Nursing is terribly hard on her sleep. You get a break but she takes the pain. Treat her with care.
Here's what we did and it worked out pretty well. From about the age of newborn to about two months, we had the baby in a cradle at night in OUR bedroom. That way, after the first few paranoid nights, we relaxed and slept when the baby allowed. For most babies, gaining to about ten pounds leads to sleeping longer at night and if you are a bit lucky, through the night.
Have a plush chair or another cradle setup for the baby out where you will spend the day. I just put casters on our cradle. During that early time the cradle could go where we wanted to be. The baby wants a lot of holding time. Get one of those sling thingies for the baby to be attached to you. They are great.
After the baby was about 2-3 months s/he did crib time in his/her own bedroom in a regular crib that is good until about the age of 2 years. Around then they get athletic enough and smart enough to climb out. While they are not crawling or scooting around, have a really comfortable chair or something in the babies room that you can snooze in comfortably for those times when the baby is ill and your paranoia is off the scale. DON'T BRING THE BABY IN YOUR BED TO SLEEP after it is out of the cradle. If you must provide additional comfort to the child, you go in there.
When the baby moves into his/her own room, now is the time to install audio monitors. My youngest daughter just put one video cam onto the crib for her newborn son. But both of them found that the problem was not the cam but what to do with the cam data. Sending it to their computers made them feel visually tied to their displays. The idea of sending to a handheld or a phone hasn't come up but I suspect the same outcome. The advantage of the audio is that it can run in the background and not require anything more of you than to clip the receiver on your belt or jeans or skirt, I suppose. So, the video has gotten little use but the audio is very useful.
I could write you a ton more detail but the bottom line is that if the child isn't in your immediate presence and your mental health is important to you and you need some surveillance, audio is the way to go. Remember you're not looking for a high fidelity system just something that lets you hear the baby breathing and moving around. You can get systems from Toys R Us and Babies R Us that will do this job admirably.
If this video thing has come up because you are both returning to work, the remark that somebody made about having a babysitter that you need to surveil may be a problem is right on. Your baby is defenseless and long range surveillance won't be anything but evidence if things go wrong. I just got done doing about 3 years of babysitting my older daughter's kids. These little ones can really test a person's self control. You must have someone you trust enough without the surveillance.
Good luck and best wishes to you and your wife on a wonderful adventure that lies before the two of you.
The next improvement is to use motion (available on sourceforge) to detect when something is happening, take a few pictures, and mail them to me.
A baby sitter is an employee. You can video tape her to your hearts content. In fact, depending you your state (like NY) you can even tape her on the crapper. No, you don't need her consent; you don't have to warn her. I work on wall street. I'm on more cameras than the prez. And yes, you can record her phone calls and internet traffic too. Company property ... etc.
Look, there are three qualities that just about any technology has: Good; Fast; Cheap. You get to pick two and it will be the opposite of the third (i.e. if you want it to be good and fast, it won't be cheap). On that note, you aren't going to find anything in the 'under $100' category that is going to be good and 'fast.' If you can spend a little more money, this is what I have set up and they work really well is the Panasonic NetCam: http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/gate /cameras.asp. I have only used the all-weather flavor and so far am pretty impressed with a $600 out-door camera with as many features as this one has. The indoor camera is much cheaper. You might even be able to find a low-light variant. If you have some more money, Sony makes a camera that has just about every option and is really nice but it costs over twice as much as the Panasonic.
Good luck and congrats!
We actually turn the sound all the way down. Typically the light and the audible cries heard from the room next door (not through the monitor) are enough to wake us. Also, when the audio is turned up if my daughter cries even for a brief moment or makes a peep, my wife wants to immediately rush in. With the audio turned down we still hear the baby, but it makes my wife less anxious. You will have to let your child learn to put him/herself back to sleep. Which bring me to some advice.
There will come a time when you MUST let your child cry it out. At first, yes, your child will wake up every hour- 2 hours for feedings (Conan O'Brien once commented that breast feeding mom's were where most of his viewership was). When our child started on solid food, we let her cry it out. Yes, it is hard at first. There will be an hour plus worth of the worst crying you have ever heard. And it may take a few nights. But then, all of a sudden, your child will sleep through the night. It's as if it were magic. At first, this is unsetteling and you think, "She's not waking up! There must be something wrong!" but you get used to the sweet, sweet sleep you've been missing out on. And SIDS is all but a non-issue once they hit 6 months or are able to turn over. I know there is different schools of thought on getting your baby to sleep through the night. IMHO, I think this is the best way. It teaches them independence. Not dependent on you to help them to go to sleep.
Also, while your wife is on maternity leave, use a basinette or some sleep vessel that will fit in your room. We used ours until she outgrew it. Get one on rollers too so you can move it to different parts of the house.
Be prepared. It's pretty freaky at first. When we came home, we had no help whatsoever (plus the Hospital kicked us out early). It was flu season and my mother-in-law got the flu and all our family members were exposed. The hardest part when we got home was that first few days with all the crying. But you figure it out. It's natural. All these instincts kick in.
Oh and baby blues are real. Just support your wife as best you can. Also, get her this book: The Diaper Diaries: The Real Poop on a New Mom's First Year. It's pretty damn funny. Sure it's cheesy. But you're a dad now. You're no longer cool.
And I second some of what has been said, get out of the house. You probably won't want to the first few months, but around the 4th month, have a relative come over to take care of the kid. You'll call about a half dozen times while you're on your date.
And some of your non-procreating friends will probably stop hanging out with you.
Anyway, I've rambled on too much. Good luck.
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/dorgem/
Has the built-in web server, or will upload to FTP, and can save frames to a .avi archive for review later. Works with any video for windows compatible source (basically any cam that works with windows, including my GeForce video card's video in jack), and the author is continually updating it.
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Then you call it daycare and not a babysitter. My daycare is a friend who just watches her own son and my daughter (and the baby I'm due with, after he's born and I return to work that is). She also takes the kids to the zoo and stuff. You can't watch them all the time. Plus it's at her house, and I wouldn't want even a friend installing cameras at my house. A babysitter watching your kid for a couple hours in the evening, at your house, they don't generally take the baby out for activities. So it's safe to assume that they want an evening out, rather than an every day thing.
After you have a baby, your sleep patterns totally change. I realize co-sleeping isn't for everyone (it's risky for smokers, as well as if you have a waterbed, for example). I used to not be able to be woken... period... then I had a baby and if she's sleeping in the next room, the littlest whimper, and I hear it and jump out of bed. Most people have some sense while they're sleeping, otherwise they'd fall out of bed... you know where the edge of the bed is, despite your tossing and turning. Plus, they make bed sidecars, so the baby can have his/her own area, but the baby's within arm's reach.
Did a search and found this... :)
http://www.indigovision.com/
If it is good enough for the Olympic security, I'm sure it will be good enough for your baby... not sure about low cost though
I like practically all of axis's equipment and they are not hideously priced on ebay
Like you, I was looking for a monitoring system better than the usual 49 Mhz analog domestic-problem broadcast units out there (a 2.4Ghz DSS phone is $50, a 49Mhz analog baby monitor is $50 -- what's wrong with this picture?).
I looked and looked for DSS monitors in *any* band and couldn't find them. They're all analog (easy eavesdropping) for some reason, but you can get them in all the mobile phone bands.
I ended up buying a Mobi video monitor from SmartHome.com. It's 2.4Ghz analog, but has audio + color video.
The camera has an IR LED array and can be set to "night" mode and does a very good job of illuminating a crib or bassinette in even total darkness. The camera lens swivels up and down and is a fixed-focus lens that provides a surprisingly good image. The unit includes a mounting system with 2 brackets.
The receiver uses a tiny LCD video display (2.5" diagnoal) that's visible in most lighting situations; a 4-5 step contrast adjustment is available. The receiver has an AV out cable (via 4-conductor mini-headphone jack) that breaks out into L/R and composite video (external video looks really good on my 42" TV). The receiver also has a "level" setting that disables the LCD display until a sound from the camera goes above the approximate setting of "LEVEL". Audio is maintained during this no-video-display monitoring. Reception is decent in my 2000 sq ft, 2 level house (I have no Wifi).
Both units can run on 4 AAs or through brick-type wall adapters which are included for both units. I had a spare Radio Shaft universal adapter I use with the camera, and the plug was a tight fit in the space provided. The units can be switched between 3 different channels.
Now the downsides:
The camera's lens swivels up and down, but not side to side. Means it must be mounted "dead on" with the crib. I ended up mounting a post to the crib to give the camera sufficient height to show the baby's face, as well as to keep the camera dead-on straight with the crib. I attached the other mounting bracket to a small peice of plywood and bolted that to a small sping clamp for mounting to the basinette. Ugly, but functional.
The switch for the camera is a tiny DIP switch on the bottom (OFF/ON/NIGHT) -- ideally it would be a front-panel ON/OFF with night mode automatically enabled via adjustable photo sensor. An audio sensor that turns on the transmitter might have been a good low-power solution as well -- don't transmit anything unless there's noise.
Reception isn't perfect, and the farther you go the more likely you are to experience jumps in the picture and noise -- it is analog, afterall. Overall it's pretty good.
Battery power on the receiver is limited if you keep the LCD display on. (I found video monitoring easier than audio monitoring -- no room noise, and a better cue as to whether baby is actually awake or not). If you planned on using both units without their PSUs, consider investing in 16 NiMH cells and enough chargers to keep a set constantly under charge.
I have some small concerns about the AC adapter cord. I have mine tie-wrapped to mounts on the back of my crub mount, and high enough that it shouldn't be reachable until the child is maybe 18 months. Any lower and I'd worry about an AC adapter getting put in a mouth.
Right now (baby is 4 weeks on 10/6) it's really of limited value. We have the basinette in our bedroom, so any noise the baby makes we can hear right away. I will flick on the monitor if the baby makes unusual noises just to see, but about 19 times out of 20, we're picking him up for food/change/comfort in about 2 minutes anyway.
I think it will be of more value when the baby is older and sleeps in its crib in another room regularly. I plan to connect the monitor to our bedroom TV (larger picture, etc) and the camera will be fixed in the crib.
I don't do any monitoring, and haven't except when I needed to do work in the garage where I wouldn't hear a cry.
I have found remote control lighting to be of great value however. You won't need it for an infant, but you may value it with a toddler.
My daughter is 3 years now. She is somewhat afraid of the dark (as I was at that age). So I use the remote light, which can be dimmed and I close her door. After a while, when she is asleep, I can silently turn off the light without entering her room and waking her.
She also has a tendancy to wake around 5am quite afraid of the dark. I don't even have to get out of bed--I keep a remote next to my pillow. I just turn on her light and dim it some, and she calms down quickly.
My wife is disabled, and uses the lights to get my attention when we are on opposite ends of the house. I know a lot of people use bells, but we've found the lights work quite nicely. They were also very helpful before she had enough arm strength to reach a light switch.
And yes, I did buy my lights from the most evil of Internet companies, x10.com. I recently discovered that Radio Shack sells rebranded components that are compatible, which is handy when you need another lamp module.
I've had the Canon VB-C10 point/tilt/zoom networked camera for over a year now and it is the best I've seen anywhere. The quality of the image and zoom capability means that I can check out my whole living room or zoom in on individual fish in my aquarium.
It has an embedded linux system that serves up an applet viewer, so you can use any web browser to connect to it... it's reasonably fast and works well. On my local network it runs 30fps easily.
It's a bit expensive, but I think it's worth it for the peace of mind when travelling, etc.
Pat Niemeyer
Don't smoke or use crack and SIDS decreases quite rapidly..... According to SIDS.org: Parents-To-Be 1. Get medical care early in pregnancy, preferably within the first three months, followed by regular checkups at the doctor's office or health clinic. Make every effort to assure good nutrition. These measures can reduce the risk of premature birth, a major risk factor for SIDS. 2. Do not smoke, use cocaine, or use heroin. Tobacco, cocaine, or heroin use during pregnancy increases the infant's risk for SIDS. 3. Take care to prevent becoming pregnant during the teenage years. If you are a teen and already have one infant, take extreme caution not to become pregnant again. The SIDS rate decreases for babies born to older mothers. It is highest for babies born to teenage mothers. The more babies a teen mother has, the greater at risk they are. 4. Wait at least one year between the birth of a child and the next pregnancy. The shorter the interval between pregnancies, the higher the SIDS rate. Parents 1. Place infants to sleep on their backs, even though infants may sleep more soundly on their stomachs. Infants who sleep on their stomachs and sides have a higher rate of SIDS than infants who sleep on their backs. 2. Place infants to sleep in a baby bed with a firm mattress. There should be nothing in the bed but the baby - no covering, no pillows, no bumper pads and no toys. Soft mattresses and heavy covering are associated with the risk for SIDS. 3. Do not over-clothe the infant while he/she sleeps. Keep the room at a temperature that is comfortable for you. Overheating an infant may increase the risk for SIDS. 4. Avoid exposing the infant to tobacco smoke. Don't have your infant in the same house or car with someone who is smoking. The greater the exposure to tobacco smoke, the greater the risk of SIDS. 5. Breast-feed babies whenever possible. Breast milk decreases the occurrence of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections. Studies show that breast-fed babies have a lower SIDS rate than formula-fed babies do. 6. Avoid exposing the infant to people with respiratory infections. Avoid crowds. Carefully clean anything that comes in contact with the baby. Have people wash their hands before holding or playing with your baby. SIDS often occurs in association with relatively minor respiratory (mild cold) and gastrointestinal infections (vomiting and diarrhea). 7. Consider using home monitoring systems (apnea/bradycardia monitors) in an attempt to prevent sudden death in high-risk infants.The risk of SIDS in the following groups exceeds that of the general population by as much as 5 to 10 times: Infants born weighing less than 3.5 pounds. Infants whose sibling died of SIDS. Infants exposed to cocaine, heroin, or methadone during the pregnancy. The second or succeeding child born to a teenage mother. Infants who have had an apparent life-threatening event. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of home monitoring with the baby's doctor before making your choice. Many communities have specialized programs for the clinical management of babies at high risk for SIDS. For information about the availability of such programs in your area, ask your baby's doctor or contact the American SIDS Institute. (See our clinic page.)
Actually, few real child development have little against high tech help. A physical therapist who used to strip and has messed up children is not where I would get advice from.
I use the dcs-900 camera. We also use sound via a 900 MHz monitor (Sound is really what I want). While I have been involved with wifi for years (as a start-up company doing wifi), I already had the room wired for networking. Besides, I prefer NOT having peeping toms be able to look in on the camera.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
story author probably wants to spy on his neighbor's teenage daughter(s).
Probably, but since it seems those babysitters are always popping up on shows like "When nannys attack" on Fox, and having two kids myself, I can understand the uneasiness.
In either case though the quickest way may be to go with an X10 setup (yes, THOSE guys). For under $200 you can get 3 wireless color cameras setup (cams, receiver, transceiver, remote, batt pack, motion sensors, etc) that will record when motion activated to either your PR or VCR.
The cams and sensors are totally visible though, which can be a detterent in and of itself, but if you're looking for something you can hide, a quick Google search will bring up thousands of companies. I looked at the ones who bought the keyword ads, and some have some pretty cool stuff for around 200 bucks.
There is also third party software out there that allows you to look in on what your cam sees by sending a snap shot to your cell phone (proper Net connections required.)
R(k)
Long time ago I picked up a VEO Observer wireless camera (see http://www.veo.com/ ). I wrote a simple program to extract frames from the camera on a regular basis (see http://www.kahunaburger.com/blog/archives/000100.h tml ) and also wrote a minimal motion detector in perl (see http://www.kahunaburger.com/blog/archives/000114.h tml ) to only capture "interesting" frames. Now that I've decoded the VEO TCP/IP protocol (see http://www.kahunaburger.com/blog/archives/000157.h tml ), I can do all this on my FreeBSD box.
Yep, we have the AngelCare movement & sound monitor. Very damn good to be honest. Peace of mind for not much money. Battery backup in case of powerloss, remote with 2 frequencies (lucky for that someone else has one around here too it seems, they seem to use channel B :))
:)
One thing though, you might not want it on while sleeping. Babies tend to make noises while sleeping and dreaming and can wake you anyway. Having the baby in the next room is great. We can hear the alarm with the doors open, but dont get woken by the baby's little mid sleep cries.
Get yourself a headset for the TV/PC too.. you can see the lights on the monitor go off, but you can still watch tv/play games on the PC etc
I have found audio monitors work well. I have a philips 900Mhz that works well although it does pick up occasional static. I tried a 2.4Ghz but in my area of silicon valley I get worse range with it. These things are very dependant on construction. Audio only is fine and I don't worry about breathing but just crying. If you are worried that the baby is not breathing then video will not make you feel better. I tried a 2-way radio (walkie talkie), but getting the right signal to noise was tough and it just ended up broadcasting static. Do recall that almost any system will end up bugging your house. Not that your baby crying is something anyone wants to see. I took the wireless monitor and baby on vacation recently and oh, how great! We could put our 6 month old to sleep for the evening and go to the hotel restaurant. That was great and relaxing. -Whatever you decide, set it up now. In the first few months the sleep deprivation makes troubleshhoting very hard. So set up the monitoring system, the web site photo gallery and any other technical or software projects before the baby comes. -Best of luck and have fun.
Epidural should not be recommended for everyone, it's an invasive procedure that mucks with the spinal column (I almost laid out the anethesiologist who said, "oops, went too far, got some blood", he's messing with my wife not some lab speciment).
:( ), they can damage their lower back due to too much pushing, since they don't feel the pain an dthere is no pain-easeoff feedback.
Another problem with epidurals is that the woman is numb and has a hard time feeling the child pass through, a a result tears occur due to "over-pushing" that take a few months to heal (no sex for a few months
Overall this is my theory:
You just got an epidural:
1. Incur difficulty in pushing
2. Get your self on a ptosin drip and get some nasty irregular and unnatural contractions
3. Baby comes too fast and you get a lot of tearing or a caesarian section
4. Doctor is probably happy, insurance claims with caesarian section are less likely to stick in case of problems since it's considered an invasive surgery
We switched obgyns in the last week because the doctor we had was too gung-ho about induction and c-section. Using a mid-wife in a hospital was a far more rewarding of an experience.
Now back to the topic at hand:
Check out one of the small X10 cams (or similar). Attach them to your PC and have them take snapshots every 3-10 seconds (depending on preference), run an FTP daemon (or web cam uploading program) bunch of those available to send those images to you web site (or if you ahve one running locally you are all set). Another thing is to get a cam program that lets you take time-lapse video, one frame every second or two, so you can quickly check on the baby sitter.
There are also privacy issues, I don't know if you need to tell your baby sitter about the fact they are being video taped, since you don't want any lawsuits. However telling the baby sitter that the house has web cams all over will probably make them think twice about shaking or ignoring the baby.
The big father is watching!