From: Arts and Lifestyle | Technology |
Sunday, May 26, 2002

Keeper or Peeper?
A new home-surveillance system
leaves a lot to the imagination

By MICHELLE MEGNA

If there's no such thing as bad publicity, X10 Wireless Technology Inc., the company that makes tiny surveillance cameras, should be doing well. With a blitzkrieg of Web ads last year, the company became synonymous with poor taste. The ads featured tag lines such as: "Expect to see the unexpected!" accompanied by alternating shots of a kitchen and a sexy young woman lying on a bed with a come-hither look. Another ad read, "Think of Everything You Could See with an Xcam2" and showed a living room, a child reaching for a cookie jar… and a topless woman, shot from the back. In other words, the cameras were pitched for security purposes, with a wink toward the voyeur.

But it wasn't just the kitsch that caught the eye of the public and pundits. X-10 was one of the first companies to use popup ads, which launch a separate smaller window behind (or in front of) your main page when you visit a site. Unlike banner ads that are part of a Web page, viewers must actually close the popup ad window to be rid of it. Analysts say that one in three Web surfers had seen an X10 ad between January and May of last year. To say that Web surfers were annoyed by the X10 spots would be kind. The press pursued a rash of negative stories about X10: The ads are not effective because people hate them. Privacy is being threatened by cheap surveillance technology. Is the enigmatic company making any money? All the attention, no doubt, helped Seattle-based X10 become a known brand, if not a politically correct one.

So imagine my delight when Jeff Denenholz, director of public relations for X10, came calling with a new camera called the Ninja PanTilt Pro, which lets you remotely control the Xcam2 color camera from any Web browser. After all the hype, I thought it would be interesting to see if the product worked. (When I brought up the ads, Denenholz said he wasn't part of the campaign and quickly moved on to the finer points of the Ninja.)

The technology is not necessarily groundbreaking, but the affordable price makes home surveillance appealing to the do-it-yourself types who want to watch the summer house, the nanny or the home office without paying a security firm thousands of dollars to wire the place. Does it work? Well, yes and no.

The PanTilt Pro kit includes an Xcam2, power supplies, wireless transmitter, PC receiver, USB video capture adapter and software download for $260. The camera transmits video to your PC, TV or VCR. Images can also be viewed remotely from any Web browser.

First, you plug the camera into an outlet. Next, you plug the wireless video receiver into an outlet, and with another cord, connect it to the USB port of your computer. Additionally, there is a USB wireless transceiver that also plugs into your computer.

The kit includes add-on software called FireCracker, designed to let you remotely control appliances such as radios, lamps and coffeepots. It isn't necessary for the camera to operate, which is a good thing because the version bundled with the PanTilt Pro I received didn't work. (To be fair, it is available separately at the Web site www.X10.com) After the FireCracker software crashed my computer, the tech guys at X10 told me that there is a defect with the installer, but not to worry about it. Fine, I skipped the fireworks.

But the camera, set up at work to scan my desk area, still didn't work. After rooting around in my Hardware Devices directory for a while, I was told to try switching the receiver on and off again. On the second try, inexplicably, it finally began transmitting the view of my desk area in a 4-by-3.5-inch window on my computer monitor. With a click of the arrow button located on the side of the window, I could move the camera around. The base can pan left to right 180 degrees and tilt up and down 70 degrees, so when you combine that with the camera's 60-degree range, you do get a wide spectrum.

The real test, however, was to check out the view from home. To control the PanTilt Pro from a distance, you log on to the Web site x10.control.com and type in your password and registration number. However, doing so crashed my home computer. Later, I found out that the camera and all its peripherals and software could not be set up behind a firewall. So, Denenholz, who lives in the Seattle area, volunteered to let me see the scene displayed by the camera he has set up in his backyard. I punched in the Web address from my home computer and was able to see his back porch, yard and pool. Nice view.

However, the graphics, even viewed on a flat-screen computer monitor, are a bit grainy. There are zoom, screen size and resolution settings, but a smaller picture with medium resolution seemed to work best.

In the end, the PanTilt Pro will serve you well if you don't expect too much. For instance, if you want to see if a tree has fallen on your garage at your summer home during a storm, or keep watch over a small business, you will get your money's worth. If you are looking for a security camera that will follow a toddler and her nanny around the house, or monitor an entire estate, you will need a more sophisticated setup. I imagine it would be easy for a burglar to break in through an entrance that is off-screen, though the software for the PanTilt Pro does allow you to link several cameras together to create a more complete surveillance area. On the other hand, if you just want to watch your lovely neighbor lying on the couch, it's the perfect device.