Watch It! New Cameras Let You Video Chat, Stay Secure and More
Wouldn't it be great to have a single camera for home security, checking pets, chatting online and making videos? Now you can
Mike Elgan
June 11, 2013
Houzz Contributor. I'm a Silicon Valley-based writer, columnist and blogger, covering technology and culture. http://elgan.com
Houzz Contributor. I'm a Silicon Valley-based writer, columnist and blogger, covering... More
Home cameras are sold in two distinct categories: webcams and security cameras. Webcams are typically plugged directly into home computers. They’re inexpensive and easy to set up and use, but their placement is determined by the location of the computer.
Security cameras tend to be more expensive and much more difficult to set up, but can be placed just about anywhere. High-end, professional-grade cameras require professional installation, or at least installation by a dedicated, knowledgeable or courageous homeowner.
As a result, the home camera category has been problematic for far too long, and consumers have hesitated to embrace it.
I think people just want eyes and ears into their homes on demand for whatever reason. The same camera can provide security, keep an eye on the kids, watch for animals on the porch, check to see if the mail has arrived, check in on pets, enable video chats and even let you teach online cooking classes from your kitchen.
Why does it have be difficult?
Thankfully, new options are emerging that bridge the gap between communication and security in home cameras.
Security cameras tend to be more expensive and much more difficult to set up, but can be placed just about anywhere. High-end, professional-grade cameras require professional installation, or at least installation by a dedicated, knowledgeable or courageous homeowner.
As a result, the home camera category has been problematic for far too long, and consumers have hesitated to embrace it.
I think people just want eyes and ears into their homes on demand for whatever reason. The same camera can provide security, keep an eye on the kids, watch for animals on the porch, check to see if the mail has arrived, check in on pets, enable video chats and even let you teach online cooking classes from your kitchen.
Why does it have be difficult?
Thankfully, new options are emerging that bridge the gap between communication and security in home cameras.
vuezone.com
A company called Netgear sells a camera product called VueZone, which provides most of the benefits of both security and communication cams. It comes with a base station and one camera. You can buy additional cameras for it too: cameras with motion detection and those that can see in the dark.
The VueZone is battery operated and can be mounted anywhere — there are no wires for either connectivity or electricity on the cameras themselves. The mount is very unusual: It has a dome-like stick-on that the camera attaches to with an internal magnet. That makes it easy to point it in any direction, and also to remove it to place it elsewhere or change the battery.
To upgrade to more cameras on a single device (up to 15 cameras), the pan-and-zoom version, the ability to watch on mobile devices, or cloud services (such as storage of pictures), you can pay $5 or $10 per month depending on the layer of service.
The VueZone is battery operated and can be mounted anywhere — there are no wires for either connectivity or electricity on the cameras themselves. The mount is very unusual: It has a dome-like stick-on that the camera attaches to with an internal magnet. That makes it easy to point it in any direction, and also to remove it to place it elsewhere or change the battery.
To upgrade to more cameras on a single device (up to 15 cameras), the pan-and-zoom version, the ability to watch on mobile devices, or cloud services (such as storage of pictures), you can pay $5 or $10 per month depending on the layer of service.
swivl.com
Another even lower-cost option is to transform your phone into a good camera. A new product, the Swivl iPhone camera tracking dock, lets you use your iPhone as a smart webcam that tracks your movements.
The dock can sit on a table or kitchen counter and pivot to always keep its human subject in frame. The way it works is that you clip on a small included part called a marker, and the camera tracks it. This is great for having video conversations while you’re moving around. You can also attach it to kids or pets to keep an eye on them.
One of the annoying things about video calls over phones is that when someone is holding the phone, the video is shaky and chaotic. The Swivl keeps the video quality smooth and steady, while keeping the subject in the frame at all times.
The dock can sit on a table or kitchen counter and pivot to always keep its human subject in frame. The way it works is that you clip on a small included part called a marker, and the camera tracks it. This is great for having video conversations while you’re moving around. You can also attach it to kids or pets to keep an eye on them.
One of the annoying things about video calls over phones is that when someone is holding the phone, the video is shaky and chaotic. The Swivl keeps the video quality smooth and steady, while keeping the subject in the frame at all times.
motrr.com
While the Swivl lets the subject control the camera, another option, still in the crowd-funding phase, puts the remote viewer in control. Called Galileo, it's a 360-degree tilting camera that can be controlled by the caller with an iPhone or iPad by touching and swiping on the video itself.
That means you can dial in and look around, which is great for video chats, security and pet monitoring. The makers of the device also point out that real estate agents can use Galileo to create high-quality 360-degree virtual tours of each room in a home.
The Galileo is not yet on the market and may never see the light of day. But if it does, this will be a wonderful addition to the range of low-cost solutions for putting cameras in your home in a way that solves, rather that creates, problems.
More: Secure your house when you're away
That means you can dial in and look around, which is great for video chats, security and pet monitoring. The makers of the device also point out that real estate agents can use Galileo to create high-quality 360-degree virtual tours of each room in a home.
The Galileo is not yet on the market and may never see the light of day. But if it does, this will be a wonderful addition to the range of low-cost solutions for putting cameras in your home in a way that solves, rather that creates, problems.
More: Secure your house when you're away
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They are very reliable, wonderfully easy to install, and record to a laptop or desktop. Picture image is pretty good, even on the older cheaper systems. You can buy older generation systems for well under a couple of hundred bucks on Ebay, which include multiple cameras.
Then get a free account with logmein.com so you can use your internet on your phone to connect to the home PC to check the cameras from anywhere in the world. Or you can pay for the LogMeIn app that will do the same thing, just a wee bit more convenient to log in, and it will let you do many other things remotely besides just looking at the cams. When we had a snow day that shut down Atlanta (it doesn't take much!) I was able to run my office from home off my phone with this app.
I've installed WiLife at my business, in our home, and in my parents' home as well. We've viewed everything from a coyote making a meal of a cat, to a drug deal going down, to people messing around in our parking lot at night, and we were easily able to save video footage of a pair of "customers" who made us very uneasy. We emailed that particular footage to our home computers as backup.
Ironically, we left our old security cameras for our old VCR system in place, since we didn't want to repair the wall and ceiling damage if we took the old dinosaurs down. Our customers completely overlooked the comparatively discreet WiLife cameras, which were in plain view, and thought the old cameras were operable.