tech: video monitor with webcam and an iphone

for the first 8 months of junior’s life, we’ve done great just using an audio monitor in his room because, frankly, he would just kind of lie there all night sleeping. now that he is a bit more mobile (and because i think it’s totally cool), we wanted to get something in his room that gave us a video feed. i didn’t want to have to worry about carrying around an additional base station or anything, so my ideal solution would involve something i already carry around all the time: my iphone.

for this project, you will need:

• an iphone (probably works with a iTouch, as well)
• Live Cam iPhone Application
• a compatible wireless webcam (i used the TRENDNet TV-IP422W which normally sells for $300 but Amazon sells for $150)

the Live Cam website has a list of compatible cameras here: http://livecams-iphone.com/help40/supportedcameras.html.  i picked the TRENDNet camera because it was on sale, really, but it also offered panning, tilting, and zooming, as well as a “nightvision” feature, which is probably pretty important in the middle of the night when the room is dark.

the camera setup was pretty easy. i followed the instructions in the manual and it took all of 10 minutes to see video. you can browse to the camera with a web browser (works on PC and Mac) to verify that the camera is working. one note on the network setup, the initial setup is done “wired”; that is, the camera is plugged in to your router with a network cable (which was provided).  you then set the camera up for wireless (providing the network and credentials). there’s no indication during this step that its connected over wireless, so if you fat finger the password, the only way you’ll know is that you won’t be able to connect to the camera when you unplug the network cable. but i simply plugged it back in, fixed the credentials, and i was good to go.

configuring the iphone application was also very simple. i added a new camera, selected the profile for my camera model, and provided my specific network information for my camera. by default, the camera is set up for DHCP. for you non-tech savvy folks, that means that the router tells it what it’s address is, which is normally fine, except when the camera gets a different address for some reason. so what i did was gave the camera a static address, so it will always have the same address and i won’t have to worry about it “moving”. i do the same for my network printers and such, as well, and usually put those devices “higher” up in the ip range so that when friends come over with iphones and such that there won’t be any overlap or conflicts.  once you add the camera and give it a name, if everything goes well, you’ll see the video from the camera right on your iphone. the camera will also show up under “My Cameras” inside the application so when you go back in to Live Cams, all you have to do is tap “Select Camera”, then “My Cameras”, and pick the camera to see the live video.

you can have more than one camera, and go through the setup the same way. those cameras will all show up under the same “My Cameras” screen.

if your camera allows it (which mine does), you can also control the camera through the Live Cams application.

the one thing i couldn’t do with the Live Cams application was to put the camera is “nightmode” mode, but i toggled it through my web browser on my computer and that worked fine; i’ll just need to remember to do it when we put him down for the night. night vision is pretty good, though. it uses the infrared lights so it’s not going to keep junior up with any visible lights.

multiple computers and iphones can connect to the camera at the same time, so we’ll be able to connect wherever we are with our iphones, and i can use our spare 3g iphone that we use for pandora in the kitchen as a dedicated monitor if we need it.

a few notes:

• by default, the camera has some LED lights on the front to show that its online and all that. there is an option in the camera setup screen (accessible in a browser) that allows you to turn these off. i’d recommend doing that if you are using it as a baby monitor to not introduce any extra light in to the room.
• make sure your router configuration is set up to prevent outside access to the camera. this will prevent folks from the internet looking at your camera. don’t be freaked out by this, it’s really easy to secure it and it may already  be like that by default (mine is)
• if you do want to allow public access to the camera so you can check in on the camera from work (pet cam, other security cam), you can configure both the router to allow specific traffic to the camera, as well as set up security on the camera itself to prevent outsiders from seeing the video. plenty of resources on the internet for how to set this up.
• this particular camera has limited “down” movement; so if you mount it up high and want to look in to the crib (like my images above), you may need to angle the camera downward. another option may be to mount it upside down, but i’m not sure if this model has a “i’m upside down” recognition.

overall, it’s a pretty slick solution and really easy to set up, all for less than what i was looking at for a dedicated camera system.