[HH] the missing security camera revolution

[David Kramer]

On 04/14/2014 07:02 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
> I receive ads from 123securityproducts.com. They seem to be typical of
> sites selling security cameras, although I only rarely look at the other
> sites, as I haven't been actively shopping for equipment in this space
> for a few years.
>
> The vast majority of the products they advertise are still analog
> cameras, usually sold in multi-camera bundles, with a central DVR
> (running some buggy Linux firmware, often with no source code provided).
>
> The ad I received today was one of the rare few promoting an actual IP
> camera. It has better resolution than you typically see. Instead of
> merely VGA or QVGA, its a 2.43 MP sensor, with a fixed lens. (A 2000 x
> 1241 pixel sensor, outputting 1920 x 1080 using H.264 at 30 FPS.) It
> also supports Power-over-Ethernet, which is good, but they want over
> $300 for this:
>
> https://www.123securityproducts.com/knc-hdi47b37.html
>
> I get that pro-grade hardware carries a premium, but the capabilities of
> this camera are likely blown away by a sub-$50 Android smartphone, which
> likely comes with a 3 MP camera, plus has WiFi and GSM radios.

Not so minor nit: Show me a sub $50 Android smartphone.  And by that I
mean you buy the phone for sub-$50 and that's that.  No contract or
commitments. 
Or are you talking used?  Even there I think $50 might be a stretch. 
Maybe a tablet from China.  That would still have wifi.

> It seems easy to imagine how one could take a low-end smartphone SoC,
> combined with a high volume 5 MP camera module made for phones, and add
> a wired Ethernet port with PoE and some IR LEDS for night illumination,
> with production costs under $100, and a retail price of around $100.
> Replace Android with a very minimalist Linux or other open source RTOS
> optimized for reliability, and you'd have a great camera platform.

I don't know why you would go through all that work. Couldn't you write
an Android app that sent the camera to a stream over wifi without
hacking anything?