X10 XCam VideoSender Kit

By James L. Kim
September 24, 1999

Need an inexpensive, wireless camera to monitor a room up to a hundred feet away? X10 offers a solution with its new XCam, a tiny video camera that plugs directly into an included wireless transmitter.

The XCam captures video, which is then transmitted through the 2.4-GHz Video sender unit to the Video Receiver base station unit. The base station hooks up to any television or monitor so parents can watch their sleeping infant from afar. Of course, as most will be hesitant to admit, there are more inventive uses for the camera.

The camera itself is a wonder. It's tiny, weighing a scant 1.2 ounces and measuring about 1 by 2 inches, not including the wired power adapter. It attaches directly to the VideoSender device via Video In and its power adapter bypasses the VideoSender's power source. The XCam's lens, which has a resolution of 310 TV lines (array size NTSC 510 x 492), has an adjustable focus, and images are impressively crisp. Without the VideoSender/Receiver unit, though, the XCam is useless.

More Than Just a Camera

X10 "throws in" the VideoSender kit as part of the XCam package-- a $350 value-- all for just $150. The bottom line here, though, is that the XCam Video Sender Kit is indeed multifunctional.

Unplug the camera, plug in a DVD player (or cable box, VCR, DSS), and you've got yourself a home wireless solution. With the DVD player and sender on one side of the room and the receiver and monitor on the other (about fifty feet in distance), I watched a DVD movie, audio included, wirelessly. The Sender and Receiver units are nearly identical. Made of black plastic and resembling a gadget that Darth Vader would use, both units have video in/out, left and right audio jacks, an infrared extender jack, and rotatable 3-inch by 3-inch antennas. Testing the units about a hundred feet apart (with a wall in between them) I encountered only occasional static. Like any wireless device, adjusting the angle of the antenna and avoiding walking through its transmission made for clearer results. This certainly isn't new technology, but for a $150 system that includes a camera, this will be a fine solution for many.

One important caveat-- the camera and the VideoSender kit aren't rated for outdoor use.

There are other "do-it-yourself" security systems, like Security Data Networks' MicroSentinel, that transmit video wirelessly to your PC, but those cost as much as $700.