![]() The millions of cameras around the world have not only provided the internet with a new genre of viral video, but fuelled the message boards of Neighbourhood Watch-style apps and groups. In the eight years since the Ring doorbell was invented (originally as Doorbot in 2013 its founder Jamie Siminoff appeared on Shark Tank, the American version of Dragons’ Den), it has evolved from a doorbell that replicates the “caller ID” on your phone into a self-installed global CCTV network. A friend of a friend has a clip of a man having a poo on his neighbour’s doorstep. Look on YouTube and you can find hours of footage captured by video doorbell cameras: attempted burglaries, package thefts, as well as some more bizarre episodes – weirdos, doorbell-lickers, even bears poking about (that was in California). They could link his face and his fingerprints to the burglaries around the corner. “Because we got a picture of the person’s face, and exactly where he put his hands on the door, they had his fingerprints. Luke, who is signed up to a Ring Protect plan (from £2.50 a month), which allows him to save footage captured by his doorbell, shared his with the police. They told him there had been a couple of burglaries in the neighbourhood. In the morning Luke contacted the police, who sent round a forensics team. But by the time he got there, the man had scarpered. “And to be honest he looked really old.” So Luke went downstairs. Was he scared? “I’m quite a big bloke – I know that sounds a bit knobbish,” he laughs. “I looked at it, and I saw a man was trying to get into our porch,” he tells me. It's fairly well designed, too, with all the menu options being arranged logically.Photo manipulation: Peter Crowther. Although this is designed to be a simple IP camera and is very easy to access via a mobile device, its web interface still has all the advanced options you're likely to want or need in a security system. Viewing the video stream and accessing the settings screens requires a username and password. This gives you extra options that aren't available in other browsers, such as volume controls, the ability to communicate via a speaker connected to the camera, resolution switching and instant recording and snapshot buttons. The setup wizard runs you through optionally configuring a fixed IP address before opening the camera's web interface in Internet Explorer, which prompts you to install an ActiveX plug-in. If you’re using Windows, you use the aforementioned Camera Live monitoring application and a Camera Setup wizard. However, once we switched from using a mobile device attached to the same wireless network as the camera to using our HSDPA mobile internet connection, the stream was unusable, even though we were able to make an initial connection to the camera. ![]() Video quality was surprisingly good, with particularly accurate colour. With that done, we could view the camera immediately from our mobile device. The ID is a long string of characters, but you don't have to type it in by hand the app gives you the option of scanning the QR code on the sticker instead. ![]() The applications prompt you to enter the camera's user ID and password, both of which are printed on a sticker attached to the back of it. The UCam uses the same video stream for your PC and mobile apps
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