Members of the ISP-Colo list discuss using online cameras to watch the front door of a very important colocation center. If you're buying steel doors, set up a camera too.

[June 17, 2002]

On the ISP-Colo list in May, RK inquired,

"I am trying to find a device that will monitor the main door to our colo center so that when the door opens, an e-mail gets sent to support to cue them to check out the area with our Axis-Cam. Any advice?"

TC said an Axis-Cam should suffice:

"On our Axis-Cam, if a contact is opened or closed, you can have it generate an e-mail and a picture and send it to you. Check your manual."

Others suggested some alternate methods:

[AI offered] "It shouldn't be too hard to add a cheap motion detector that sends an e-mail-or just have it save a one-minute movie clip-whenever motion is detected."

[RC added] "You can also do software-based motion detection. The software I've seen lets you define inclusion and exclusion zones so that a non-static part of the picture can be excluded from motion detection and a more 'interesting' part of the picture can be given more sensitive settings."

Still others turned to an all-too-familiar option:

[JM advised] "X10.com should have something that would easily do this."

[PC countered] "X10 tends to be pretty Windows-oriented. If you want a flexible, customizable solution, they're probably not the way to go. That said, I really like the look of their RCA-to-USB camera interface, but I have no idea if the data it spits out via USB is in a proprietary format."

[WW observed] "There are actually plenty of Linux/UNIX tools for controlling X10 devices and receiving signals from X10 systems. There's even a whole set of Perl modules for integrating X10 support into your own applications. You don't have to use X10's software for the video capture: the receiver that actually receives the signals from the X10 cameras will plug into any video capture card."

—End