DM51 said:
How do those cams actually link into the WiFi? I thought things had to be within WiFi range of the router to work. Is your neighbour's house quite close, or does the cam ship with some kind of repeater unit that receives its signal and is wired into your system?
You are correct that Wi-Fi devices need to be within range of a Wi-Fi router to work properly (that is, to be accessed). However, my neighbor's IP cam isn't close enough to my router to be accessible by me. As a Wi-Fi device, it COULD be "seen" by my wireless network and I COULD view through it directly IF it were close enough AND if it was open (unsecured/unlocked, not password-protected, etc.) for viewing. But it's not. In fact, his cam is WIRED directly to his own router: it's not even a Wi-Fi device. And it doesn't come with some kind of repeater that somehow transmits or receives a signal. Nothing of my neighbor's is connected to my system nor vice-versa, wireless or otherwise. Neither of us have access to each other's secured Wi-Fi network, even though one can "see" the other's network.
An IP cam is its own video server that is generally accessible using Internet Protocol (hence, "IP cam"), in that it can be pointed to and accessed via a URL or direct IP address from a web browser (or app). This is how people, like my neighbor, who are weather freaks with cams, can share with the world what weather is like in their neck of the woods on a web site (like Weatherbug, etc.). Ever see a web page with a cam in it? That view of a tree full of parrots in some guy's back yard in Florida is set up the same way as my neighbor's: a direct feed (still image refreshed every so often or active video) accessed by a URL link pointing to the camera view that is embedded into the web site you're visiting. That's all. You can right-click that cam image, select "properties" and get the URL address. Then you can copy and paste that address into a cam-viewing app on your iPad, which will then allow you to see the image from the cam without having to go back to that website to view it (perfectly legal provided the image is meant to be publicly accessed and you access it only for your own personal enjoyment and not for profit or re-broadcast to other people). That is, of course, if there is no secure linking or password protection in place for that camera access.
Michael "Spam, spam, bacon, eggs and spam. Hold the bacon and eggs." Sent from my iPad using iPF
