If you simply want a backup camera, I think you'd be better off purchasing a kit. I'm pretty sure they sell those now. It would add the convenience of automatically being visible when you turn the car on...as opposed to having to get your phone out, open iCam, and then hold your phone while you back up. By this point, you're probably doing more damage than good...both safety and time-wise. If you were REALLY set on doing this with iCam or some similar app, your setup would be ridiculous...you'd need:
- a power inverter (with enough output to power the next items)
- a router that has an ability to use a USB 3g adapter
- a computer
- a camera (webcam makes more sense...smaller, doesn't require additional power, etc)
But all of that stuff has to be powered on and connected in order from this system to possibly work. So you might sit in your car for several minutes before you can even connect to it. haha To top it off, it won't even work if you lose 3g coverage.
If you really wanted to pursue a system like this (as opposed to the backup camera kits), it'd be better to do one of the following:
1) mount a laptop in your car and use a USB extender cable to connect to a USB webcam that you have looking down and out of the back window. Then view the camera via the laptop's monitor. But again, this takes some time because the computer would have to be turned on. And having a laptop visible? Hello thieves.
2) Use IPcam (also from SKJM) to turn an old iPhone (with a SIM card) into an IP camera. Then you could view the camera on the old iPhone through a different IP camera viewer app than iCam (which requires that a computer running icamsource be feeding the video to iCam).
If you have a very specific need only at your house, you could station cameras with a view of the areas that you need help seeing...connect those to your wireless network (or wired) and view those from your phone, which will also be on the home network for the fastest image updates. Whatever you do (short of the purpose-made backup camera kits), there will be a delay in your video vs. what's actually happening...so keep that in mind so you don't back off of a cliff or something. haha I like the challenge...sounds like fun. Good luck!
