Reddit reviews D-Link Wi-Fi Camera with Remote Viewing (DCS-930L)

looks like a standard nannycam to me. You can get wifi webcams like these for exactly this purpose. I bought one like this during my previous lease because I suspected the old landlord was entering without notifying me. He was and he got a nice fine from the state for his troubles.

I would suggest a couple of these. They can be set up to send still images by email when they detect motion. They're certainly not the best CCTV system available, but the bad guys don't know that, and they can be very effective if employed properly.

The motion detection works best in windowless rooms. Outdoors or in sunlit rooms, you'll get false positives.

hey - what kind of camera is this? link?

http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DCS-930L-mydlink-Enabled-Wireless-N-Network/dp/B00452V66G/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408134605&sr=1-1&keywords=IP+camera

that?

I have this one:

Dlink 930l

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00452V66G/

And it's awesome. I can check on my plants when I'm away, it will ftp or email and has motion detection.

Not too expensive. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00452V66G took these pictures but can't see in the dark. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003LNZ1L6 is lower quality but has IR. Each is adequate -- no complaints here. Neither one got stolen upon delivery.

Setup took me an hour or two for each, counting the time to make a dedicated email account to receive the pictures, set that up on my phone to go off when the camera detects motion, mount the camera in the window overlooking the porch, set up a free FTP server to hold more pictures, etc. Configuring access through your router for offsite viewing of the live video is typical for such a thing -- it either takes some knowledge of home networking or a lot of frustration and use of the supplied software.

No wires to run except 110v, though, so they really are convenient to move around as needed.

No problem!

All I did was buy this IP cam: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00452V66G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's pretty cheap and connects to your wireless network. It comes with very easy to use instructions

Easiest setup will probably be a Dropcam

They're a little bit pricier than regular cameras, and you're paying for the convenience of simple setup.

Otherwise, most IP cameras come with software that will record the footage to your computer, like this Foscam or this D-Link

With the wireless ones, you can just plug it into an outlet without having to worry about the network cable stuff, which helps with flexibility of placement.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00452V66G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I just bought that camera last night and I'm really excited to see how it works. It was affordable and hopefully lasts long enough for my dog to get comfortable with us leaving.

Definitely get a couple of IP cameras instead of using webcams. With webcams you need the computers on all the time, running, without going to sleep. IP cameras connect to your WiFi and sit there streaming away 24/7.

There's plenty on Amazon/eBay/etc, starting at ~$30 or so. Eg: http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DCS-930L-mydlink-Enabled-Wireless-N-Network/dp/B00452V66G/ (no idea if that specific one is good, it just came up from a quick search)

use the ethernet port on the back

To a phone, via a wired connection? Never heard of a way to get a wired connection on a smartphone. Maybe you could have a wireless router at the remote end?

I'm afraid I don't have an integrated solution, but I can tell you what I've looked into over the past few months for my own purposes:
My current robotic endeavors use the D-link 930L, 15fps, 640x480, which are below your specs
http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DCS-930L-mydlink-Enabled-Wireless-N-Network/dp/B00452V66G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325043113&sr=8-1

I mention D-link because they do have some mid-level cameras, I know they can get all the way up to 30fps with 640x480, so it's possible they may have some more advanced cameras.

I've been mostly looking at small USB cameras (and by extension cell phone cameras), and of that I think the most pertinent for you if you're looking to design an interface board might be
http://www.techtoys.com.hk/Components/OV9650_MOD/OV9650%20CMOS%20Camera%20Module.htm
They have the schematics for both the camera module and a board that interfaces with it listed on their site
http://www.techtoys.com.hk/Displays/SSD1928EvalRev2B/SSD1928%20Eval%20Rev2B.htm

The by-and-large major camera supplier I've seen seems to be OmniVision, so looking at the specs on their cameras may be a good place to start. They have some chips that interface with their cameras and output on USB protocols (and others I didn't look into, they may have had ethernet, but I suspect there'd probably need to be something else in-between)
http://www.ovt.com/products/ip_detail.php?id=7
but they require purchases in bulk

All-in-all designing a webcam from the board up has proven to be rather daunting in my research. The cameras set their registers with I2C (in some cases using some form of tri-state I2C) and then output data on 8 parallel data lines.

Do the ethernet lines run from the computer out to every single camera? If you have all the ethernet lines individually routed to your computer and then next to your computer have a router merging the signals, you might be able to nix the router and treat all the ethernet cables as really long USB cables - so you could solder a few pins from a USB header onto the ethernet cables at both ends and then attach the USB header at one end to a webcam and the other end to your PC (and repeat for each ethernet cable).

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor

Well the webcam I used was this one.

It really didn't take the greatest pictures. But it did let me keep an eye on him without being in the room.

The rest of the pictures were taken by my cell phone. Galaxy S6.

Sure! We got a very basic one (under $30) that just has sound detection. If there's a noise above a certain level you get a notification. And you can just check in and listen/look anytime to see how they're doing. The video quality isn't awesome but it does the job!

https://www.amazon.com/D-Link-Wi-Fi-Camera-Detection-DCS-930L/dp/B00452V66G/ref=sr_1_2?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1466435902&sr=1-2&keywords=pet+camera

this has those features.