Monitoring a room using video capturing equipment is fairly easy. There is a wide variety of equipment on the market to accomplish this. Listed below are some of the different types of equipment used to covertly capture video.
- Wifi Live view Cameras
- I.P. Cameras
- Hard Wired Cameras
- Self-Contained Hidden Camera Systems
In my opinion the self contained camera systems and and the WiFi camera systems are by far the best and easiest to use. Our Wifi spy cameras are also capable of recording audio and can be viewed remotely from almost anywhere in the world. For the purpose of this chapter I am going to focus on these hidden cameras.
When choosing a hidden camera there are some things that need to be considered.
What Should it Look Like?
Ask yourself where you are gong to put the hidden camera and which hidden camera will fit in best. What room will it be placed? Hidden cameras are now built into many different household items including clock cameras, blue ray player hidden camera, AC adapter spy camera, fan hidden camera, and on and on. You can check out a large selection of hidden cameras here.
Battery Powered or Outlet Powered?
Most of the time it is better to use an AC outlet powered camera so that you do not need to worry about the batteries running low. In some cases, however, this is not possible.
When a hidden camera is built into something that is normally AC powered it will not require batteries. A DVD player hidden camera for example.
Some hidden cameras would not look natural if they had a power cord. Some examples of battery powered hidden cameras are the hook cameras, plant cameras smoke alarm / detector hidden cameras.
When choosing the battery powered option be sure to check the battery life. Make sure that it fits your needs.
Viewing and Video Storage
Most of the higher quality hidden cameras will record video to a standard SD card, but some will record to built in memory. It is my opinion that recording to an SD card is a much easier option for several reasons.
- You can easily increase the recording capacity by using a larger capacity SD card.
- To view the video you can easily remove the SD card and view it on your computer. With built in memory hidden cameras you would need to remove the hidden camera and connect it to a computer to view the video.
Night Vision & Low Light Hidden Cameras
There are also low light and night vision hidden cameras.
A hidden camera that says that it is low light still needs some light to capture a picture. You can tell how sensitive the camera is by the lux. rating. The lower the number in the lux. rating the better the camera can see in low light conditions.
A night vision equipped hidden camera can see in complete darkness. This is achieved by using infrared illumination. With invisible IR the light emitted cannot be seen by the human eye but a black and white camera can see it. Most hidden cameras with night vision use a color camera when there are good lighting conditions and switches automatically to black and white when when in darkness.
As you can see there are many things to consider when choosing a hidden camera. Modern technology has come a long way in the last decade making it easier and less expensive to obtain high quality hidden cameras.
