Home Surveillance & Internet- Go Online! Monitor Your Lonely Home

In the past, keeping an eye on your home while away was almost impossible. Unless friendly neighbors agreed to keep watch for you, your home was left unprotected. But today, you can monitor your home from anywhere in the world thanks to the Internet and modern home surveillance technology.

The home surveillance industry is booming, and new and innovative technologies are popping up like new spring crops. The right hardware for home surveillance is easy to find and affordable. All you need is a little bit of common sense and enough motivation to learn about the new exciting technologies.

The heart of distance home surveillance is your Internet connection, so you'll need something reliable. We recommend a high-speed broadband connection like cable or DSL. Dial-up connections just aren't fast enough or dependable to use for broadcast video.

You can choose from a couple of configurations that differ in both features and complexity.

Option 1: Use your PC

The first involves integrating your personal computer and home surveillance cameras into a system that will monitor and record different areas in your home. The home surveillance system can be set to record images at a set rate (for example, once every 30 seconds) or to record when sensors detect motion in the area.

The computer will play back the video images through the monitor and record the video to your hard disk drive. Once you're connected to the Internet, you can easily watch the video from a remote location. You may need additional software to be able to log into your home computer from another location. Then you can long in at any time to operate the home computer and watch the images that the home surveillance system has recorded.

Using a program like Watchdog, available at a low price, you can record for long periods and monitor your home over the Internet. You can set the program to start recording when motion is detected, and Watchdog can alert you by e-mail and alarm that it has captured an image. Another software option is Active WebCam, allowing you to simultaneously record and broadcast from any number of cameras and watch your cameras using any Internet browser.

Option 2: Use your IP

The second option is much easier than using your PC and multiple surveillance cameras. It uses a single camera to monitor your home. You can use the camera through a direct link to your IP (Internet Protocol) address. Going directly through your IP eliminates the need for extra software to access your home computer. It works much like a webcam, streaming video 24 hours a day.

In choosing your camera for this option, you should take a look at 3JTech. This company makes IP cameras for less than $250 that provide video for remote home surveillance. After you've connected your camera to a hub and assigned it an IP address, you can view the video from your pocket PC or a cell phone through software that 3JTech provides.

Both options are fairly easy to use, and the second option is much easier to set up. However, with Option 1, you have access to multiple cameras and the ability to record images.

The important thing is that both options allow you to access and monitor your home anytime from anywhere that has Internet service. So, to have a home surveillance system that allows you to monitor your home while you're away, all you need is the Internet and at least one camera.


Another interesting fact is that the demand for home security products that work with broadband connections has created a new type of service. One provider, Smarthome, helps you perform routine tasks remotely. You can turn lights off and on and control your home's temperature with your cell phone. A relatively new company, SafeVillage, is working on home security services that will deliver live images and sound to their monitoring station from your home through networked cameras and intercom systems.

You can get the new technology and start monitoring your home from your hotel today. And it's a good idea to keep an eye on this rapidly growing branch of the home surveillance industry.