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Ask HN: Ideas for BYO Video Surveillance/Monitor?

3 points by hangulo ↗ HN
Baby boy recently joined the family and been looking into baby monitors (w/ video) but some are using such old technology or if new w/ cloud based access they have silly monthly subscriptions that ruin the economics.

In a crunch I'll use an extra ipad and do a skype call but it doesnt auto answer so have to initiate the skype call and keep the connection on all day

8 comments

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a3n
Basic:

- A camera/device/rpi/*duino that periodically uploads image/video/audio to your dropbox, hosting service or VPN.

- Curl, or some other ftp client, to periodically download same to your laptop, device, watch, implant.

Details: left as an exercise.

mrfusion
Look up the camio app for your ipad. Or if you have an old smartphone. I think it's free for the first camera.
hangulo
cool, will definitely take a look
Someone1234
I too purchased a network video solution for baby monitoring. My experiences...

I initially looked at the popular off-the-shelf baby video monitors, but after doing a little more research it was "unclear" how secure many are, and several appeared to employ absolutely no encryption at all and instead relied on frequency jumping (but people had been able to pull them apart, figure out the pattern, and intercept with a software defined radio).

So after that I decided either standard WiFi with WPA2/AES or no dice. So ultimately I started looking at more general purpose network video cameras (often sold as "security cameras"). Something I could connect to my WiFi, and security would be reliant on my knowledge of networking and legitimate encryption rather than security through obscurity.

The TL;DR after a long search I wound up buying a Foscam, it is a Pan & Tilt, day & night indoor camera. It was around $60 on sale and 720p resolution (but costs a little more right now on Amazon). The camera's video stream can be received just using standard VLC Player (it uses H.264) on a PC. You can also use their browser extension to receive the feed, or their paid software if you want to record the feed. I also paid $4 for an Android app called "IP Cam Viewer Pro" which can receive the feed and control most of the camera's key functions (pan & tilt, night-mode, etc).

So now I can OpenVPN into my home network from either my phone, PC, or Mac and then use VLC, a browser, or an Android app to see the stream (and in some cases control the camera).

ThomPete
My advice is drop the video. Besides the placebo it's literally worthless and often in more fragile material.

Your baby monitor needs to take a beating when it's gets thrown out the stroller by your baby :)

So go after something with more durability and longer range and battery time.

hangulo
Definitely agree to an extent. Right now the video has helped us a bit since when we notice him getting a bit fussy/moving around we know its an early indication that feeding time is coming soon (ie. he hasnt cried yet but is starting to wake up).

But honestly, probably wont be staring at that video feed all day long like we do today haha.