A 200 dollar web camera!

me: Yes.. I bought a 200 dollar web camera.

them: Are you nuts?

me: No... I don't think so

them: Are you rich or something??

me: Nope..

them: Then what the hell you need a 200 dollar webcam for??!

Me: Well, here's the story. the management for the building I live in have decided that they need to change all the drain/sewage pipes (the pipes that take the bad water out of the building) 2 weeks from now and it seems that every single apartment here has to have a whole one week worth of construction. This totally sucks because these people will be coming in and out of my apartment from 9 to 5 everyday from Monday to Saturday. Yes, you read that right.. in Japan doing construction on Saturday is normal, which means there will be people in my house while I'm still wandering around in my boxers making coffee or something. It's not so bad otherwise because I'm not home during the day, so I don't have to put up with anything, unlike most people living in this building who have to go without a shower and toilet (anything that uses water) during that time.

Though, I don't trust these people because I won't be here to watch what they're doing. Not only that there was a special on TV the other day about how a guy would pretend to be part of a large construction crew working on a building. He'd wander around taking casts of the keys and then come back in a few months to help himself to stuff from the rooms he got keys of.. I'm already nervous about people coming into my house while I'm not here and a show like that just put me over the edge, SO! here's the reason a bought an expensive webcam.

I plan on making a security style app with Flash/FCS so I can watch these people from anywhere on the net. I think FCS is extremely ideal for this because for example, say you have a cam setup and you want it to watch your room. Though thanks to high pricing of bandwidth and license or hosting of FCS, you most certainly don't want to be publishing full time. So you connect up with the "watcher" side of the app and make a call to the webcam side of the app to turn itself on and publish at whatever rate you choose. Maybe keep it at a low level of FPS to conserve bandwidth, but when you really want to know what's going on, you remotely turn up the FPS or quality. Also if somebody has broken into your house or whatever it is you are watching, while you are calling the police you can send a call across for it to start recording the video too so you can use it later in court. That would be a first I think. "Crime fighting with FCS". Anyways, back to my problem. There isn't a free line of sight that I can get the area where they are working in, so I had to somehow have the camera move, or get one with a huge line of sight. But at the same time I also wanted to setup another camera in my "office" room so I will know if anybody wandered in without permission. This means I need not only another camera (I already have one connected to my comp) but I need one that meets my needs. Hence the expensive camera.

them: ah.. I see. Isn't that being a bit paranoid and untrusting?

me: Umm.. no. I don't see it that way really, it's just a small step to better security.

them: So what's so special about the camera that makes it so expensive?

me: It's so cool! It's the Logitech Q-cam Orbit. It follows your face automatically and has a 180 degree swivel with a 60 tilt so that it can pretty much follow anything that doesn't go completely above or behind it. I've played with it a bit so far and it does quite well in following along as long as you don't zip around too fast. I wish I could control it from afar though.. there must be a way.

My biggest worry though was that it might not work with Flash (there seem to be quite a few people having trouble with some cams), but there wasn't any problems and it showed up crystal clear. Here's a pic of it in case you haven't seen one in the stores. I'm not sure if these are available around the world, but they have been out in Japan for quite a few months I think. I've included in the central usb memory I got so you can get a perspective on how big the cam is.

I'm actually looking forward to building the app, even though it'll be a bit tough because there are a lot of things to think of. One thing that runs through my mind is what happens if for some reason the network goes down and then comes back up. In this case I thought "If Central had true network awareness I'd have my killer Central app!!" but it doesn't, so I have to rely on polling for the connection status or something. It should be fun, and when I get closer to finishing up I'll try to post some screenshots.

So, how do you feel about somebody tramping in and out of your house for a week while you're not there? Would you take any steps to increase security in your house, or at the very least, the rooms you don't want people in? Or trust in the superintendent of the building and the construction company to keep security high?

Posted by Graeme at June 10, 2004 09:57 PM