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Persistent Home Videoconferencing Solution?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm moving very soon for work, and will be several hundred miles away from my young family for six to nine months. Obviously I'll travel back as often as possible, and there's always Skype and XBLA video, but the whole 'now it's time to talk to dad' thing seems ... a little weak. I was wondering the Slashdot community could help me come up with a more persistent solution. Ideally what I want is an always-on connection between a pc/monitor/camera/speakers in my old kitchen and my new kitchen, so if we're in the kitchens, we can see each other and interact semi-normally. (We're a kitchen-focused family.) Most solutions I can find time out pretty quick, or require some knowledge on the part of the users, and the tech-savvy people are only going to be in one kitchen, to put it politely!" (Read on for a few more details.)
"I do have a reasonable number of Windows PCs and Macs (and game consoles), but no alt. OS machines, so something for retail OSes would be better — I haven't tested the PS3 camera for long durations, but I know the conferencing quality with a PS3 is pretty good, and that could be an option too. Any camera recommendations would be good. We have sweet access at our house, but it will need to be wireless to the kitchen from the router."
With Skype for...TVs it even begins to look like the old scifi dream...
Might be interesting if TVs/large displays on both sides are at the ends of tables.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I'm not seeing the most obvious answer. Put two laptops in the kitchen. Use wireless internet. Use laptops with built in video cameras. Run any of the IM programs that have video capability. Just leave the laptops turned on. Someone walks in, looks over, and says "Hi!"
Agile Artisans
I realize that ridiculing ordinary Americans with uninformed speculation never gets old, but these days the kitchen has replaced the living room as the center of the home. My Dad built his new house so that the kitchen was the centerpiece - the living room is only used for watching TV, really. It has a large central island with many seats so as to fit a lot of people. Sit around, read the newspaper (yes Dad still subscribes), drink coffee, play games, etc. Everyone who comes over raves about it and says they wish their home was the same way.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This is a bit more expensive, but solves the problem.
http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DCS-5300-Network-Internet-Camera/dp/B0001AU9B4
It's a standalone device, so no computer to run, and probably a minimal power draw.
You'd need to run ethernet or a wireless to ethernet adapter for each device.
You do, however, get remote pan and tilt functionality. That should be a boon if you're changing between talking to kids and adults.
Some criticism as to durability, but those folk were running them for a couple of years. Low light problems are always an issue for webcams, I'd highly recommend visiting Ikea or similar and adding several lights to the kitchen to make it really bright if it's not already.
You'd need to do some port-forwarding in each router (UDP 5060 + the RTP ports) and 'dial' the other site by IP address - it's not hard on the GXV phones and it saves setting up proxys/sip servers/asterisk, etc. If you set each phone to auto-answer then it's not hard to re-establish the link if it fails for whatever reason.
Failing that, if you want to be PC/Laptop based - look for Ekiga...
I use a combination of GXV3000 video phones, Ekiga and my Nokia N900 to make/take video calls from my family and in-laws, although I use an Asterisk server to co-ordinate everything and we don't stream 24/7!
Axis IP cameras are cheaper than Panasonic, and aren't as reliant upon IE running on specific versions of Windows.
(Disclaimer: I sell both.)
But: The problem with IP cameras is that you still need a computer-ish device to view them with. There are apps for something like an iPod Touch which can do it, but I have my doubts about them having good audio support.
And there won't be any echo cancellation happening, which is really rather needed if headsets aren't used for audio. (Nothing quite like hearing "Hey Dad!" echo over and over again with a second or so of latency as bounces back and forth across the country...)
So, it's going to need teleconferencing-specific software. My suggestion, therefore, is a cheap, used laptop at each end, preferably with a built-in camera. Several-years-old laptops are plenty fast enough to do this sort of work.
For software? Who knows... Try some of the obvious choices, and see if any are dumb enough to get the job done persistently, while being smart enough to get the things right that need gotten right (echo cancellation, for instance).
Kid-proof tablet..
I have been on the road for 3 weeks using iPhone 4 daily for over an hour after work talking and interacting with my family. My 4 year old calls me and says "Daddy we're almost home so we can FaceTime." He knows WiFi is required and we only have that at home. Whatever hotel I'm in I make sure I have wifi and if not I bring my AirPort Express to set up the wifi. I do have to reboot the iPhone sometimes before the video works but here's the real reason to use a mobile solution: My family was working on the backyard and they could show me what they were doing. It was awesome. Also my little ones would show me what they are playing with and I would show them the hotel room I was currently in and it was just so much more like being there and not having to be stuck with a 6-8 pound laptop on my chest. It kept me sane and I highly recommend it for anyone with a family in an extended work situation away from home. The little ones forget so easy what you look like / and they are SO much more engaged with conversation when they are stimulated with their eyes and ears. My conversations before with just voice were like (literally): Hi Dad. Hi love you how are you. Good. What's new. Nothing. Bye Dad. It really sucked and there was no bonding. This way the bond was kept and interestingly enough made stronger cause when I got back on Friday my little one said, Dad I wish you go back again. I said why. He said so you can bring me more presents and we can do FaceTime. It was priceless.