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Post by aquaduct on Jan 30, 2022 9:10:35 GMT -5
Surfing today while rubbing my wife's head on the couch, I came across this article. In the last year or so the upgrade to 5G in our area has given us a couple perfectly good but useless phones. We already use one to run our Bose home sound system, but the other one is still sitting in a drawer doing nothing. Now there's this: Cheap Security Cameras |
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Post by aquaduct on Jan 31, 2022 18:59:00 GMT -5
So today I fired up that security camera thing. I just had to switch to a 5G phone against my will leaving me with a perfectly wonderful 4G phone with nowhere to go.
So I loaded up the software on both phones and I'm here to report it works great. Put the camera phone in a front window by the door. It pinged my phone with little videos when I left the house and came back, when the mason working in the basement left, when the schoolbus rolled through the cul-de-sac, when the mail person put the mail in the box, when a cat croosed the driveway, and when the commuter van down the street came home.
So far the things it doesn't do are small and inconsequential. It doesn't seem to work in the dark but that may be because we're watching TV in the living room with the lights on so it may be due to reflections from the window. The range of the motion detector only goes out reliably to roughly the curb. Some cars get seen, some don't. Neighbor across the street walked his little puppy and I can see it perfectly well on the live feed, but it doesn't set off any detection. And finally, the picture resolution isn't top notch but certainly serviceable. And it is supposed to dramatically improve if you pay for the app. Oh, and the old phone has no SIM card so it's completely reliant on wifi.
But well worth it. We're not real interested in major security- not a real concern hereabouts. But it can be cool if the wife's working in the back bedroom office alone in the house, it can feed from the front door to her computer so she can see what Amazon's leaving on the porch. The installation is not permanent so it's easy to move or store depending on need.
Next experiment is to see if I can get it rigged as a game cam in the yard to catch the deer, bears, birds, and other nonsense that goes on around here.
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 2, 2022 7:47:53 GMT -5
So today the wife has set up a space heater in the basement to help cure the new wall's mortar so she's using the little camera to keep an eye and ear on the heater from her office while I run errands in town. So cool.
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Post by theevan on Feb 2, 2022 8:19:09 GMT -5
Hmmmm. Helpful and CHEAP.
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 2, 2022 8:30:11 GMT -5
Hmmmm. Helpful and CHEAP. Can't get cheaper than free. |
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Post by John B on Feb 2, 2022 8:42:00 GMT -5
Hmm. I don't have any old phones - the last time I upgraded they offered me a ridiculous trade him amount for a cracked phone. But I see how this could be really useful. The portable/temporary baby monitor, for example. I'll have to tell my sister-in-law about this.
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 2, 2022 9:09:28 GMT -5
Hmm. I don't have any old phones - the last time I upgraded they offered me a ridiculous trade him amount for a cracked phone. But I see how this could be really useful. The portable/temporary baby monitor, for example. I'll have to tell my sister-in-law about this. I'd be willing to bet that if you asked around you could find someone that has a useless old phone they'd be willing to donate. |
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