camera ~ baby monitor setup

[mustangcoupe]

As some of you know my wife and I are expecting our first child. She mentioned to me the other day she thought by now I would have come up with a baby monitoring soloution. But I have yet to think about this. Now that SHE started the topic I am wondering what I would need... I already have two panisonic cams which I could repourpose one of them for but as she put it she could get up and go into the other room faster then loading up the webpage and seeing what is going on. Has anyone done this? what are the recomendations? I could use a dvr and feed the output to the cable system but Im not sure of what I would need ect... and did I say that we are having a baby and well I guess this means I have almost no money to spend?

 

[DeLicious]

our kid's room is upstairs, so it is much easier to just bring up ElkRM to look at the camera than trudging up the stairs. between the panasonic IP cam and the traditional baby monitor, we can see and hear everything at any time.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

I know you wanted a "no money" solution, but this unit looks handy as all get out. I just don't know how well it performs.

Hmmm, if you have a Slingbox and smartphone with WiFi I guess you could do the same thing.

BTW, in case you need the info, Supercircuits has great "line level" microphones for ten bucks (Ski, electron, and I use them).

 

[TonyNo]

Are you in a room with a TV most of the time? If so, you could run the cam out to one of the inputs. You could then pull up the cam with a press of the TV input button.

 

[mustangcoupe]

all great responses so far,

DeLicious that was one of my thoughts... and I believe has the highest WAF right now...

BSR, Im not looking for a no money solution, just a low cost one which would add high WAF to the HA stuff going around here if possible, I dont know if I want a RF soloution or a wired one but Im going to bookmark that link for now.

TonyNo, I thought of this also but my wife said if I am in the basement I wont go to the living room to turn it on, Id just go to the baby's room.... so she kinda shot down a single room soloution that's why I was thinking some sort of cable configuration... we are loosing alot of analog signals lately so I could modulate it and add it on at the main feed to the house before the 1st splitter.

 

[ctwilliams]

I was recently in the same situation. I ended up using a pansonic ip camera that I mounted to the crib. This allows me to see and hear what is going on no matter where I am. I work at night so I am able to watch from work and I have several family members who live out of town that can watch as well.

I bought the 9" eeepc and we can easily carry around the house or take outside. I can also pull up a current picture on my cell phone as well.


Of all the home automation projects I have done, this is the only one my wife cares about or has any interest in. She does not care that we can turn on lights, change the temperature, deadbolt the door, or turn on the lawn sprinklers from anywhere in the world, but by god she loves the "baby monitor".

CT

 

[aehusted]

About 3 years ago, I got a Summer video monitor like this one. The video reception was always spotty at best and died altogether after about 2 years. The audio still works fine, but I may be looking for something new as well since we are expecting a second baby in 6 months. I tried using the video out on this thing a couple times early on with no success. The only automation I added was hooking up an OutletLinc in my sons room, so we can turn the transmitter on and off from our bedroom KeypadLinc.

Personally, I think I would be happy with just the audio monitoring.

 

[zimmer62]

A friend of mine uses an old Sony B/W security camera, there is a fish tank in his sons room that might have a 3 watt bulb but it's enough light to look like daylight on the camera. He ran the camera to an input on his TV, and does PIP when we are watching TV. It's kinda funny if he sits up in bed, His dad can remind him to lay back down, probably freaks the poor boy out wondering "How did dad know I was trying to get up?"

Another friend of mine used a wireless baby cam from geeks.com, and I'd have to say the reception on that was not so good.

 

[beelzerob]

BTW, in case you need the info, Supercircuits has great "line level" microphones for ten bucks (Ski, electron, and I use them).

BRS, I forget (I probably asked before)....those mic's, do you just run 2c wire and connect it to the mic on one end, and to a microphone jack on the other end, so it's like a normal (though very long) microphone?

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Those SuperCircuits microphones require 12 volt power and they are line level output (so it's either three or four wires depending if they share the ground). I just used existing Cat5e runs with no problems. I feed it into my SlingBox so I have audio with my security cameras.

 

[beelzerob]

Soo...if I wanted to feed this input into, say, a PC...I'd need some kind of 12v source that would hook into the microphone somehow?

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Soo...if I wanted to feed this input into, say, a PC...I'd need some kind of 12v source that would hook into the microphone somehow?

Yes, you can use a 12 volt wall wart (two wires to the wall wart, two wires to the jack for the PC card). Just be carefull that whatever you are plugging into isn't expecting a pre-amp level input.

 

[Helheim]

I use a Panasonic WV-CP484 and Louroe Mic then modulate that onto a TV channel so I can watch it on any TV.
http://my.webpix.ca/ha/progress/temp+005.j...ageViewsIndex=1
http://my.webpix.ca/ha/progress/temp+006.j...ageViewsIndex=1

 

[beelzerob]

Yes, you can use a 12 volt wall wart (two wires to the wall wart, two wires to the jack for the PC card). Just be carefull that whatever you are plugging into isn't expecting a pre-amp level input.

*sigh* I think this is usually the point where I decide to forget about it... Why can't anything ever be simple??

 

[tmbrown97]

not to hijack the original thread - but this is one I have an interest in as well... we actually just had our first baby nearly 2 weeks ago, and I've been wanting to do something like what Zimmer mentioned - using PIP and/or an extra LCD monitor/tv and a wired color low-light camera that I can split out to a couple different TV inputs, including possible a DVR so I can see on-line. In the bedroom, I'd be able to put on the audio my wife sleeps to on the little picture (since nobody's watching), and put the baby's room on the screen for us to look at... with the ability to flip the audio if we want to hear her.

I don't want to spend a fortune though - I have the tv's and monitors - so I need to find a camera - I'm thinking like one of the bullet cameras I can wall-mount to the wall, pointing into the crib. Since I have about a month or two before she moves out of the bedroom into her crib, that's about my timeline.

What I'm finding is that there's a sea of camera and DVR products - and while I don't want to spend $3K on the solution, I want something that's going to work, and work well. I also want to expand the solution in the future for outdoor video, so any DVR I buy needs to be an 8 or more channel with internet monitoring. Cabling anywhere in the house is really not much of an issue - it's all in getting the good cost and quality of equipment.

Anyone got good suggestions of cameras that would work well in these situations, and examples of their image quality? I'm trying not to get into comparing lux, ccd size, etc - that could be a huge project in itself it seems - I'd really like to compare models people have had good experience with.