Author Topic: iCam caught burglar in my store + Feature request  (Read 2422 times)

richpenny

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iCam caught burglar in my store + Feature request
« on: March 29, 2011, 08:21:14 PM »
So I posted this as a review in the app store when it happened last month, but I figured I should post here in the forum as well.  So about a month ago I was laying in bed at 1:30am playing an iPhone game.  Then my iCam push alert pops up.  I actually ignored it about 30secs to finish my game level b/c I do get a lot of false positive alarms (sunlight, car headlight reflections through my storefront window).  But then I closed my game and opened my app and was greeted w/ the audio of my store burglar alarm sounding and a webcam view of my door wide open.  I grabbed my fiance's phone and called 911.  As I was talking to the 911 lady I see the thief walk out my front door holding my LCD waiting room TV.  I was able to give a description to them and since the police station is only 3 blocks away from my office, they got there right away and found the thief in an alleyway.  He had ditched the TV behind a dumpster and was trying to deny it but I had given them a description of his clothes and I had the saved image files as proof.  So he confessed and told them where the tv was stashed.  Apparently he was a professional thief who was able to pick my lock.  From the recorded images, we know that he was in and out in 1:30 minutes flat.  In that time he was able to get in, rip the tv off the wall (mount and all) and walk out...amazing.  You want to hear the kicker?  My professional alarm didn't even alert the police!  The alarm blasted off but the alert was never sent to the monitoring station so that they could call the police.  Later they told me that they had done a reset of the system earlier that day and it must have caused a glitch in the system where my alarm didn't get sent to them.  I'm in talks with them right now to get some recourse for it not working.  So if it wasn't for iCam, I would have been screwed.  So iCam seriously saved my butt.  The guy is in jail (I have to go to another hearing soon) and I recovered my TV (it's all scratched up but it still works, sort of).  I seriously love iCam and have been telling all my friends about it. 

So here's my feature request:  I get a lot of false positives (as I'm sure a lot of ppl do).  Especially sunlight reflecting on the wall.  I've learned to ignore the push motion alerts during the day when I'm not in the office (I don't think anyone is going to break in during the day when my store is on a busy street).  But only rarely have I gotten an alert at night (just the actual robbery and the very rare car headlight that gets reflected in a strange way).  If I wasn't awake at the time of the break-in, there's no way I would have awoken from the default push notification sound.  There should be some customization to the alert available.  If I want the alert to be able to wake me up, I should be able to set it to a louder alarm/ringtone so that it would be able to wake me up.  And if it wakes me up to a false alarm, it's ok b/c I'm willing to accept that occasional annoyance for peace of mind.  I don't want to have to open the app and set it to this option every night when I go to sleep.  It would be better if there was a schedule of some type where I can set it to a loud alarm for a certain time period and have it as the regular alert for the rest of the time.  It seems to me that this would be a feature that a lot of users would like.  It would definitely allow me to sleep better at night.  And thanks again iCam!!!!

Stefan

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Re: iCam caught burglar in my store + Feature request
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2011, 10:09:47 PM »
Thank you for your post, and I am glad to hear that iCam helped you apprehend the thief and put him behind bars!  ;D

Also thank you for your great feature request. I'll add that to our "todo" list for a future version. :)

sffan

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Re: iCam caught burglar in my store + Feature request
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2011, 08:55:57 AM »
Great Story!  Congratulations.

Yes - another vote for a louder and repeatable alert sound. When I actually can hear the current sound, I usually think "Did I just hear something?"


SeanJ

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Re: iCam caught burglar in my store + Feature request
« Reply #3 on: March 30, 2011, 11:40:07 AM »
yeah, another vote here too for an audible alarm (while asleep). I've got an app on my iphone from my last webcam setup that allows you to configure alerts of all types and volumes, but it is email based.  It really is the only thing that concerns me in this otherwise top little program.

Sean