Baby monitoring system options

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Greetings,

I am looking to use Vera to setup a baby monitoring system in my house and then to upgrade to other home automation options.
Can someone recommend a good IP camera that might work as a motion detector, have sound, and night vision?

Also, can the frame that you can see videos in vera be expanded at all?

Thanks for any advice. I am really looking forward to purchasing vera and dabbing into home automation but i dont want to purchase it if my initial requirments wont be fulfilled.

2

I use the Panasonic IP cameras with my own Panasonic hosted web address and don’t use Vera for the video. Works great. Do Amazon search under “Panasonic Camera” and several options are available.

3

Anyone have experience with the TrendNEt cameras?

4

I have a couple of Trendnet ones and a Panasonic BL-C210A, and i couldn’t recommend the Panasonic one enough!

Like you I wanted to buy something for the Nursery!

The BL-C210A (and other similar ones )has some real neat features like power over Ethernet (with their own supplied adapter), links to my Panasonic TV, sensitive microphone, built in sensors for triggering via heat, sound and motion etc and above all works really well with Vera. Maybe the only downside to the camera is in low light conditions, but i can live with that as its really only for day time use for us anyway!

The downside to the trendnets is that they are difficult to set up using the default IP cam plugin, and you can only view a static image that gets refreshed every 5 seconds or so.

I was lucky with Panasonic and got a good deal on the price.

5

Are you using the camera through findvera.com or the IP address in a browser?

If through findvera.com, can you expand the viewing frame in the webpage and are the panasonics flash based?

How bad is the low light viewing. Our room is connected to the nursery and I was planning on having a tablet computer from Archos as our main controller that was hooked up to our bedroom tv. I was gogin to have the baby up on the tv over night so we can check in with out opening the door and waking her up however the lights would be off of course. Is the microphone in the panasonic sensitive enough to pick up on any noise from ten feet away?

Since this is rather costly I want to be sure this will work. I want to get into home automation slowly and this nursery setup was the only way I could get my wife on board :). But if this system probably wont work for me I’ll need to go get some cheapo baby monitors elsewhere and put off my home automation dive in so to speak.

Thanks for any advice.

6

@Philbar

I don’t think you can expand any of the camera viewing frames, either through find vera or via the IP address directly on vera (well not in UI3 at least).
I think we’ll be using it either mostly through the TV or the cameras own viewing page to get the best picture size rather than vera, and i have a month yet to iron the kinks out until the baby is born.

Flash based? You mean video codec (wrapper) or the web interface for the camera? If you meant either of those then its neither (video is either h.264 or MJPEG) and the web interface is pretty plain but with a huge amount of customization.

I think if you want low light (even though this cam has a mode for that) then you would need something with a built in IR emitter and night mode i think.

The microphone however is amazing! Even if i view the cam on my Panasonic TV which is downstairs (camera is upstairs in my house), then i can clearly hear the audio or echo on TV a couple of seconds later (its delayed because of buffering i guess).

I think i’m going to also buy a cheap monitor anyway; which we can carry that around etc, and not just rely on something that could easily go wrong.

7

@Philbar

If i get some time then i might try and experiment with some IR LED’s to see what the picture is like with these and let you know. I read some other posts on the net where people had set up a lamp with a 15 watt bulb and said it works fine.

This is almost cheap enough to give a try

IP400 camera http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.15974

8

I just picked up a BL-C210A (open box at Fry’s) to try out. Mine is a bit noisey on the pan/tilt (gears grinding/running noise), I’m not sure if it would upset the baby in a nursery. Chances are you wouldn’t need pan/tilt for that room anyway. The night viewing is lacking in my tests, but I’ve only had it for a day. I do love the Power over Ethernet and the daytime picture quality. Another nice thing about this model is its appearance, it would pass the WAF sitting on a shelf in the nursery (all white cube) not like other security cams. I might end up returning it to buy a new one off of the net for a bit less, and hopefully less noisey on the gears.

I was on the fence about using IP cams or buying a Lorex/Swann DVR/Cam setup as they all have night vision and they advertise an iPhone/pod app (and they are cheaper per cam). I couldn’t find enough good review of the setup though, and I wasn’t sure I needed 8 cams. I bought this Panasonic to give IP cams a try and I think I might go the path of IP, it seems like it might be more reliable than the all-in-one DVR system.

I’d really love to have the pan/tilt available in SQ Remote…

9

I have been using Panasonic’s IP cameras for a few years now, and have no significant issues with them. Currently, I have 5 cameras, including a couple of outdoor POE cameras, and 2 wireless cameras.

The picture quality has improved in recent generations of the cameras, and the CCD versions obviously have the best quality, but from my point of view, for the price, I think they all get the job done very well.

10

Phibar:

I wouldn’t worry about not seeing or hearing the baby from the next room during the night. He/she will be waking you up like clockwork every 2 hours. You will be trying to sleep otherwise!!! Brings back fond memories ;D ;D!!

11

I havent Decided If I want to run cable or not from my router and at this point it would require me to buy another switch for my network. So i might have to go with the wireless versions of this camera.

I also dont have a panasonic tv ( Samsung) so I dont have that option to view on the tv. I might be able to wokr some option using the PS3. I’ll have to look into that.

When I asked if the frame can be expanded I should have said does it expand to full screen?

@gatorbaw
thank for the laugh.

Also to clarify I have a wierd setup i have my master bedroom with a bathroom that connects to another bedroom( Nursery) and a stair hallway between the two doors.

I really don;'t know know what a good setup for these types of things are so if anyone else has this already setup I’d love to hear about your layout.

Thanks.

12

I have an identical room to the nursery directly below it so I might consider just running a CAT6 cable right up through a corner of the floor. That seems like the least expensive option. These wireless cameras are far too pricey.