Motion Detection Is An Effective, Dead Simple Security Camera App

@~dt~: I'd give you the benefit of the doubt for "rediculous" if the "I" and "E" keys weren't on completely opposite sides of one another. <_<

@Adam Pash:
How about this:

Nice post, Adam! Thanks for writing, and for the tip!

:)

Oh, and I agree with you. The nitpickery is rediculous. Just read the post already, it's not like you pay to look at lifehacker! Even though punctuation is important, pointing out little stuff makes people seem arrogant. I try hard not to (although I sometimes do anyways). :\

~dt~

@[noeld.com])

Luden

@Counterglow:
Didn't you know, punctuation is dead.

Along with spelling.

And, apparently, sentence construction. :)

[proofreading very carefully before posting . . .]

ImTheGarbageman

@Counterglow: I get that maybe it upsets people's delicate sensibilities that every now and then there's a typo on the site, but I'm getting really close to enforcing an auto-ban policy on people explaining the finer points of grammar that everyone knows. Assume it's a typo; don't assume that we don't understand the difference between its and it's.

I get that you're very smart and all that, but assume that we know the difference and allow us a small affordance that, from time to time, a typo will make its way through to the site. We don't have copy editors, and we write a lot of posts every day; we do our best.

FYI, this appears to be a limited demo version (from the read me):

The DEMO version of Motion Detection is intended to introduce the features. The detection will run for at most 1 hour and stop on its own. You can manually restart it at any time. A new movie is created each time detection is restarted. A license costs 20.00 euros.

Luden

@Joshua Settle: It does!

Anybody know of a good motion detection web app that has a cheap or free iphone/ipod touch companion app? I tried a couple free and paid iphone video cam apps, but they did not meet expectations.

ryn05

@I Wear Nice Hats: Rofl :)

Yeah, the red squares are lasers :O

Mac equivalent?

wqwert

Come on, guys. Its = Possession. It's = It is.

Counterglow

dorgem rocks my boat... will give yawcam a shot though ;-)

Coffenated

It looks like he is giving us the bird....

Joshua Settle

Ye gods! It shot off his hand! FEAR THE CAMERA!!!

YAWCAM is better.

wiedzmin

i like it, but it wouldn't help if your computer is stolen. wait, that's what the FTP upload is for, okay i get it now.

@Adam Pash: Good for you, man. I read this site more than I post, but damn that kind of douschebaggery is for the birds. Grammer police should stick their red pens up their asssses.

@wqwert:
Cutting a hole in the wall just big enough for your eye

Duke Olivius

My quickcam came with a motion detector software which is pretty neat but humongous :(

@~dt~: Huh? Where am I!? @_@

@joeybonj: I'm not totally sure whether to laugh or take offense, considering I've got no idea who that is. <__<

@sonicsurge:

hi Ross Mcgellar.. oh, you do? do you?

lol

i couldve used this while i had my hidden camera set up until my parents found it

@I Wear Nice Hats:

so this sofware will install laser to my cam? god,ima have one of these!! now!

i always use my webcam and the logtech software that came with it whenever my apt is doing maintence. just in case :)

also, i tape the led so you can't tell when its on either and totally lock down my pc.

another cool thing is to have yahoo messenger running and you can login anywhere else and take control of the webcam (setup multiple accounts, allow auto login from other accounts, etc)

@sonicsurge:
You saw nothing. You know nothing. None of this ever happened.
You will wake up in a corn field, wearing only white.

.__.

~dt~

@mfusion: I have an integrated webcam on my laptop, and have Yawcam set up to start and run in stealth mode, where it uploads an image to my home network's FTP address every 3 minutes when it's running (I didn't really bother with the motion detection, I can delete old images if they're not needed). It doesn't make any notifications or anything, just the little blue light next to the webcam which is on the whole time (thief probably not smart enough to realize whats going on), though I imagine there's a way to disable the LED, i'm just too lazy.

Works well though. I'm gonna set up logmein sometime too, but for now, too lazy,

reynwrap582

Can any of these 2 software be set to wake the pc from sleep and put on any music of a user's choice. e.g. very loud police siren noise, so the home owner can wake up and see who is intruding their property. Now that would make a an affordable and effective motion sensing system.

mohkahn

This would be good if you suspect mice, unless you suspect they exist but don't want to confirm it.

ie: seeing who lives in your living room when you're not living in it.

Betts26

I don't know about iPhone or iPod touch. But for Apple laptops, there is the cool iAlertU. It uses the motion sensor technology. You can choose which options you want to be guarded (power adapter, trackpad, keyboard, screen, external devices, laptop etc.). It's very useful. I use it everyday and is effective too. Must have.

Go on www.slappingturtle.com and look for iAlertU.

I think iAlertu does the same thing for Macs

rotimi.oyewole

@cloudgoesup: I have good reason to believe that webcamxp supports multiple webcams. Not sure if thats for the free version or just the paid one as its been a few years since I used it.

Coffenated

@PerpetualBoredom: Hey! I'm grammar police sometimes! But yeah, this is ridiculous. Let the Editors of the site do what they want to do. If they want to be poor proofreaders and you want to nitpick about it, then don't read the site. Get your information elsewhere. If you're looking for a job and grammar policing is your thing, then apply for a job as a proofreader. But do not come here and pretend that you're better than everyone else just because you can tell the difference between its and it's, their, they're and there, or any other common grammatical mistakes.

charneus

Any word on if this supports multiple cameras?

I have several cameras laying around that it would nice to actually use for a change.

cloudgoesup

@mohkahn: A nice MP3 of a Remington 870 jacking a round in to the chamber, followed by a Clint Eastwood-esqe voice "Oh... fuck yeah... again".

four12

I wonder if it also supports multiple cameras!! Imagine hooking up some of those dusty cams to record things like earthquakes, if you are so prone as I!

[www.pyramid.net]

[quake.usgs.gov]

[quake.usgs.gov]

Rhonda Zuti Hough

rien compris =)

Jean-marc Doucet

I use yawcam with my laptop set up as a security device in my hotel room. Keeps the hotel staff honest and sends me an email alert when someone is in my room. Which, by the way should never happen as I instruct the staff that I want no housekeeping service while staying there, if I am not present.

@I Wear Nice Hats: Now he'll have to go race lightcycles and challenge the MCP.

Will we never learn?

Looks cool. Unfortunately, not too useful for people with pets.

@charneus/all: Fwiw, we actually do appreciate commenters pointing out typos, and you can say so in the comments or via email (email is preferred). It just becomes very annoying when the commenter assumes that the problem is a deficiency in the editors' understanding of the simplest grammar rules, and said comment always includes a patronizing "lesson" in grammar. We're human, and we turn over a lot of posts every day. We do our best not to, but we will always make the occasional mistake.

@reynwrap582: The right way: Open it up and desolder, The lazy way: Stick a pin through it or something, basically just break the led.

shibathedog

Linux users can use the app called motion, If it detects movement it starts capturing jpegs to a folder, a quick symlink to a dropbox folder and you have images of the idiot who attempts to steal your laptop.

sudo apt-get install motion
for ubuntu/debian users

[www.lavrsen.dk]

syko21

@shibathedog: Yeeeaah, let's get destructive when a piece of electrical tape would do just as well. *facepalm*

So do you think it will capture ghosts if you put it on the highest sensitivity? Cuz I would like to see if we got any here...Sorta. lol.

Jordan Wright

I need a camera that will take photos of people who come in to my office. I don't want them to know I am taking them. This is nothing sleezy, but I need to be able to remember the names of people I deal with and I can't without a photo. Any suggestions?

Thanks

sb

sbolton123

Entertaining little side thread, this is...I try to be emotionally intelligent even though I'm not exactly a social butterfly. If you believe a common personality type among the techno enthusiasts are the detail oriented and talented parsers of material for imperfections, nit picking of things like grammar mistakes and explaining the rules publicly may be the only way for some socially challenged people to find something valuable to contribute and voice. Banning their posts may leave them feeling cut off from the community. I agree with Adam's perspective and hope the offenders can step up to contribute something useful in a more elevated way, like a comment helpful to the thread discussion rather than a relatively trivial, distracting grammar complaint. I use the iespell application to help with my spelling on posts since I tend to be a little more casual and pressed for time efficiency, as most are. is there an application add on that may also help with grammar, at least the most common mistakes that are simpler to program for. For example, like my iespell automatically underlines words not found in it's (lol j/k) dictionary, it would be nice if it highlighted words like it's and its to just bring extra attention to them to verify before hitting that button.

SaryuNekromantix

EvoCam $30.00 - Great app, have used it for years. http://www.evological.com/evocam.html

KylaElephonkey

Did you see the i-hacked article where they captured motion and uploaded pic to twitter? http://digg.com/u1PQ

FiorellaCormorant

not sure about ur pc being sleep coz it needs to do some processing while capturing the images but with yawcam, u can run apps when a motion is detected. media player (or vlc) with an mp3 is possible :)

PaulaWachter

Does anyone know of a motion detection program that will wake a computer from the screen saver when someone walks by, but doesn't snap any pictures or anything? I am wanting to use it for a home automation computer that displays a clock screen saver, but when you walk to it, it goes to my custom ui.

M0535

Man, that preview image looks like Sylar when thumbnailed!

EvoCam is great [www.evological.com] for the Mac

Gordon Thompson

@wqwert: iAlertU. The difference here is that iAlertU doesn't detect motion with the camera, it only takes a picture and emails it to you if the computer is moved (accelerometer) or keys are hit.

@FalconFour: The point of it is to make it stealthy... If you put a piece of tape covering the LED it's going to be quite noticable.

@MyNameIsTooAwesome: Could just pop off the bit of plastic covering the LED, put the electrical tape on, then pop the plastic back in place? A little more involved, but not immediately noticeable and not destructive.

MichaelTV

Of course, the problem with this and other similar apps is that you have to leave the computer running all the time. I always turn all my computer stuff off when I'm not using it, the more so after getting our last utility bill.

I guess we'll have to rely on the services of our watch cat. The thief is guaranteed to trip over his fat ass in the hall and crater the floor before reaching the office.

@M0535: Use Yawcam and run a custom program (i.e. nircmd)

MePerson

@cloudgoesup: I think you can run more than one instance.

MePerson

@Coffenated: Yawcam is more versatile than Dorgem, and is easier to use if you are used to a traditional settings menu based system.

MePerson

@reynwrap582: Put black nail polish over the LED.

MePerson

@I Wear Nice Hats: Well, that's a good security system in my book...until you have to use your own computer...

So I can get a wireless webcam post it on my porch and have a cheap security camera ? http://www.crunchnow.com/

SanaCosta

I think I see somebody coming at him from the other room quick, somebody IM him!

rickb1972

how do you download detection cam app ! plz help

yellow1122

I would imagine there is something in the registry that can disable this as well. I don't see any point in destroying your laptop.

RochelleFalooda

@enchantedgoose:

Dude, that's sick.. wait.. is yer mom hot??

kl0an

@Luden: yeah... doesn't look like the original poster really did their homework on this one...
:(

phrend

I didn't try MotionDetection but I tried yawcam based on the comments here. Yawcam shortcoming: Unable to ftp images or videos and have the filename on an incremented loop - in motion detection mode. So if you want to constantly stream the last 10 (or 59 or 453) stills from your camera taken every x seconds, yawcam works great by creating a filename of pic_00, pic_01, ... pic09 which constantly overwrite the oldest. But if instead, you want to generate those stills only when motion is detected, this filenaming is not available. As a consequence, you'll fill up the ftp space with the resulting large number of uniquely named files.

As a security system, yawcam falls short. Really wanted it to work though.

DMHinCO