Ultimate Wireless Webcam?

Chris asks: "I am in need of a webcam for home security. I want it to be able to connect to my home wireless network (802.11g) and have access to its images from a secure website. I also want to be able to access images from it on my cellphone. Is there a webcam that does this?"

Comments

More cameras

[$exyNerdie]

DLink makes some wireless cameras. Page is here: http://www.dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=60& sec=0

Here is one from Linksys: http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=3 3&scid=38&prid=650

First back up a bit...

[Dr. Spork]

What exactly are you trying to make secure? Do you really think that this can prevent house intrusion? I hope not. Checking the internet or your cell phone and seeing a blurry picture of some guy with a mask going through your drawers is going to accomplish... what? If you wanted to use the footage as evidence, you'd better use tape; any decent defense lawyer will get x10-type footage thrown out of court because it's so easy to manipulate. And if you're trying to use this to watch your unsupervised children, you're an irresponsible sicko and you'd be much better off spending your money on a babysitter instead.

In general, it looks to me like you haven't really thought this through. I suspect you don't need any such camera at all.

In general, your post makes you sound like a paranoid pussy with too much stuff in your house and too much money to blow, who for some reason feel the need to brag about this on Slashdot. Well, I'm not impressed.

Re:First back up a bit...

[Martin Blank]

Recording from multiple angles makes such legal arguments a lot trickier, particularly if the recording is periodic except for motion captures.

And maybe his kids are supervised, but he wants to watch the watcher. It's handy to know when the kids are being ignored and/or terrorized by the babysitter.

Digital recordings are often used now in criminal investigations, because the systems are becoming more reliable and higher quality than tape can do. Tape is usually limited to TV resolution at best, which is approximately equivalent to 544x372, and then that signal is interlaced, which makes it hard to get details. Digital, however, can go much higher -- 640x480 true resolution for less expensive cameras on up to 1600x1200 for the high-end units. Bandwidth constraints will normally limit things to 1024x768 or 1280x1024, but this is still a minimum of nearly four times the detail, not counting the clarity from the non-interlaced image.

Finally, you have to remember to change tapes, and storage for tapes gets expensive and inconvenient if you plan on keeping them long-term. However, a relatively small server with a couple of mirrored drives for redundancy costs under a thousand dollars and can store images months' or even years' worth of data, depending on how frequent motion captures are and how many cameras are used. It's very possible to set up a fairly complete home monitoring system for under $5000 (especially with wireless cameras), complete with recording and remote access, and with a WAP-capable phone, some of the available software allows you to check on the current status.