Who needs a baby monitor?

[Drezha]

We were gobmacked by the cost of baby monitors when we were looking. At the suggestion of one of my wife’s colleagues, who suggested dog cameras, we had a look around for alternatives.

A short while later, the purchase of a TP Link/Tapo Camera allowed us to set up a solution on the cheap. The Tapo supports RTSP, so we don’t need to use the app (I saw reviews that the app stops streaming after 5 minutes), other than to get the camera aimed correctly and can then view the stream in VLC. Quality is good as well.

Repurposing an old Kindle Fire that I bought years ago for writing a MM article, we’ve got that displaying the video and can also check on our tablets.

We can even connect to via the TV using the VLC app on Apple TV.

:good:

I guess only downside it that it requires wifi, so it means that taking it elsewhere at the minute would be a bit of a faff.

Assuming as it supports RTSP that I could set it up with Synology Survalliance Station, but haven’t tried that yet to be fair.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Dave Rice]

Yes you should be able to, not tried it personally. That opens up viewing from anywhere.

As for transportability, a TP-Link nano travel router or an old MiFi unit would do the job and be powered from a phone charger (I’m thinking about a local WiFi source rather than any internet access).

[keith with the teef]

I could do with a good web cam and microphone at the right price. We take it for granted that our smart phones do this and dont think twice. The emphasis is on mic though. Or cortana is a deaf head. Funny you would have thought that M$ would have sorted it it out when cortana say is its a MICK problem. :wacko: :yahoo:

[Dave Rice]

I’ve just got some Lenovo Essential FHD Webcams from E-Buyer at £45.

Yet to set them up but I chose them because they are 1080P, they have a privacy shutter, can be monitor or tripod mounted and the price is OK. Add to that the Lenovo name and they have very clean lines.

As a by-the-by both the Intel NUCs and the Asus PN50 have microphones specifically for talking to Cortana (and the like). Interesting, I can see some integration with Alexa or Google assistant and also softphones.

[Drezha]

Dave Rice wrote:

As for transportability, a TP-Link nano travel router or an old MiFi unit would do the job and be powered from a phone charger (I’m thinking about a local WiFi source rather than any internet access).

I have a travel router, so that could work. I guess if I set it at the same IP range and the same wifi SSID, it *should* auto connect and need no further messing around.

That webcam looks reasonable, as we’re doing daily meetings on Teams, so having that could improve matters over my Logitech. However, I think the internet speeds are the drawbacks, as the quality I get on Teams at the minute isn’t great! Download speeds this morning were 4Mbps on a 67Mbps line :negative: Virgin might be double the price, but I don’t think I’d ever had it drop that low.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Ed P]

If you had a spare Pi then you could have built your own that would even text you!

link

I would have used a Pi Noir (Night vision camera) and an IR light. If you did not have a spare pi a pi zero would have been perfectly adequate

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