I've used icam for many years - but only on PC's around the house and viewing them on an iphone. I'm getting a big 21" hp slate tablet (android) to display digital sheet music (sits on piano). It has a webcam built in so it would also double as a great security cam at night, it only has1 gig ram so I'm hoping that may be enough as it won't be used for both purposes at once.
My question is do I just load the android version of icam onto it, make sure the ports are ok at the router and then hopefully it should appear as the 3rd cam on my iphone? A basic question I know but i'm not used to using tablets as cams so any help/pointers are apreciated.
thanks all, yeah i've gone down the audio alarm route to augment my setup, just a couple of cheapish ones on the back of a door and inside somewhere else. It is dissorientating to get this sound - esp if your a stranger in a strange place, your not going to hang around for long even if the sound ceases as someone could be on their way imminently (me!). Also having a couple of different systems in place (whatever they are) is always great insurance in case one doesn't perform it's highly likely the other one will. Peace of mind or as close as your ever going to get probably - short of getting/training a dog!
I've used icam for about 6 years+ with the odd false alarm but not last week, it shouted at 1.30 in the morning and I dealt with the matter promptly!. All i've got in my (dark) locked workshop is a cheap £10 PIR security light and a logitech webcampro, the light illuminates anyone who can get in and that triggers icam, giving me me plenty of well lit shots while telling me that somethings going on downstairs.
On another matter is anyone here using night vision or infra red senstive cams with icam as this would be great for the wider picture outside a dark premises?. Any input on that would be apreciated.
hi again, nice to hear from you, you've helped me so much in the past on here. That's a good point about not using HD cams, i use logitech 900's so if I do go to 4 cams soon it would make sense to go for low res and low frame rate in regard to CPU use. thanks for that.
@rgvt
wow that's a wealth of info, many thanks, you echo some of the above in regard to frame rate and ip cams. I won't reference anything in particular you've set out as there is so much there to get info from, thanks again.
that's a real help guys to me and anyone else whose interested. Cheers. Sean J
I've used icam for many years and love it, I have it looking after a workshop and my home when necessary. I run it on XP on two 3GHZ dual core PC's, both with 2gig ram. I came to the conclusion long ago that 2 cams on a single machine was my limit before any freezes or other probs started to creep in (for whatever reason). Currently I'm running 1 webcam per machine to ensure no blips but was thinking of upgrading to a more powerful PC to host (hopefully) 4 cams, so I wondered if anyone here runs 4 cams without many niggles?
If anyone is running 4 on a dedicated PC i'd be interested to know what spec PC copes with this OK.
Hi, have been using icam for 3+ years now as security for my workshop/shed and I love the program. I use it with the iphone both locally and remotely but was wondering if I got an android phone (no contract, not on any cellphone network) would I be able to have it as a device on my home wireless network just for audible icam alerts or would it need to be in contract with a service provider to function like this?
Reason i ask is i always go to sleep using my earphones on my normal phone so the chances of me hearing an alert on it would be zero, whereas some old android would make a better home audio alerter for my home, hope that's clear!
Hi, i've been using icam for a couple of years now, love the program - my question is: my boss has asked me to install it on his showroom computers (at his shop) and also at his home. I run all my own cams in my home (on the same network) so would i be right in thinking that as long as each of his comps is set up with icam source running and using the same username/passwords that this should work? I'm clear that port forwarding on both routers would have to be in place - but I guess that numerous computers could be setup as they all funnel through the icam server?
Can anyone tell me if i'm on the right track here before i wade in to this please ?
Hi, i used to extend for 20 metres using a usb to cat 5 converter, (20 metres of cat 5 ethernet cable), the results were patchy at best, gave it up in the end and moved over to usb repeater extension cables, you can pick up a 20 metre one for £20, 30 metres seems to be double that price, anyway, works great, and my'n are outdoors effectively. IMO icam is a great prog, but if you start adding in any coverter the reliability factor can lessen greatly.
yeah VNC is little beast! I use tightvnc ( i think its a minimal cpu drain version) I use use my oldest computer (without CD drive, keyboard, mouse or monitor) just a webcam and a usb network stick plugged into the box - slaving it as a camera station, I can log into it from any machine with a file on my memory stick. Has been working a treat in my loftspace (looking over front of house) using this 'server' setup for a while now, great stuff. Love this prog
Hi Antony, thanks for your input on this matter, it was something I though i had down until adding a 2nd comp. Since writing that post I have discovered that my router software (Tomato) has uPNP'd the ports (as auto configured by icamsource) there was a page in my router software displaying this which I was never aware of .
Nyway, as you outline, manual port forwarding does sound like the way to go in relation to any possible hacks if they were to occur. What puzzled me is why portchecker.net reads all these 'open' ports (12000-12003) as blocked - when they clearly are not - as the router has been tasked to forward them by icamsource.
My attempt at manual port forwarding (not using auto configure) was patchy so your range advice is welcomed. If i've understood properly you'd reccomend giving each cam a range of about 7 ports - so on pc1 running 3 cams it could be '12000-12021' and pc2 (running 1 cam) could just be '12022-12029' (with no autoconfigure in use) and this should suffice?
As i said though, all is working fine currently so i will attempt a manual port forward sometime soon, thanks as usual for your help, much apreciated.
I'm running two computers, 3 cams on computer 1 and a single cam on computer 2 ( both running xp with latest icam software). The thing is i did some group port forwarding on my router for each computer (forwarding 12000-12100 for each ip address). I could see that icam auto configure had chosen ports 12002 & 12003 (respectively on each computer) but with my port forwarding enabled in the router (udp) I was getting irregular results -with one comp or the other showing it's cams. To cut a long story short I turned off the port forwarding in the router and all 4 cams come online together - both locally on my wifi and the internet - Success!!
I checked all my ports on portforward.net and it says they are blocked, but they obviously are working, to recap portforward says they are blocked when i forward them in my router and when they are turned off -but i cam is happily serving pictures locally and on the net with it's auto configuration saying its using 12002 & 12003?
I'm happy i've got a working setup but it doesn't figure when I test it. Just to be sure I tested another port that should be open for another file share prog and it shows as open (as it should). Anyone make sense of this or experience it themselves out there?
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