I am a currently in my final year of a product design course. I am looking at developing a spy hole camera system which would be mounted to your door with a small screen attached on the inside. From what I have seen similar systems exist but most are expensive, temperamental and generally require a pc to record video or if not, even further expense in the form of a DVR.
I would like to develop a complete, reasonably priced system that would be easy to install and use. The camera would be activated by motion sensors and the signal sent both to the display on the inside of the door as well as a DVR for recording. This would be accessible by both your TV as well as operating in the same way as a USB drive would on your computer.

I would be interested to find out other people onions as to whether :
• A market/need for this system exists
• The screen mounted on the inside of the door would be a worthwhile feature

Any other comments especially from owners of existing systems would be greatly appreciated
Dale

Dales - I think there is a market for such a device. And having a screen at the door would be an added bonus. Children not tall enough to see the peep-hole, but who are at home alone, would be able to see if someone at the door is a stranger, a friend, or the friendly neighborhood postman. There are peep-hole lense cameras on the market already. They are not expensive, and hook up to a monitor or DVR, but have no built in screen.

I'd say your market for this product would be more apartment renters rather than home owners. The camera install would have to be the diameter of standard peep-holes, as to allow for installation of the original peep-hole upon lease ending, without any damage to the door. Frankly, I have considered getting a peep-hole camera several times, but it just hasn't popped up as a high enough priority yet.

While some home owners would buy it if cheap enough and marketed correctly, I'd fatham that they would take advantage of the built in screen. Anyone who would hook it up to a DVR likely will have an outside camera already observing the door.

These are my opinions.

Your product will not have to use any motion detectors. The built in DVR will do the "motion detection" for you. It will watch the pixels of the video to see if there are any changes. If there are changes to the pixels in the video then it would record to the internal storage device, (SD card?).

I would have a higher end model that would have wireless 802.11X, and have it send a snapshot to a web enabled cell phone. This would be great for latch key kids when they come home, or you are waiting for a package from UPS/FEDEX/USPOSTOFFICE. You could watch the door from any computer in the house! Having different models would allow you to have a barebones system, or one that can modified for each situation, or environment.

This would be popular with the women who deal with "crazy" exboyfriends, or ex husbands, or any "threatening" situation that they have to deal with.

Provide a very long cord on the external power supply so that it can go from the door to an electrical socket near by.

The product can mount on the inside of the door with just two (or four) screws, and then on the outside of the door you can insert the lens through the original peephole hole, and it can attach to the "DVR".

You could also do a powerline system. You can take the video, and put it through the powerline, and you can put the "DVR" somewhere else. The DVR will receive the video from the powerline. From there you can decide if it hooks up to the internet.

On the outside camera I would have IR leds to illuminate the person standing at the door at night, or for dark areas, such as apt doors that are in corridors.

Perhaps a built in door bell feature with a remote sounder. These are very popular for retro fits where there is no doorbell wiring.

Having the LCD on the door is a great idea. How about having extra features such as a wireless lcd screen that you can carry with you. Perhaps you are in another room, and you here the doorbell (that is part of the hand held device with the LCD screen). You could hear the doorbell, look at the screen, and you could talk to them via the wireless hand held device.

To make more money you could have wireless motion detectors that can sound an alert. If you do this make the system to accept two detectors with changeable tones. One for the front (primary), and one for the back (or secondary) door. These are used by home businesses. It gives you a few extra seconds to "clean up, or prepare for the next client" prior to them ringing your door bell. Mounting the motion detectors in the driveway is a good place to "catch" your customers early.

How about a recording feature. This way if you are not home someone can leave you a message. "Sorry you were not home, please call me at..."

Now you have a entry level product for quick sale, and you have a "residual" income as people add/upgrade their systems, or you can make the best money with the deluxe model/package.

What do you think?

As far as storage was concerned I was a little unsure about using an SD card within the door mounted device, my only reason being should the property be broken into it would be easy for the intruder to find the surveillance videos. What do you think?

I like the flash memory suggestion as I think it is cheap and widely accessible but am considering having it stored on an external drive accessed via wireless link to avoid the above issue. I do however like the idea of being able to view the recorded videos on the same screen attached to the door which would then require a 2 way link between the external drive and door unit, both to record and access stored clips eliminating the need for an extra pc/tv to use the system.
The external drive could also be used to provide a pc/tv link should users desire it allowing them to see who’s at there door from the comfort of their sofa.

Initially I liked the idea of a powerline system, it something I was not aware of, however, if two houses are running on the same phase, would it not be possible for both to few the broadcast video?

Another feature I like the idea of is providing an internet link to the camera and a microphone and speaker. Say a delivery turns up at home when you’re at work, when the camera picks up the visitor and window pops up on your computer giving you the possibility to talk to the post/delivery man from your work computer.

The recording feature is something I had previously thought of, although I was a bit unsure about whether or not it would get used with mobile phones providing the majority of messaging services.

I also like the idea of making the system upgradeable, having one central hub to control a variety of features all accessible/controllable from one place.

The first thing to determine is how much your customers are willing to spend on a device.

The second is how many devices will you manufacture. This would determine cost versed gross profit.




This could be a way for a thief to believe that he has "taken" the evidence which would prevent him from smashing the device to eliminate the evidence. Using 802.X you can still transfer the images to a computer/media center.

I would not want this kind of a system set up on a computer that someone can buy at walmart for $300.00, and they are surfing the net wide open, and they are clicking on every "would like to enhance your web browsing experience?". Then they go to every free music download, and they install every P2P, and then they go to every free video game site there is!

Oh Boy! That would be a disaster!

I would recommend a dedicated device. Whether you use Linux, or MS is your choice. Perhaps you can install it on a flash, and make it an embedded system.

The more we add to the system the more it will cost.

I would like to see a very simple stand alone device that is very cheap for quick sell in a shop.

I sell alot of these "security products" from Petra, and other sources, and they retail less $20.00 for some items, and less than $40.00 for other items.

Other wise everyone would just bolt a DVR to the front door for the cost in that neighborhood.
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With an internal flash drive someone could check the video as soon as they walked through the door with out having to wait for a command to be sent to a "device" then wait for the video to be transferred to the door station, then wait for it to load, and then play. OK! I was exaggerating! Sorry! I think you understand what I am saying though. The flash could be just large enough to catch one days worth of video, and the stand alone device could store the video/images for one week.

Using analog video would be the quickest way to get the video directly from a "stand alone device" to the door station, but then there is the lack of security, but then at 100 milliwatts how far is that signal going to go?

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The signal may stop at the first transformer, but I am not sure. Yes your next door neighbor would have access to the video if they were on the same transformer. If the signal goes beyond the transformer then the whole neighborhood would have access. There is a lot of noise on power lines. CD players, and recievers, and TVs dump a lot of noise out of their electronics, and back in to the powerline. The system would have to have built in filters. You could use coding like they use for cordless phones, and use multi freqs. I do not know if the FCC has any authority over powerline transmissions, but it would not surprise me.

Encryption, should solve this problem. You may want to provide with the sales kit a device that is installed in the electrical box that lets the signal transfer to the other phase in case devices are on opposite phases. For a do it yourself situation you are better off putting it in a shape that goes between the dryer plug, and the dryer's wall socket. Now you have eliminated the shock liablility of someone opening their electrical box on their own!

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This would be very popular with people who own restaraunts. They get bread, meat, and other food staples delivered very early in the morning.

Subs shops alone should pay for the production cost, and all other sales would be pure gravey!

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This would make the alarm company's very happy if you were selling through this distribution chain!

Have you done a competitive analysis? There are already several "door bell video intercom systems" on the market. Take alook at their features, and compare them to what has been suggested here.

Asking the pros for their opinion is asking for trouble. If you build what we want no consumer will be able to afford it and we can do it manually better and cheaper now.

Some of the things I would want:

Decent lens prefferably with vari-focal auto iris support, no pinhole junk.
BW or ICR option
WDR option
Solar cell on the outside half
Wifi connection
MJPEG/MPEG4 streaming

Totally wireless and fully functional.


Now you see.

Of course the components aren't really available for all that right now.

Because I can wire a decent bullet camera through the door to an LCD for ~$350 right now.

What became of this project??