BBC News is running a great story about a thief who was caught by a webcam setup as a security camera. It was run with motion detection software – when the camera detected movement it begun to record a video stream of the burglary, which was then emailed to a remote email address.
I’m pleased it worked, because I have a similar setup at home. I’m thinking of installing a second camera to get an even better view of the home.
The nice thing about it is that I can also log in and check what’s going on at home from any Internet connection.
When you think about how much a burglar alarm can cost per month (often around £10pm+), and how many people have always-on broadband – it’s surprising more crimes aren’t being filmed like this. I bought our webcams for £15 each.
If you do setup such a system in your home, be sure that it’s not detectable or accessible without proper authentication. http://www.opentopia.com/hiddencam.php is a great website which exposes security cameras that are publicly available, almost certainly not intentionally.