Home monitoring using the internet.

I took a look and this would be very interesting and seems very cost effective. We shutoff our water, unplug the water heater and put the thermostat on "Hold" anytime we leave for more than a day.

The combined water alarm, temperature and humidity unit, installed in the laundry room, at $100 would be all we need.

I can't see anything about the cost of the annual service or the cost of the Internet Gateway, but I expect that it's reasonable.

This topic may not be about GPS, but the GPS takes us where the home security now becomes a concern to most of us.

I ordered from Amazon and received the two units (temp sensor and internet gateway) in 3 days. (good) From there things got a little bogged down in the registration and activation process. Lacrosse's website is not very intuitive. After about 90 minutes of trial and error I was able to get the complete system to work as advertised. I received my low temp alerts by email and text message. By logging on to their website I can also view my temp history and change alert settings. I paid about $75 for this which includes 1 year of alerts and 5 years of access to my data on their website. Additional years of alerts are available for $12 each. No need to purchase more alerts till needed. Some cheap peace of mind while traveling this winter I think.

Michael

I use a Foscam. I have it email me any movement (free).
No service cost. And I login to the page I set up to moniter live and move the camera in all directions (free).
This is only a cheap $79 webcam but I can monitor live and have emails sent for free....
It does not move with motion but I set it up to see the front door and the entertainment area and then I can log in and move it live if I want to.
Last trip I could see from the hall that I left the bathroom light on .
When we are away I move it live to see if the ceiling fan is moving when it is cold, if the heater is on it moves the fan. I can see if the kids come in when they come by to check on the outside dog.

It is not the best in the world but it works for me, and cost nothing after you buy it.

I use 2 Panasonic & 1 Foscam WiFi camera's to monitor my home. The Panasonics were about $230 each at Amazon, the Foscam around $65. They all view out through windows and the Foscam is the only one with a screen on the window. View my web cams if you're interested HERE. Name=user Password=password. The Foscam is the one labeled North. I can view these over the internet from anywhere. I also use X-10 & Smarthome modules to activate 18 different things around my home from lights to the garage doors, again over the internet. I also can activate all the X-10 stuff using my Pebble Watch. Cool stuff. I would have turned off my bathroom light. ;)

What model are the Panasonic? I can see neighbors walking down the street. What is X-10 & smarthome? Is this how you turn off the lights. That would have been nice to have. Is the internet connection free like the Foscam?

EDIT: I just looked at the Pebble. It is so neat. Now I want one. My husband isn't going to like this post

I'm on a Mac so THIS is the software I use.

You can get X-10 and Insteon modules HERE

THIS is the controller I use. This is needed to be able to connect through the internet.

I use X-10 Commander on my iPhone.

I use Security Spy software for my Camera's.

And use iCam on my iPhone so i can access the camera's on the iPhone.

I didn't do all of this at one time as it has taken me several years to do so.

Here's the links to Amazon for info on the Panasonic camera's.

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BL-C131A-Network-Camera-Wire...

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BL-C230A-Wireless-Internet-S...

By the way. All of the services are free once you purchase the hardware and in some cases the software you must purchase also.

What app are you using to do it with the Pebble?

HTTP Request Screen on Smartwatch+

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smartwatch+-for-pebble/id711...

That is great information. It would take years to do all you are going, but it looks like that is just what is needed these days.
Thanks again for the information.

I only wish I had seen this BEFORE ordering a system from ADT.

My neighbor has posted a handwritten sign near her front door that reads:

"Please smile for my indoor and outdoor webcams!"

I have been using the X-10 stuff for quite a few years and have found it to be very handy. I have two different programs that I load into the controller, one for when we are home and another when we are on vacation. My last car had three programmable buttons and I had one of them setup so when I pulled in the driveway I could turn my porch light on and a lamp in the living room. My equipment is old enough that from what I understand if my controller dies on me I will have to upgrade to a newer system. I think my old modules will still be useable but I understand they have some newer improved two way modules that work much better.

Let's see... I started using X-10 modules for home automation with an Apple ][ (not an Apple ][ Plus, or an Apple //e, but an Apple ][) and a prototype home automation program written by a friend. We called the program "Lou" after its author.

Still using X-10 modules, but they are way past the life-support stage. Luckily I'm adept a repairing modules, particularly in replacing the fine-gauge wire they use as an internal fuse in some modules.

I've done Internet links over the years, but I'm really reluctant to make things accessible over the wider network. I can harden my networks as best I can, but...

Please be careful about what you put on your network.

Assume that anything available on your network is available and controllable by anyone on the Net. Is this a fatalistic assumption? Or merely a conservative one? I think I have a pretty good understanding of the firewalls (hardware and software) connecting my home network to the outside world. I'm also amazed at the attacks those firewalls stop (and log) on a daily basis.

I've had good luck with the modules themselves, but have had one transceiver module, one wall switch, and one main command module die. Fortunately the command module was still under warranty.

--This is real good info for us all!!!

Thanks for the info!

Not a bad system, but I know for at least my temperature in the house I t-stat will notify me.

I started using X10 about 30 years ago. Over the years I have had more X10 modules fail than I can count. Even had a Commodore 64 X10 interface, later built a PC adapter for it.

But over the last 10 years I found that I just couldn't use X10 anymore. Every time I added another surge protector in the house, the signals became more unreliable. Even worse when I added Uninterrupted Power Supplies. Note that this isn't an issue of having the transmitter or the receiving module actually on the surge protector, it is enough to have it in the same room or on the same run from the breaker box. The few remaining working modules that I have are pretty much useless, can't receive a signal unless the transmitter is in the same room with them, and sometimes not even then.

For what it may be worth:

My garage is used solely as a shop, it is attached with through-access into the house, and is never used to park a vehicle in. It has a garage door opener which came with a remote. I know that many people enjoy remotely opening the door from their car while approaching from the street, so that they may drive right in. I'm not sure why anyone would want to open their garage by internet, while traveling away, but there are probably many people who have set it all up to do such.

Now for my point:

I only open my overhead door to move projects into, or out of my garage. I have learned that some burglars have found ways to drive through neighborhoods while broadcasting multi-channel garage door opener frequencies and codes, which may sometimes open random doors for them as they drive by. They just watch for any door to open as they go. My solution has been to power my garage door through a wall-switch, which is only turned on while I open it, then turned off again, just as soon as I've closed it.

I also know that there are people who can (and just might) hack into any internet-accessed system (and yes, some of them manage to get through well hardened systems too) if it will open doors for them literally, so that they may intrude.

My closing point is that they can NEVER remotely hack into a system that is not online. I probably would automate the lights and heat in my house, one day, but never any of my doors.

I hate to be opened up (network), port forwarding is lame, don't people know free apps scan for open ports?.....did you see those pedophiles hacking into baby cams and talking to the babies, much to parents' disgust and shock?

It would be interesting to see what goes on at home during the day, but I'd never put anything online that I don't want the neighbors or NSA to have access to. If you really want to watch my cat sleep, be my guest.

Using magnetic normally open security switches like those used for home alarms, I have my garage door so I can only close it from the internet. When the door is closed the switch is open. The garage door still works with the remote that came with the opener however that uses rolling codes.

Your explanation of how someone can drive through a neighborhood trying to open garage doors is probably about 30 years old. This is virtually impossible with any modern garage door opener that uses rolling codes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garage_door_opener

I have a RF wireless switch for a living room floor lamp. Once in a while, my neighbor's wireless garage door keypad activates my lamp. It took me a while to catch on that he was the reason the lamp would be on sometimes.

Rolling codes are, for practical purposes, extremely secure. If you research the RF switch that you are using you will find that it does not use rolling codes, or the lamp is changing state for some other reason (such as recovery from a power fail, X10 was very susceptible to this).

Someone with enough technical information could work around rolling codes by capturing a transmission and working out the next codes to be used. But doors are not opened by randomly broadcasting signals or by recording what was already sent and sending it again.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of old garage door openers out there, and, while you might add a newer radio receiver with rolling codes in parallel with one of the push buttons, it is harder to disable the old receiver without disabling the entire door (although it certainly could be done in most cases).

NOPE NOPE NOPE

Do you need to pay for a static IP address in order to use one of the Foscam cameras?

I read that setting it up through a router can be quite challenging.

Rob

No, you just have to be able to find the current IP. So how do you do that? The same way that the rest of the world does it, DNS look-up. Wouldn't it be nice if someone was willing to give you a free DNS name on their DNs servers that you could have your system (or in many cases even your router) update whenever the non-static IP address changes? There are several people who do! I've been using the free service offered at dyndns.com for years. Great people. They, of course, offer many other paid services too and hope that providing this free service opens some doors for them. But the free service is still really free. A search should find others too.

That is not to say one way or the other if you SHOULD have a accessible camera, on any other server that having your own updatable domain name allows you to find. I'm just answering your question.

Setting it up through a router involves forwarding a port to the proper local IP address. It isn't usually that hard, but some old routers make it more of a problem if they keep moving around your local IP addresses. In that case you can usually bypass DHCP and set a static local IP address. And many home routers have a section or tab for letting the router do the notification to DYN.ORG for you when the IP address changes (if yours doesn't you can just run a small utility on a computer on your network). You might actually have to learn something about networking, but it is not hard if you are willing to learn.

Here is another link for the same people, this one even has a section about monitoring cameras remotely:
getmyip.com

You get one free name on your choice of several domains. Choose wisely.

Recently, they started this new....thing where you have to log into the account once a month to keep it active. Aside from that, they dropped the number of free hosts to one. In the past it had been five, then two... So unless you can remember to log into your account once a month (I couldn't and ended up just moving my domains over and paying them), find another solution.

I just set up a web page with numbers, followed the directions. Not sure of the technical name. I had a lot of trouble setting it up. I thought I had it set up at home and then went somewhere and it didn't work. I had it set up on a local number, my son told me to use another number, can't remember where he had me look to get the number. I just type that web address number in and then log into my Foscam page and see my house. All free.... No Fees.

The activity every month rule isn't recent, it has been in place for over a decade. If your IP address changes in that time then just updating it is all it takes. However, my router's automatic updates were not doing a monthly update if the IP never changed (which I consider a flaw in the router). So I run a tiny utility on one of my computers that takes care of the update for me. Even if you don't make the check-in, they send you an email stating to check in the next five days or the account will go away. Clicking on a link in the email is enough. I realize there are cases where you could be down long enough that if this hit during them you would need to create another free account, but it has worked well for me.

Yes, the limit has been dropped from 5 to 1. That is a shame, I liked having each of my computers check in and update their own name. That way if any of them ever wondered off I would have been able to find the new location they wondered off to. But they do need to make some money to stay in business and the limit of one is still a very useful service.

They also reduced the domain names that that you could select from, there used to be a lot more cute names that you could use for free. Buy I always used their own dyndns.org name anyway; I figured the least that I could do for getting such a great free service was to help spread around their name.

When I started using this years ago there were a few other free services doing it as well. So if you find the terms of use of the free service too restrictive then you might want to see if anyone else still makes a free service available. But the points that you mentioned are not reasons why any new user should be discouraged.

What is the difference in how I use mine and this dyndns.org? Is there a reason I would need to go to something like this instead of using my numbers for a web page?

The quite challenging is correct, but you have to remember I am 68 and don't know what I am doing. So anyone with a little computer knowledge can do it if I did (even though I had to ask my son what was wrong).

I'm not telling you to not use your method if it suits you. But the difference is that with the free Dyndsn approach you get an actual URL that points to your IP address and it can be used in all of the ways that a URL can be used. You might choose to have your URL become mgarledge.dyndns.org. Then you could run a web server on your home system and anyone that you wanted would be able to access it with the mgarledge.dyndns.org URL. If the camera that you use is on port 8089 then it's address becomes mgarledge.dyndns.org:8090. This is a permanent address, you never need to look it up on another website again, it can just be added to bookmarks. I use it for several purposes. One of these is that I run an audio server for a gaming group that I am a member of so that we can talk among ourselves. The members of the group just had to put in my URL once. Then normal DNS lookup links them to my server every time we get together, they don't need to look anything up (their system does the lookup automatically, just as it looked up where www.poifactory.com was when you came to this site).

URLs (that stands for Universal Resource Locator) make the hard to remember and potentially changing IP (Internet Protocol) addresses easy to find by looking up the name and returning the number (known as Domain Name Service or DNS).

It works for everything that dynamic IP addresses cause problems for, not just Foscam cameras.

Not sure if it was noticed, but in an earlier posting I entered information about my 4 Camera's and if you looked you could see by the URL that I am using dyndns. I have 5 Host Names but I can add 28 more if I choose.

If you look at the camera's, the top 2 are Panasonics the bottom 2 are Foscams.

1-Panasonic BL-C230A
2-Panasonic BL-C131A
3-Foscam FI8910W
4-Foscam FI8918W

You made me understand so well. Thanks.
I guess my address never changes as I have been using the same numbers far a couple of years. This is good to know if they ever start changing the number.
Thanks again.

It is good to know how these thinks work. Can help you pull off some neat tricks and can really come in handy when things go wrong. Yea, it sounds like you have what is called a static IP address. I'm guessing that you are not with AT&T unless you pay extra for it. Many cable companies don't bother to change IP addresses just to bug the customers, and an IP address can be used in place of a URL, but in general it is better to associate a name through Domain Name Service and then remember something more human friendly. I hope I made it clear, but you can always search Google for more information or just ask.

Spot on.

I have internet with a small company. We are in an area that does not offer any cable or stuff like that. Our Internet is "Radio" I think they said. It is unlimited usage with the speed 10m. It is very good but sometimes it gets slow in the evenings but it is better than the last one that we had that limited us to 5g usage.

I have the address saved and just click on the bookmark, but if I ever needed it away from my computer or tablet I would be in trouble because I have enough trouble remembering my cell number

A good CES-related writeup (still looking for the URL) talking about the increasing number of internet-connected whatevers: TVs, refrigerators, washers, dryers, light bulbs, and who knows what.

The author's thesis was that the software in the vast majority of these appliances will never be updated, and the companies don't know or don't care about the security aspects of the products they're selling. They'll be replaced by newer models (with different bugs) in a year or two, and the old ones? The old ones with all the bugs?

You think it's bad in the smartphone market, putting up with bug-ridden (and insecure) software, with the manufacturer and the carrier pointing fingers at each other as to why upgrades aren't available?

Smartphones are expected to have a life of two or three years, and be replaced. Refrigerators? I don't think people are going to be interested in replacing their fridge after two or three years because of bugs and vulnerabilities in the software!

The suggested defenses are to avoid early "internet connected" products, letting others enjoy the bleeding edge, to avoid/not rely on those fancy connectivity features, and if you do use them, use them behind a well-configured firewall. (And everyone knows how to configure IPTables to restrict access of their new internet-connected whatever, right?)

This is also known as "the Internet of things" and the number of connected devices will be in the billions, yes that's BILLIONS with a B.

In a round about way you have addressed one of the biggest concerns in cyber security. It's not as much about the hacks into computer systems and programs as it is protecting the embedded control system software in devices. Protecting control systems is very different from protecting computers as control systems are very specialized and among the chief goals is to pack as much functionality as possible into the smallest space possible. It doesn't leave a lot of room for cyber protection. Until it can be shown a manufacturer caused loss due to a failure to protect the control system operating their device, I feel there will be little effort expended. What's a control system and how does that affect me you ask? Think about your computer's BIOS. That's a control system. Now Android or IOS is an operating system but it communicates with the embedded control systems that make your phone, tablet or computer actually display data or accept input.

Found the write-up; it's worth a read.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/01/smart-tvs-smart-fridg...

Just an update on my experience using this temp monitor. About one week into my trip,twice I received emails telling me the unit had not sent data for two hours. After a couple of of anxious hours the unit resumed transmission on its own. Now after two more weeks of uneventful use I am happy. All the temp data was in range for the complete period.

Lowes now has a system you can control by various means, smartphone, computer and tablet.

http://www.lowes.com/ContentDisplayView?articleTitle=Iris&lw...

It is a shame that we have to live in fear for our lives and property. What is going on in our Country?

1. It's so easy to physically cut either the phone line or the internet connection (ASL or cable) from a house. A more secure way is to have something that uses a cellular connection.
2. Nothing will help if it takes the cops 45 minutes to arrive (like it happened to a friend of mine).

So appearances of protection will do more for you than the actual system you use.

Wow! This thread has been very educational!

Just today I was in Radio Shack looking for a remote monitoring system, then tonight happened on this thread. I didn't buy anything because the dummies in the store knew less about it than I did. All I really want is to be able to see what's going on when I'm away.

I've lived with home automation for decades, rolling my own, living and learning. Occasionally, learning the hard way.

As a result, I like to have well understood and benign failure modes. I also want to be able to disable aspects of automated systems and still get by. Part of that is thinking things through, examining failure modes before they happen, asking what can (will) go wrong).

As an example, lights based on a motion sensor are good in my office, but I don't want them in the bathroom -- I want to be able to do my business at 3AM without the lights coming on and waking me up even more, thank you... My wonderful wife hates motion detector lights in just about every place in the house except the closet in our bedroom; she likes that one!

A recent example of home automation gone sideways -- NEST pushed out an update to their thermostats over the holidays: (1) without telling people, (2) without asking permission to install the update, (3) without a backup plan in case the update went sideways on them. Oh, and (4) over a weekend!

For many users, this update did indeed go sideways, disabling their thermostats. House tends to get cold when that happens... The eventual workaround, when you figure out that your thermostat isn't doing its job, is to pull it off the wall, find the requisite cable, and connect it to a charger for an hour or two.

Of course that's better than systems which never get updated and have back doors built into them...

Yet another set of trade-offs on system complexity... Remember when cars were simple? Carburetors, stuff like that? Now they have more computers than the Apollo moon lander... And are just about as easy to diagnose and repair!

I've lived with home automation for decades, rolling my own, living and learning. Occasionally, learning the hard way.

As a result, I like to have well understood and benign failure modes. I also want to be able to disable aspects of automated systems and still get by. Part of that is thinking things through, examining failure modes before they happen, asking what can (will) go wrong).

As an example, lights based on a motion sensor are good in my office, but I don't want them in the bathroom -- I want to be able to do my business at 3AM without the lights coming on and waking me up even more, thank you... My wonderful wife hates motion detector lights in just about every place in the house except the closet in our bedroom; she likes that one!

A recent example of home automation gone sideways -- NEST pushed out an update to their thermostats over the holidays: (1) without telling people, (2) without asking permission to install the update, (3) without a backup plan in case the update went sideways on them. Oh, and (4) over a weekend!

For many users, this update did indeed go sideways, disabling their thermostats. House tends to get cold when that happens... The eventual workaround, when you figure out that your thermostat isn't doing its job, is to pull it off the wall, find the requisite cable, and connect it to a charger for an hour or two.

Of course that's better than systems which never get updated and have back doors built into them...

Yet another set of trade-offs on system complexity... Remember when cars were simple? Carburetors, stuff like that? Now they have more computers than the Apollo moon lander... And are just about as easy to diagnose and repair!

What are you going to do when your fancy systems roll over and bark? How will you know? How will you recover?