Point your camera at your NAS server to store large volumes of recordings. They'll include some sort of zooming capability - low-resolution digital zoom on low-end units, and optical zoom on the high-end devices - as well as motion detection, a built-in memory card, the ability to broadcast audio as well as video and the ability to store video on a network-attached storage (NAS) server. While cameras vary in terms of resolution, most have a relatively consistent baseline of functionality. Whether by Wi-Fi or using a fixed network cable, this router is going to provide the conduit to link you with your camera or cameras. Setting up such a device is straightforward, and we'll assume here that whether you have a fixed or mobile-broadband connection, you have a router of some sort that is connected to the internet. If you're keen to set up your cameras in a location that's far from the router providing your fixed connection - for example, in a warehouse where broadband isn't installed - you may want to consider a wireless broadband router, like Netgear's 3G+ Mobile Broadband Wireless-N Router (MBRN3000), which takes a standard mobile-broadband dongle and sets up a wireless hotspot that routes all traffic over your mobile-broadband connection.
Routers intelligently direct traffic between devices in your home and the big, bad internet. Materialsįor the purposes of this exercise, we're going to assume that you are connected to the internet using an ADSL or cable modem that also acts as a network router. For good measure, we decided to install a camera in front of the house too. While getting ready to go away for a short trip recently, we decided to set up some cameras to keep tabs on the family dog, who was going to have the backyard all to himself for the duration (no need to call the RSCPA - family were going to come by to visit, feed and pamper him). But once you start wanting more options, things can get more complicated you'll need to have a good sense of how to manage IP addresses for your various devices. But how do you actually get it to work? Techniques for getting devices online tend to work sometimes, but fail spectacularly just as often.