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Turn your webcam into a free surveillance system

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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Webcams can be fun. They enable you to have video chats with family and friends – no matter how far you are from each other – and also create hilarious image effects with the appropriate software. But they can also be used for more serious purposes, such as monitoring your business or your own home when you’re away. Thanks to tools like Vitamin D, you can set up your own private surveillance system in a couple of minutes and without having to invest a small fortune on it. A webcam equipped computer is enough!

Turn your webcam into a free yet effective surveillance system

Vitamin D is an easy-to-use webcam utility with motion detection technology. You can use it to monitor any given area in your office or your home, and the camera will record a short video clip every time it detects any kind of movement. We were honestly surprised by the camera’s efficiency – it detected virtually any movement we made in front of it – though not that much by its accuracy in distinguishing people from objects.

Turn your webcam into a free yet effective surveillance system

You can schedule Vitamin D to record video only on certain days and at certain times – ideally when you’re not around. The program also includes a complete system of rules to tweak its behavior: record objects or people, capture only those who enter the scene or cross a given boundary, send a warning email or play a  sound, etc. When the monitoring period is over, all you have to do is go over the recorded video clips in the program, and find out who’s been messing with your stuff. You can also export those clips to MP4 – which I guess will come in handy in case you need to take them to the nearest police station

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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