Using iCam and ipCam together

[bjorn.syse]

Hi,

I would like to use iCam on my iPad to watch the stream from ipCam running on my iPhone. Have I understood it right if I need iCamSource running on some computer somewhere to solve that?

Very annoying if so. Why can't ipCam connect to iCam directly?

Best regards

-Björn

[SKJM Support]

ipCam allows your camera enabled iPad to function like a network IP camera. ipCam therefore needs to be connected to a computer running iCamSource just like any other WiFi network IP camera.

More information about ipCam can be found here: http://skjm.com/ipcam/

[bjorn.syse]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer. I still don't see why the iCamSource functionality couldn't be built into ipCam?

That would seriously improve that product by removing one device from the chain, don't you think?

Best regards

Björn

[SKJM Support]

The functionality of iCamSource built into ipCam has been requested in the past and is currently on our list of potential features to implement in the future. Unfortunately, we do not have any immediate plans to develop that feature.

[pietzcker]

I would like to add my voice to the list of users who request this feature.

I would imagine the perfect setup to look something like the following:

One (or perhaps more) old iPhones/Android phones are set up as cameras with motion detection, covering the relevant room(s) in our house while we're away. They are connected to the internet via WiFi, using our normal router.

Now, if there is any activity, the camera phone sends a push notification to my iPhone (where iCam is running), allowing me to check the video feed and alert the police if necessary.

Assuming I did have an extra PC to run iCamSource on, I could of course achieve this functionality. But (and here's the clincher) if the burglars cut the power to our house before breaking in (as has been happening more and more lately from what I'm reading), then of course our router wouldn't work any more, so my computer running iCamSource wouldn't be able to send anything to anybody.

No such problem with an iPhone - if the WiFi cuts out, it'll just use the 3G network. And of course it's got a battery, so you can't cut the power off. At least not for a couple of hours which should be enough. (Also, of course, an iPhone will use a lot less power than a PC running 24/7)

All the other solutions I've seen fail when the power fails. A pure iPhone-to-iPhone solution would be independent of external power.

Perhaps that would be a different product, not just an extra feature for ipCam - fine by me. But I would really ask you to reconsider whether it wouldn't make a lot of sense to implement this functionality.

Thanks!

Best regards,
Tim

[Stefan]

I would like to add my voice to the list of users who request this feature.

I would imagine the perfect setup to look something like the following:

One (or perhaps more) old iPhones/Android phones are set up as cameras with motion detection, covering the relevant room(s) in our house while we're away. They are connected to the internet via WiFi, using our normal router.

Now, if there is any activity, the camera phone sends a push notification to my iPhone (where iCam is running), allowing me to check the video feed and alert the police if necessary.

Assuming I did have an extra PC to run iCamSource on, I could of course achieve this functionality. But (and here's the clincher) if the burglars cut the power to our house before breaking in (as has been happening more and more lately from what I'm reading), then of course our router wouldn't work any more, so my computer running iCamSource wouldn't be able to send anything to anybody.

No such problem with an iPhone - if the WiFi cuts out, it'll just use the 3G network. And of course it's got a battery, so you can't cut the power off. At least not for a couple of hours which should be enough. (Also, of course, an iPhone will use a lot less power than a PC running 24/7)

All the other solutions I've seen fail when the power fails. A pure iPhone-to-iPhone solution would be independent of external power.

Perhaps that would be a different product, not just an extra feature for ipCam - fine by me. But I would really ask you to reconsider whether it wouldn't make a lot of sense to implement this functionality.

Thanks!

Best regards,
Tim

First of all, thank you for the feedback.

It would seem like it would be a separate product, because there are a couple of networking issues that would be introduced on a pure iPhone-to-iPhone setup, especially when both were connected via 3G.

Essentially 3G connections aren't generally setup to easily allow incoming connections ... They're all NAT-ed by the wireless providers, so some other sort of connection setup would be required.

The other issue I could see with this is that I believe most users who have old / extra phones laying around likely don't have 3G data attached to them since they likely transferred their phone number and data plan to their newer phone.

But it is something to think about, and add to our list of potential functionality to explore in the future.

[pietzcker]

Hi Stefan,

thanks for the quick reply.

I didn't know about the difficulty connecting two phones over 3G directly. As for the missing 3G plans for old phones - you're probably right, although for example a 3G plan for my old phone costs only 2.5 Euros a month including a phone flatrate (only 5 MB data included, but since that only would matter during a break-in where the burglars have in fact cut the power to the router, I think the risk of running into expensive data rates is low and probably worth it).

Also, one could configure the app to only stream video if it's on a Wifi connection and send stills otherwise (or something like that).

Cheers,
tim