Lots of people have been setting up their own home-based security systems lately, especially with all of the complete lack of human respect that we’ve been seeing on the streets of America, in cities all across our great nation.
When I lived here in Oklahoma City once before, a group of unsupervised neighborhood kids knifed two sets of tires on my car — I ended up taking a webcam and a desktop tower and basically doing a second-by-second snap of the “crime scene” and assembling them into a stop-motion movie each day. I never did catch the little shits, and they cost me a whole bunch of money. Having some video that turned on any time someone triggered the motion detection would have been a pretty handy little thing!
Instructables user olivi3r, residing in Mexico City, has created a how-to on turning a regular ol’ webcam into a motion-detecting, email alerting ninja system using some software called iSpy. The software is open source and free — there is a small monthly fee if you’re looking to get email alerts when it detects some motion.
I absolutely love the DIY way.
Check it out:
iSpy Connect – open source, free software:
https://www.ispyconnect.com/
Olivi3r’s Instructable on turning your webcam into a motion cam system:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Webcam-to-Security-Cam-movement-Detection-Email-Al/
Check out Olivi3r’s other Instructables:
http://www.instructables.com/member/olivi3r/