Hi folks.

I work with the HomeCamera team and wanted to take a moment to reply to some of the questions raised here. First, my sincere thanks to Lifehacker for writing about us - much much appreciated.

Second, a number of folks (including jamisonfitz) asked how this is different and pointed to dyndns solutions, ftp solutions, etc.. Here's the thing: the reality is a LOT - and possibly MOST - consumers out there can't figure out this dyndns / ftp stuff. Sure, it's simple to you (and, to some extent, to me), but go into the average Internet user's home and tell them they need to setup dyndns, NAT, port forwarding etc on their router and you'll be met by blank stares. The vast majority of people don't know what FTP is... heck, the vast majority of people don't know how to SECURE their wireless connections...!

Collinturner: with due respect, any surveillance system can be used for illegal purposes and records could be subpoenaed in a court of law. The purpose of stating this in our terms and conditions of use is to make it clear that we are ultimately subject to law. For what it's worth, we host our servers in NY, and are careful about privacy. NO one at HomeCamera has access to ANY user's data - at all. A simple analogy: we all use hotmail / yahoo / gmail etc, right? All our mail is stored on third party servers - and this might include confidential and INTENSELY personal file attachments (I say "might"... ;-) ).

Oh, and here's the other thing: we also work with IP cameras. For now, specifically the D-Link DCS-2120, where D-Link has taken OUR technology and put it into this camera model, so the buyer needn't bother with ddns, nat, etc., and can get started right away. Another camera's coming in Q3 this year and we're hoping the momentum can build from there.

Re the post-beta pricing, our pricing page does mention what we plan to charge once we exit beta - $14.95 per YEAR. AND we'll always have a free access plan too. Surely that's not a lot given the convenience provided to the TARGET user

I guess, at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves: who's this service for?
HomeCamera's objective is to help people watch over their very-young children, pets, and, in general, to make home monitoring really easy and approachable for folks who aren't quite tech gurus. That said, we're happy to host your cameras too. :-) If you try the service, you'll see how simple it all really is. Honest.

If you have any questions, you can drop me a note right here or mail me at varun@homecamera.com. Thanks for reading this and for the opportunity.

- Varun.

varora

www.y-cam.com

Mac support coming soon. In the meantime, after initial PC setup I configured it to e-mail images on motion activation and at regular times. Much better than TrendNet, IMHO.

BigFoot

webcamXP is really nice. I can even use my ip camera in all other applications...

bishibash

I'm also using webcamxp, it's stable and very easy to put in place. It even allows me to use my IP camera in all other applications which does not natively support it...

bishibashi

The signup process is broken.

th3gh05t

Im with takemetoyourtoaster... anything for a mac?

joshharvey

@gopanthers: Yeah, i tried yawcam after seeing it here on lifehacker. But, yawcam doesn't support IP cams....and if it does, i couldn't determine how.

aleone

LifeHacker already covered Yawcam before, which does the exact same thing and is really free (not just free during their beta phase). Why bother with this one then?

[lifehacker.com]

gopanthers

@jamisonfitz: Er...why not just port forward through your router to the camera and then setup a dyndns.org address for your home? [yourhome.dyndns.org:81] for however many cams you have...It's free, to boot.

lmathews

I use WebcamXP for this too. I run a tyre shop and on my website I let customers view the workshop and the spaces outside. I use a cheap little USB webcam for the workshop one and a cheap bullet type DV camera connected to a DVR card for the outside. WebcamXP handles it perfectly via a flash applet and I can even hear a beep when someone views the camera.
Here's the link to my site of anyone wants to check out the cameras. I'm the grumpy looking one wearing the silly hat.

[hectyre.co.uk]

hippytyre

webcam monitor for windows OS's has been phenomenal for me. Supports USB, Firewire, DV, and IP/network cameras. Motion detection works great and you can set it up so many different ways (recording locally/ftp, remote monitoring, etc).

I basically had it setup to record locally and email me when motion was seen. if that happened, I just remoted into my computer (via logmein free) and viewed from there.

only thing is that it costs $68 (their demo is worth a shot though)

[www.deskshare.com]

discounteggroll

@aleone: another one for webcamXP, very powerful piece of software

perke

Awesome! Would try this out as soon as I get back home today. But things like these just make me wonder if we are taking ourselves into a more paranoid and hyper society. I mean just because it free most of us would go and get it (myself included). How many of us do SERIOUSLY need it?

nikrox

This is awesome, I really like the idea of being able to record surveillance video onto my computer for easy handling and management. The motion detection could also be really useful so you don't have to waste space or look through videos to look for something.

GeForceATi

Well, if you had a Mac you could spend $60 (or $150 for 4 camera support) and buy SecuritySpy [www.securityspy.com] which turns your Mac into an Internet home surveillance camera system with motion detection, web server, ftp upload, time-lapse, email, PTZ, etc. Because it is your server, it is completely private. It even supports IP cameras.

cronick

Well, i've done the DIY thing with Motion ([www.lavrsen.dk])
but when the HD crashed, i opted to shell out the ~$80 for webcamXP ([www.webcamxp.com]). I have a USB webcam, a wired IP cam, and a wireless IP cam all managed by this software. And, with a little portforwarding, dynamic DNS, and a password - voila! - Remote Surveillance! Oh, and yes, it does do the motion-detecting thing too.

aleone

Watching video from a web browser seems to require tediously downloading short (around 15 second clips) manually

JadeAntelope

I use 'Dorgem' for my webcam - yes, I'm a Vista user too (and just to confuse things - it's a laptop) but certainly, I've put Dorgem on several computers in the past and it's just worked - no questions asked... it just needs a little configuring, but it's not beyond any basic user and it's totally free.

[dorgem.sourceforge.net]

squizzbutt

anything like this for mac?

takemetoyourtoaster

[www.zoneminder.com]

ZoneMinder still seems cooler than this, and no third party.

AndyMan1

This is intriguing and I would like to install it, however I am concerned about the possibility that anyone may access the video on the Internet. Also, what safeguards have the software developers provided so that they may not access one's private video feed? Or perhaps they make no claim as to privacy?

drmarkz

well you could combine this or use something like [www.stickam.com]

Internet-TV

Wish these would work for IP cameras, so far i haven't found a service that does. I like to be out of town and use mine to check on my home.

jamisonfitz

@collinturner.com: It's a web service, and Big Brother was my first thought, too!

Wireless Intellect Labs may preserve content and may also disclose content, if required to do so by law or if Wireless Intellect Labs in good faith believes that such preservation is necessary to comply with legal process, enforce these terms, respond to claims that any content violates the rights of a third party, or to protect the rights, property or safety of Wireless Intellect Labs, its users and the public.

joelena

Going to have to check this out. Question is (since I won't look at this while under the thumb of Big Brother Sarariman)is it a Web Service or something you download and it just stays between you and your computer?

I don't need any more Brothers!

collinturner.com