I use mine occasionally for instant chat when the other party has a web cam. Rarely do I use it for taking a picture, and only once for recording a mini movie when I needed to email someone instructions on how to find a hidden key.

I’m curious how the motion eye can be used unattended. I don’t mean simply aiming it at your fish tank and integrating it with your website for others to remotely look at fish at 3am.

One idea is to set it to record continuously and hide it say under a blanket on the rear deck of a parked car. You could return later and see what transpired. Basically it’s a poor man’s way of not buying a video camera. Even better would be to access a nearby wifi and send the images real-time to a remote location.

What about a software program that uses the motion eye to scan for any significant visual or audio changes which would trigger a timed recording to start. That way you could leave the TR (lid closed and cam rotated up) sitting behind a remote window (don’t want it stolen) where it would work as a surveillance device. It could even send a message (perhaps with a short movie clip) to a cell phone or pager when it detected movement, provider the TR was on a wifi connection at the time. Using your TR at home it could tell you and show you when your cat came home for lack of a better purpose. Imagine walking in a park and having your cell phone alert you a new message came in. When you play the message a short video clip pops up showing your cat walking in the cat door carrying a live bird.

I know motion software exists as I was temporarily assigned to remove data packs from buses when they got hit with graffiti or other crimes. Those cameras started recording continuously whenever the bus was powered up or when someone tripped an onboard motion sensor while it was sitting overnight in the bus yard. The software I’m referring to was used to scan through an entire days worth of digital recordings by looking for changes in user selected areas of the image. That way someone didn’t have to spend hours fast forwarding through the data pack looking for a tagger, as the computer would do it for you. Maybe there’s a similar program that can be applied to regular web cams.

Anyone know of any available image detecting software or have any creative ideas for using the TR motion eye?

WOW, I just found this company selling the exact sort of program I was thinking of. They probably didn’t think of using it with a notebook and wifi since the TR is sort of a unique little package. Now off to download the trial version and give it a try.

any links?

oops… silly me :oops:

Here’s the link:

http://www.deskshare.com/wcm.aspx

[quote author=“Low Bat”]oops… silly me :oops:

Here’s the link:

http://www.deskshare.com/wcm.aspx

Looks cool. If it does what it says, it’s a good deal.

On setup it didn’t detect the internal microphone. Come to think of it this might be preferable as the microphone picks up the operational noise of the hard drive and would trigger false activations.

So far so good. I can set it to monitor, and when it picks up movement it starts recording. I’ve gotta read more to figure out how to send alerts to a cell phone.

[quote author=“Low Bat”]On setup it didn’t detect the internal microphone. Come to think of it this might be preferable as the microphone picks up the operational noise of the hard drive and would trigger false activations.

So far so good. I can set it to monitor, and when it picks up movement it starts recording. I’ve gotta read more to figure out how to send alerts to a cell phone.

They indicate limited functions on the trial version. Do they specify what they are? I couldn’t find any details on the site.

The trial version is limited to 30 minutes of monitoring, plus “buy now” windows tend to come up.

I got the “send to email” option to send an alert to my cell phone when motion is detected. If my cell phone supported pictures, I could also receive a jpeg image.

The potential is there to use your TR as a totally mobile detection/surveillance/recording/notification device. You’ll have to set the TR not to go on standby or hibernation for long monitoring periods.

Thanks. I’m thinking of desktop use for the product, but it would be fun to stick on the TR and play with. I just can’t think of many times I’d be comfortable leaving my TR unattended.

I know how you feel. Imagine getting a snapshot sent to your cell phone of some guy stealing your computer.  :ph34r: I suppose one could plug-in a cheap usb web cam and run the cable to the computer that’s locked in a secure place.

I can’t think of a lot of uses other then a giving your TR a cool feature. That alone makes me want to buy the full version of the software.

A couple of months ago there was a thread discussing the motion eye. There was some mention of how nice it would be to see if/who was at your TR when you stepped away. I don’t recall anything like this product being mentioned. I think we were stuck with the video screensaver and ordinary webcam applications. In another thread there was a discussion of using the webcam to read barcodes. It’s being done, but there’s no generic software for Windows.

Well I got the internal microphone going and it works well. You can adjust the sensitivity so the hard drive noise doesn’t set off an alarm. I also noticed a setting that prevents your computer from going into standby or hibernation while the web cam is monitoring. Somebody put some thought into making this program. Every enhancement I can think of is already in place. This sells for $50. Looking around I found a similar program for $70. This one seems to be better.

dbs, the use of the motion eye as a bar code reader is interesting. I’ll have to search for that thread.

I did find this software that enables you to view your web cam through a mobile phone.

http://www.softforall.com/Internet/Communications/EyeSpyFX_Mobile06030036.htm

... and found an acticle about recently developed software allowing the web cam to read ordinary barcodes.

http://www.dailynews.lk/2004/01/09/bus12.html

There are commercial products doing exactly that. The problem is they want to bundle it with their hardware and are really overpriced.

Back to the Deskshare program. How much overhead does it take? I’ve noticed that both the MotionEye and Microsoft Powertools Webcam apps are processor hogs.

I’m thinking about putting together a media server on my home network and this would be a nice touch.

It appears to be a hog too, especially when recording. You can download the 8mb trial version and see how your computer handles it.

I found the best unique use of the motion eye…this exact senario won’t work, but I am sure you can adapt…

Erik