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Are You Being Watched?

Dan S. Robbins, Executive Editor
ZDNet Equip
Thursday, April 27, 2000

After having the chance to play with surveillance cameras that can fit in the palm of your hand and others that can be encased in an average LCD alarm clock, I'm a little nervous about how easy and inexpensive it is to record actions in total anonymity. After I saw the alarm clock/hidden camera device, I made sure to check the clock in my hotel room very carefully.

Because these devices transmit images wirelessly, you really have no way of knowing. It wouldn't take much for a psychotic landlord to install a camera and record your every move from a safe distance. Are you sure that red flashing light in your smoke detector is nothing more than a battery indicator?

I recently had the chance to play with X10's XCam2. With a price tag of $79 and the ability to transmit color video and sound to a TV or VCR up to 100 feet away, this is a cheap, easy all-in-one surveillance system. It comes with everything you need. It's really tiny and can be up and running in minutes, and you don't have to be an A/V specialist to do so. That's scary. 

Just as easy to set up, but considerably more expensive, is the alarm clock with hidden camera at a cost of about $750. While the picture quality is much better, it doesn't transmit audio. I'm told that the wireless transmission of audio and video together is illegal. Don't know how X10 gets away with it, if in fact that's true.

Remember the smoke detector question? Along with the alarm clock sent to Equip, came a smoke detector camera with an infrared illuminator for capturing activity in the dark and a motion detector camera.