By Tan Chong Yaw

BUSY treasury executive L.K. Chew calls home three to four times a day.

However, the mother of two primary school children does not speak to a single person in her calls.

Instead, the calls activate a surveillance camera at home so that she can look in on her children and maid using her mobile phone.

"I sometimes catch my children playing video games when they are supposed to be studying," says the 46-year-old with a laugh.

L.K. uses SingTel's Mobile LIVECam, a 3G phone-based video surveillance service.

The ease of use and falling prices of spy gadgets and surveillance services are winning fans, especially those who want to keep an eye on young children, aged parents and domestic helpers at home.

"I have peace of mind, knowing that I can see what is going on at home whenever I want," she says.

Even infrequent users can be won over.

"Like someone who wants to take an occasional peek at his pet goldfish," quips Varun Arora, chief executive officer of HomeCamera, a free Internet-based video surveillance service.

Surveillance tech uses either PCs (like IP cameras) or phone networks (like 3G cameras).

Inside a 3G camera beats the heart of mobile phone complete with a SIM card. Like a mobile phone with its own phone number, it stands ready until someone calls it.

Once the call is connected, the camera begins recording and sends the video stream to the caller's phone.

Both M1 and SingTel offer such a service. First off the block in October 2007 was SingTel's Mobile LIVECam. M1 launched its MobileCam in December last year.

Both telcos offer the same camera - a 0.3-megapixel shooter with a built-in battery.

The gizmo has no wires attached and can be placed anywhere, for instance, the top of a shelf or cupboard.

The downside of such a service is that access is only through the phone via a video call.

Usage costs

Both telcos charge video calls as they do voice calls, although video consumes more bandwidth than voice. However, once you have used up your free talk time, the video call rate kicks in. It is 16.05 cents a minute for both telcos.

L.K.'s phone bill has gone up by $30 a month since she began using the service in April. With an IP camera, there are no usage costs.

However, the installation of an IP camera, a video-recording device that is recognised by computers on a network, can cause even a geek grief (see story on pages 10 and 11).

StarHub saves you the bother - you must be a MaxOnline subscriber - by despatching its techies, dubbed Hub Troopers, to your house. They will deal with all the installation issues for a price (see sidebar).

Besides a wireless IP camera, a tutorial on how to use the service is thrown in. Access to the camera is via the Internet.

HomeCamera offers another headache-free way. The company's free software, which you can download from homecamera.com, transforms an existing webcam into a surveillance device.

"It took less than 10 minutes to set up and did not cost me a cent," says Michelle Poh, a design engineer in her 40s. She uses two standalone webcams as well as her laptop's built-in webcam.

The smarts are in the software and the website. Once motion - possibly an intruder - is detected, you will be alerted via an e-mail.

The catch is that the camera needs to be wired to an Internet-linked PC that must be kept on. Also, the service does not support live video streaming until next year.

It was only in the past four years that advances in cellphone, wireless and network technologies started being used in surveillance tech, observes Ken Lee, 42, KZTech's sales and marketing manager, who has been in the video surveillance business for two decades.

"A single camera setup would have cost $2,000 to $3,000 in 2000," Ken recalls. "Remote access then was via a dial-up modem."

While surveillance tech is now available as simple, off-the-shelf items like 3G cams, there are more sophisticated - and costlier - services.

Companies like KZTech provide services that can stream live video feeds from up to 16 cameras in different locations anywhere in the world to a laptop or a cellphone.

Motion detection can also be made smarter. Using artificial intelligence to analyse live video, an alert will be sent only when a person is caught on camera.

"Cats and dogs will be ignored," says Ken.

cytan@sph.com.sg

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

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