News

WiFi web-cam gets harnessed to home security - unless you have a cat

Linksys came out with the WiFi web-cam last year; this year, it has passed into the realm of home security systems, through Intamac, in the UK at least.

The camera is a fairly ordinary Ethernet or Wireless Ethernet device. Plug it into cable Ethernet, and it sends pictures over your LAN. But if you haven't got a cable running to the spot where you want to monitor activity, then just power it up, and it'll find your wireless LAN, get an IP address, and start transmitting.

Intamac sells do-it-yourself home security stuff, like the
BT Home Monitor for £199 - plus remote monitoring service for a fiver a month. That uses motion detection, but doesn't send pictures. It needs a working phone line.

The Linksys offering costs rather less, as long as you have a wireless access point already plugged into broadband. Again, alerts - and pictures - are transmitted to Intamac monitoring services.Or, if you're rich, you can have them transmitted to you by MMS on your mobile

Neither system is proof against a cat playing games with the curtains. Also, the Linksys camera, while a nice design, isn't a battery powered item, so it's only wireless in the Ethernet sense.

The Intamac software is now bundled with the camera in the UK, according to the official release

Availability is through normal channels such as Amazon and Dabs - and for those who already have the camera, the software is  downloadable