I See You

Continued from page 1

By Simson Garfinkel

March 5, 2003

I ran the video cable to a tiny 3-inch LCD monitor I picked up at the same time. Alas, once everything was set up, I was somewhat disappointed. In this house, unlike my previous one, I spend most of my time on the first floor-with easy access to the front door. I had the perfect solution-for a house I no longer lived in. It turns out that what I wanted at my new house is a way of looking at the video when I'm not there. I want a video camera that's on the 'Net.

Setting up a Web camera just a few years ago was quite a challenge. These days you can by a network camera that's completely pre-assembled: just plug in the power supply and the network connection.

Panasonic sells an amazing little all-in-one Web camera called the KX-HCM10. Priced around $480, the camera mounts on a wall and includes a built-in Web server. Click to its Web page and you can see what the camera sees, either a regularly refreshed JPEG image (like the early days of webcams) or full-motion video feed. Using the camera's built-in Web server, you can select a variety of resolutions. You can change the image quality, image size, and brightness. Best of all, you can move the camera up, down, left, and right. You can also attach a security sensor to the device in order to have the camera automatically take a photo when a door is opened or a motion detector is tripped, then have the photo sent by e-mail to a destination of your choice. The whole thing is a remarkable little feat of engineering, in a package roughly the size of five pieces of Wonder Bread with a tangerine on top.

Configuration involves plugging the camera into your network and then running an associated Windows-based configuration program. This program finds the camera on your local area network and lets you either assign an IP address or configure the camera to get an address using the Internet Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). You can also set up password-access and how much bandwidth the camera is allowed to consume-0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, or unlimited megabits per second.

Security is pretty simple as well: you need to be on the same local area network to configure the camera, and you can only configure it within 20 minutes after turning it on. The configuration program also allows you to enable Dynamic DNS and to purchase "a personal link" for the camera. That sounds like it might be useful for people who don't own their own name servers.

The camera isn't weatherproof in the least, so you'll need to put it in a special enclosure if you want to use it outdoors. On the other hand, it does come with two mounting brackets, an adjustable bracket made out of metal, and a molded plastic bracket designed for hanging the unit directly on a wall. So instead of putting the camera outside your front door looking in, I put the camera inside my front door, looking out through the glass. A weatherproof version should be available in June for $750.