Even if you have no desire to use the Ninja Pan ‘n Tilt Wireless Camera Kit to spy on hotties by the pool — something the company's online ads frequently show — there are plenty of other ways to use this product.

The $260 package from X10 Wireless Technology includes an XCam2 wireless video camera with a mounting bracket and robotic base, PanTilt Pro software, two AC adapters, a remote control, a video receiver, a video-to-Universal Serial Bus (USB) adapter and a PC transceiver.

With all these goodies, you have several options for sneak peeks: You can set the video camera up on the porch, hook the wireless receiver to the TV and clean the family room while occasionally glancing at the television screen to check on your kids playing in the yard. Need a closer look? Use the included remote control to turn the camera to the left, right or up and down. You even can program it to sweep across designated areas.

Not near the TV? That's OK. You can connect a USB Video Capture Adapter and wireless transceiver to a PC and keep an eye on what the camera sees while online. You also can view these images remotely from other computers connected to the Internet.

This so-called kit has one drawback. The package itself seems a bit disorganized. Instead of having one overall manual that connects all the dots, this one comes with several instruction sheets for the kit's various parts. Plus, the kit doesn't include a CD with the necessary software. To get it, you must go online and download it. And while downloading the software isn't difficult, for a $260 kit, a disc doesn't seem like too much to ask for.

In spite of such quibbles, setting up the camera, software and receivers proved no tougher than hooking up a game console to a TV or a camera to PC. The one difference is that you need to aim the squarish antennas on the camera and receiver so they more or less face each other. Depending on the light and the strength of the wireless signals, the images either will be fairly sharp or almost impossible to see, with the TV images generally showing up better than the streaming images on the computer. Even so, unless you're trying to check out someone who looks like a model, you don't need a perfect picture to see a child fall off a scooter or a guest walking toward the door.