

Ask HN: Idea about alarm and security - csomar

I have a client asking me about alarm and cameras to control his offices remotely.<p>My Client is looking for a way to see what's happening in his offices using cameras.<p>I have no idea about this field, but I'm good at Windows 2003 Server and networks.<p>Do any one knows anything about it? is it easy to do it?<p>Simply said: Shall I accept the job and go for it? Is it simple to do by anyone (like installing an application in 2003 server and running it) or something more complicated that needs special engineers.<p>Thanks!
======
bdmac97
Video/cameras is pretty easy these days since there are a variety of wireless,
networked cameras that provide their own web access so you can view them
anywhere in the world.

It's been awhile since I was researching alarm integration but form what I
remember it did not sound trivial. There are modules that you run your alarm
system through that then connect to a control server via serial connections
(although may be updated now?). Here's a pretty good forum for researching
that kind of stuff: <http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=162>

------
RobGR
I advise looking into setting up zoneminder. You can get it from
<http://www.zoneminder.com/> . It is a free linux program, it will integrate
pictures from a variety of cameras and save them in a searchable way via a web
interface. You can make it trigger on motion, and only save those shots, and
it will make little avi movies out of sequential stills from an ordinary still
camera.

In my experimentation, I found that ethernet based "web cams" worked best for
my application. I used the cheap Airlink brand sold at Fry's. The quality is
not good, but good enough to see who is in a room. If you need to read license
plates in a parking lot they will not be good enough.

I believe a decent small business could be made simply building and installing
zoneminder boxes. I tried to get set up to do that but never really got that
first customer.

Another business opportunity is in higher quality cameras for zoneminder and
similar applications. Security cameras are really 15 years behind in picture
quality, and to get decent quality you pay thousands of dollars. I tried to
use one of the common consumer cameras, via the control-by-USB mode, as a
security camera, but the control by USB mode is buggy and unreliable on most
of those cameras.

If you made a simple ethernet camera like the Airlink 101 sold at Fry's, but
had auto-focus, at least 3 megapixels, auto-correction for low light, I think
they would sell well.

