Your Computer Network Solution
Deploying a Webcam for Site Monitoring

Recently we had the need to help a client with an interesting project. They had a new job site in California and wanted to look in and observe construction progress. As with many projects of this nature, budgets were tight and they did not have technical resources available in the remote location. Other than having an administrative office with wireless Internet access, no other resources were available.

After reviewing their requirements and budget, we evaluated product offerings from several of our key vendors. We chose a very nice product from Cisco/Linksys that seemed to fit their needs. Primary considerations were:

• Plug and play (drop-ship preconfigured with minimal post installation configuration).
• Cost. Total budget for this project was approximately $500.00.
• Video quality. Must be clear enough to see what is going on.
• Ease of use and access.
• Reasonably secure.

We selected a web camera that provided full motion video at a resolution of 640x480. This is a reasonable resolution for the price. Cisco and others have products that go higher, but not at this price point. This unit also has wireless G capabilities that allowed the end user to simply plug it in and go.

Configuration is straight forward as well. The unit has a standard Ethernet port so you simply plug it into your network and point your web browser to it and configure networking and wireless parameters. The web utility includes a simple user database that provides for reasonable access security allowing authorized users to view the camera and administrators to configure it.

We set it up in our offices and tested it for a few days. Very easy to quickly get a basic web camera deployed.

There are several advanced features included in this product should you choose to take advantage of them. A simple microphone is included allowing sound transmission if desired. (we did not enable this feature). More interesting are some of the video streaming capabilities that allow live video feeds to your Blackberry or Windows Mobile device. The unit also has capabilities to perform basic motion detection and image capturing. You could configure this device to monitor a room (or data center) and send you e-mail with picture or video clips should motion be detected.

While we did not have the opportunity to fully investigate these advanced features, we plan on incorporating this into our new security system we recently deployed at ICS Support. (Stay tuned for more details on that project.)

If you have any questions on this project or would like assistance setting one up in your organization, call Chris Faist, Integrated Computer Systems Support, at 425-284-5410.