Integrating iobridge with a webcam

[nick]

I just purchased a Foscam webcam.  I recommend it highly -- built-in wifi, tilt and pan, OK picture quality, all for $88 delivered on Ebay.

One interesting feature is it has an alarm interface that seems custom-made for integrating with the iobridge.  The unit has a built-in motion detector, and also alarm in and alarm out pins on the back.  When either the motion detector or the alarm in pin triggers it sends six pictures by email or ftp, and raises the alarm out pin.

So you could use this as an iobridge controlled camera if you connected one of the iobridge outputs to the alarm input.  You could also use it as a motion detector to trigger an input on the iobridge.

[ryanerb]

Good thoughts!

I am considering this camera, trying to look around the web for reliability reviews, etc

manu site:
http://www.foscam.com/Products_List.asp?id=128

Here is a video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir0D4zKG9y4

If you could post up some samples from yours too, that would be cool.

[IOBridgeAndy]

Checking the specs. one minor detail was left out - SSL Encryption.
Most email services, nowdays, like ATT requires SSL. (I think Gmail also requires SSL)
The camera seems ok but without SSL it is a non starter for me and anyone that has
an email service provider that requires it. 

[nick]

Checking the specs. one minor detail was left out - SSL Encryption.
Most email services, nowdays, like ATT requires SSL. (I think Gmail also requires SSL)
The camera seems ok but without SSL it is a non starter for me and anyone that has
an email service provider that requires it. 

My ISP is verizon.  They allow unencrypted outgoing mail if you use their servers and a verizon.net account.  Authentication is required and works with the webcam.

[SoundLogic]

Thanks for this post  

I had given heavy consideration to this Foscam IP Cam, but I decided against it until I read your post about the motion detector connection (this is not heavily emphasized on most websites selling the device).

My major concern was that, at night, the camera would switch to IR mode and the frames per second would decrease significantly. Now - I have read posts on methods to integration IR motion sensing with the iobridge, but honestly this is my first project of this sort (I am a programmer, but I haven't done much work with external controllers other than a webcam project a la Silverlight).

Now that I know this - it makes my project a lot simpler - so here's what I'm working on --> on a motion detected event (the user would be able to define the threshold for what a motion detected event should be, define an arm and unlock method and setup email notifications) --> but here's the best part that helps to overcome the difficulties of using this camera at night --> on a motion detected event, I will make use of the ambient light sensor to detect if a lighting source is needed or not - if so, it will use a relay to trigger a  lighting source so you end up with quality images of whatever is moving in your house...it would be fun to get one of those wi-fi rovio things if you ever felt more investigation were needed  


This will be a Silverlight based solution so I may end up building an open source project for this - if anyone is interested in working with me on this, I'd love to collaborate (I don't know much about HTML5 yet, but it should be able to integrate with Silverlight via a video tag - I'd love to work with someone familiar with HTML5 - for anyone willing to implement the project themselves, the source code would be out there under a GNU - I support open source for learning, but I am not a slave - for anyone who is not interested in learning and would like me (hopefully soon this will be "us") to do the work for them - it could be made available via the OpenAppMkt)

If anyone's interested in working with me on this project or has any suggestions, please contact me by email:

soundlogic@wavesandbox.com

Best,

Jordan

[nick]

The Foscam doesn't switch into an IR mode.  It has about a dozen IR LED's on the front that are always on, and it uses a sensor that registers IR light.  It adjusts its exposure automatically to ambient light, and when ambient light is low the IR becomes the principal light source.  Incidentally, this makes the color quality poor in outdoor daylight use because sunlight is rich in IR and the IR light is not filtered out but shows up as white, so the pictures are washed out.

For interior use I have a camera set up next to a lamp that is controlled by the IOBridge via X10.  If I really want to see what is going on I turn the lamp on.

Nick